Saddam Hussein Arrested

MoonChild was the first of hundreds to submit that MSNBC, ABCNews and others are reporting that Saddam Hussein was arrested. This isn't normal Slashdot subject matter, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Comments

bin laden..

[alexc]

they still need to get Osama Bin Laden. he is the S.O.B. that attacked new york city.

Re:bin laden..

[_PimpDaddy7_]

I agree. GREAT news that we got Saddam, but my blood is burning for Osama...

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

There is still a lot that needs to be done.
But, that shouldn't take away from the tremendous victory of the Iraqis and the Americans here.
Some people are perpetually negative. This is a great moment for these people. Relish in it. Stop looking for something to whine about ... please!

Congratulations Iraq! Congratulations US coalition!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

my blood is burning for Osama...

Me too!! He is like, sooooooo hot!!!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop looking for something to whine about ... please!

Well sorry to wake you up from your erotic Bush world dreams, but capturing Saddam IS pretty irrelevant and you're still fighting an illegal war.

Re:bin laden..

[Rick.C]

What!?

But I thought Saddam and Osama were like.. you know.. an item.

If they found Saddam, where was Osama? Out at the 7-11 buying condoms?

Re:bin laden..

[cloricus]

Note that the Kurds gave the American's the tip of and by "we" I hope you don't just mean America but every one who has fought and died to make this happen?

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

Ok AC. Thanks for the tip. I suppose you'd go AC if you told that to the Iraqi people where millions were slaughtered by that thug.
Have you seen them celebrating in the streets? Irrelevant? Go back to AC dreamland.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

More like working at the 7/11 ::rim shot::

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

millions??? you mean those who died because of the sanctions, set under US pressure, right?

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

Like I said ... AC dreamland.

Yeah, it's our fault. The sanctions hurt Saddam and made him kill people and build dozens of palaces.

You got me AC dreamer. You got me.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

It's not irrelevent to the people of Iraq. Try to explain to a widow of a Saddam victim that the war is illegal.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

i think he refered to those who died because the regime liked to spend it's money on weapons and palaces

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

and when will george w. bush be arrested?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how a few thousand people celebrating it makes it relevant? Can you please explain?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, try to explain to some mother who lost her (non-combatant) husband and her children in the war that it was legal.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, the sanctions didn't hurt Saddam at all, because he was still living in a giant palace while having sugar blowed up his ass. That's the fucking point.

Don't tell me that you care about Iraqis when you let them die in the millions.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

It's called empathy. Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine your mom got raped in front of you, and then they cut off her breast and through it on the ground.
Imagine your brother looked longingly at one of Saddam's son's mistresses without knowing and was fed to the lions.
Imagine ... oh never mind ...
It's called empathy. That's what makes it relevant.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying this is what happened, but there is a great chance that the US government "allowed" the attacks on New York City to happen.

All planes are tracked at every point in their flight. I can't believe that after the first plane flew into the WTC, that they weren't watching the radar for any other plane to leave it's destined path.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Try explaining to an AMERICAN widow that the invasion of Iraq somehow made us in America SAFER despite the widow's husband is dead due to some random Islamic idiot's roadbomb. Oh, BUT WE'RE SAFER! FOX NEWS SAYS SO!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine someone who tells you that he's going to help you fires a missile at your helpless children. What is that called again?

Oh yeah, "collateral damage".

Re:bin laden..

[koi88]

Try to explain to a mother child killed in an American attack that the war was illegal...
Oh, never mind, I'm sure someone has already told her, as Islamic fundamentalists have much better contact to the population than foreign soldiers.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

How many Iraqis have you saved? How many have you even helped? Put up or shut up. Have to shut up? That's what I thought!

Re:bin laden..

[NickFitz]

You are a fool and a bigot. The vast majority of Moslems have no truck with terrorism. In all my years reading Slashdot, I have never seen the sobriquet "Anonymous Coward" more aptly applied.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

GW will go down in history along with Reagan as someone who stopped a tyranny. Unlike Carter and Clinton who fostered a situation where tyranny could fester until someone with cajones "lanced the boil".

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

How many could have been saved if it wasn't for the United States of Anal Sex? Considering how many you've killed, you better shut up yourself.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

My AC friend. There has been NO war in the history of the world that has had less "collateral damage" than this.
The Iraqis are grateful. If you can't see this then you are truly blind.

Benjamin Franklin:

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Re:bin laden..

[torpor]

yeah, right. you know that for sure, right? you've seen the completed investigation that states, unequivocably, that there is evidence that Osama Bin Laden did this?

Re:bin laden..

[sjwt]

Thats right, cause you know, GWB Sr.
had nothing at all to do with Saddam
staying in power.. nup nothign at all.

Re:bin laden..

[Frodo420024]

they still need to get Osama Bin Laden. he is the S.O.B. that attacked new york city.

Sure, but at least they got somebody now :) Getting the main man is then a lesser consideration. They might even find Saddam guilty for the New York bombings :)

(Hint: I'm European and still believe they should have kept up the war against terror instead of toppling random Evil Dictators.)

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

a quotation from Saddam's Profile by BBC World: "The United States had quietly supported his war against Iran. They turned a blind eye to Iraq's human rights record and to atrocities like the gassing of the Kurdish villagers of Halabja" - looks like you woke up a bit late to save them. and please, don't be such an idiot and try to understand: US-forced UN sanctions during the last decade caused terrific damages to the Iraqi infrastructure, hospitals etc. - those millions I'm talking about!

Re:bin laden..

[njvic]

Osama and Saddam.. pah! Everyone knows that Hussein's bedpal is none other than Satan!

(Think Southpark)

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they're not. But since you only watch the Fox channel, my logged-in friend, you can't know. But oh well, maybe it's true and they only attack US troops because they're so grateful.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Yeah, I don't like the Patriot Act either... so?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Looks like the little wannabe right-wing dork has some problems with his facts, eh?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

There has been NO war in the history of the world that has had less "collateral damage" than this.

Zanzibar 1896?

Sorry, but I think your comment was completely unresearched in this respect.

Re:bin laden..

[nacturation]

Quoting entirety of parent article:

I agree. GREAT news that we got Saddam, but my blood is burning for Osama...

Someone please explain how this is, currently, modded +4 Insightful. Is it the "I agree" part? Does mere agreeance ("me too!") count as insight? Likely not. How about expressing the opinion that it's great Osama was caught? Hardly an insight there -- maybe "+1 Patriotic" or some such. Perhaps the part which is insightful is the fact that the poster's blood is burning for Osama. After all, unless the poster told us, we'd never know they had burning blood, would we?

All sarcasm aside, there's nothing at all insightful about the post in the slightest. Meta-mods, start your engines!

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

Osama Bin Laden. he is the S.O.B. that attacked new york city.

Did they ever proove that?

I just remember that they had "secret proof" (wepons of mass destruction anyone?) at some point, and he was the alleged mastermind for a time, and then they dropped the alleged.
They never showed any proof did they?

Guilty until proven innnocent is it?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

How about expressing the opinion that it's great Osama was caught?

Of course, I mean "Saddam" here, not Osama. Fingers, meet brain... brain, meet fingers.

Re:bin laden..

[Martin Blank]

Osama bin Laden was not part of the CIA-backed Afghan mujahideen. He was part of the Arab component that was brought in to assist the Afghans, but he has hated the United States for a long time. He has never accepted backing from the US, and there have been several reports by journalists of the time that they had to remain hidden and not speak while in areas of Afghanistan under bin Laden's nominal control during the Soviet invasion.

He had no need for money or training from the US. He could get that with his own money.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Additionally, I'm pretty sure this "war" has set a new world record in friendly fire incidents. The U-Ass army continues to amaze with the low quality of it's soldiers.

Re:bin laden..

[Ch_Omega]

Yes nuking everyone to ashes is certainly the right way to create lasting peace, and make the world love us. If there's no one left, there's no one who can hate you.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I really hope that Mr. George "I`m arrogant" Bush Jr. be arrested someday too.

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

Try to explain to a widow of a Saddam victim that the war is illegal.

Lets get her in a room with a widow of a Bush victim, get Gerry Springer in there, you got a show.

The war was illegal, the war was about weapons of mass destruction and after months of not finding any, they changed their story for "Booh Saddam! Bad bad Saddam!".

I see it worked great on some people...big powerpoint user are you?

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

Slight (major) problem with the "illegal war" thing. At the end of Gulf War I, there was no peace treaty, only a cease fire (something of which we had a dozen or so of in Afghanistan alone during that war). It went along the lines of "disarm all WMDS and prove to our satisfaction the destruction of said WMDs and cease all hostilities and we won't finish the job." Since Saddam violated the cease fire on many counts and on many occasions, the only way the continuation of hostilities by the US could be considered an illegal war would be if the first Gulf War was itself illegal. Since that was done by the authority of the UN, that's highly unlikely, unless you doubt the authority of the UN, in which case there's no one to call any war illegal. But of course, this conflicts with your erotic anti-Bush world dreams, so I'm sure you won't let facts get in your way.

Re:bin laden..

[MrMr]

Don't worry, more than 70% of the US population is convinced they're the same person anyway...

Re:bin laden..

[inode_buddha]

I celebrated by smoking a very fine Turkish tobacco...

Re:bin laden..

[admbws]

It's simple groupthink. It usually happens the other way, which is why I always read at -1. I hate to think how many perfectly reasonable posts have been moderated under the "-1, Unpopular" carpet in this very story.

(Moderate away, I have karma to burn).

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Rush Limbaugh, try justifying this to the parent of a soldier killed in an illegal oil war. since when do you care about iraqis more than americans? yeesh....

Re:bin laden..

[Fractal Dice]

um ... how many widows have the Americans made in Iraq?

Why do the Americans, of all people, not understand that concept that a foriegn power interfering in a county's internal affairs might make some people upset?

( I want to be happy that this might be another step towards peace in Iraq, but honestly I fear it will just be another step in increasing the US far-right's confidence that they can impose their will by force of arms across the world )

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Illegal? Nope. Read the U.N. resolutions leading up to the wars. You'll see that we were perfectly within our rights to wage the two wars.

My guess is that you haven't read the resolutions and have no idea what you're talking about. You're just spouting what you've heard your left-wing heroes have said.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. George Bush needs to call up O.J. Simpson, load up the white Bronco, and get back to finding the "real killers".

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they ever proove that?

Didn't have to prooooove it. He confessed.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

35 in 1991.
Less than 12 this war.
Source: CNN.com
Sorry, but I think your comment was completely unresearched in this respect.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, right. And there are people who claim that there's still a Third Reich everyone is at war with because there was no peace treaty with the Third Reich.

Some obscure legal backdoor doesn't make the war legal. Use some common sense here.

Re:bin laden..

[thelaw]

two things.

1) the proof is in the putting - al qaeda was cranking out incriminating audio propaganda non-stop. in fact, in one tape, bin laden claimed that attacks on the world trade center were actually self-defense, and therefore supported by islamic law.

2) the presence in guantanamo bay of lots of known al qaeda operatives who have detailed their planning procedures for the september 11 attacks is a pretty good clue.

3) bin laden had already established a pattern of conduct with the USS cole and khobar towers bombings that made him particularly interesting to international terrorism experts. keep in mind that the burden of proof in a legal context is "beyond reasonable doubt." if you have any contrary evidence that can cast doubt on these allegations (and i mean more than just contradicting them - "no he didn't...."), then let's bring it on.

jon

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt there is any good reason to hate over a billion people.

Re:bin laden..

[TwinkieStix]

How did Israel get in there? And what does his training have to do with anything? When he was trained, we had no idea how horrible terrorism could be. All the US knew was:
Communism==bad
Democracy==good
(bin Laden == Communist) == false
Single man with money and some bombs < Communist Russia, with more money and nukes

Everyone in the US ass-umed that we could handle bin laden if he got out of control. Oops. It's not like the US is still supporting him.

On a side note, and completely unrelated to bin laden (Although all of our politicians would have us believe otherwise) we captured a major human rights violator who was not obeying a piece of paper that was preventing us from doing this in the 90s. He got screwed because the US suddenly became very anti-terrorist, which is contrary to the viewpoints of many people in that region. So we started cleaning that area with the one who deserved it most.

Finally, since Iraq seems to be a large old storage field, and the US executive branch has many x-oil men, we may never know how much of a role oil played in the whole ordeal. ANYTHING other than fact is conspiracy theories, no matter how possible they are.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, 12 is pretty bad if you consider that it was just a small blitzkrieg against a harmless little disarmed country, isn't it?

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

The war was illegal, the war was about weapons of mass destruction and after months of not finding any, they changed their story for "Booh Saddam! Bad bad Saddam!".

People like you said they hadn't found Sadam. It was a needle in a haystack. The truth is that at that time they just hand't found yet.

They also haven't found evidence of WMD yet. That doesn't mean they won't. And therefore you can't yet say that the war was illegal.

Re:bin laden..

[Txiasaeia]

"the proof is in the putting..."

Spoken like a true golf addict :) It's actually "The proof of the pudding is in the tasting."

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, most do.

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

He never said he hated muslims because they had anything to do with terrorism. There are plenty of better reasons to hate muslims. If ever there were a reason to allow modding lower than -1, this is it.

Re:bin laden..

[Trent05]

As soon as dubya has done something wrong.

The democrats arn't going to be sitting down in the street, blocking traffic again now that there hero has been arrested?

I wonder if Michael Moore and Sean Penn will be able to visit him in prison to cheer him up.

I'm sure those mass graves were there BEFORE Saddam came to power.

Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Ask every country in the UN that question, EVERYONE agreed he had them, the dispute was how to get them out of Saddam's hands.

Re:bin laden..

[dipipanone]

Was that in order to give the Kurds one more slap in the face after their doing the US another good turn then?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Finding a needle in a haystack is difficult. Finding something which doesn't exist is impossible.

Re:bin laden..

[christopherfinke]

Insightful??? How is this anything resembling insightful??

Re:bin laden..

[thelaw]

i was modifying the adage for rhetorical value. :) it is supposed to be "putting" as in "he was putting the tray on the counter when a bat bit him on the ear."

that particular cliche is fun, though, because it has so many ways to screw with it to get people to give you food:

- the proof of the tasting is pudding
- the pudding is tasty
- the proof is tasting pudding
- etc.

jon

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I celebrated by shooting a bag of Turkish heroin as a nice change from all the Afghani heroin we've been seeing since the fall of the Taliban.

Come to think of it, we haven't had so much good heroin here since the CIA ran it out of Laos in the days of the Vietnam war. War may be hell, but it does wonders for the quality of dope on the streets.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, you idiot. How long did it take to find Saddam? OK, now go find every fucking 55 gallon drum of something.

Oh, wait, biologicals can be stored in smaller containers than that. So it took us months to find Hussein with a bounty on his head. How long do you really think it will take to find containers in a country the size of a mid sized state in the US? They could be burried anyplace. Look, Iraq had months to figure out where to hide stuff before they were attacked.

Even Clinton said that Iraq hadn't accounted for everything when he left office.

I'm so tired of people talking about this like Saddam wasn't a bad guy. You seem to forget that he did have a history of gassing the Kurds. He was using these weapons. You forget that France and Russsia were the ones supplying him and big surprise they're the ones that didn't want to go to war. France supplied the planes that applied the gas and he still owed them billions for it. So who needs this history lesson?

See your beloved Saddam now. http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html

These were the people of his own country. Look at the dead children and their moms.

Do you know any real Iraqis? People who really come from there. I do. I used to work with someone who defected from there a few years before the first war whose sole job was verifying for Saddam that people he wanted executed were executed. He told me this back in 1987 before I even had a clue who Saddam was.

Re:bin laden..

[deja206]

Kurds are not Turks. Period.

Re:bin laden..

[RickHunter]

How about the widow of a Bush victim? Do they matter any less?

Lets face it: this doesn't change the fact that the US FUBAR'd the Iraq situation. Badly. This isn't going to make the guerrillas lay down their arms. If anything, its just going to get them more support. They've now got a martyr.

Bush Senior's far smarter than his son. He wrote at length about why he decided not to take down Saddam. He chose not to kill or capture him, because he knew what would happen. Apparently, Bush Junior ignored his father's advice. And guess who gets to pay the price? That's right, the thousands of Iraqis that have died (and this isn't even counting the wounded!) since April.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

It never cease to amaze how people doesn't care to know minimal facts before supporting every stupid wars. Let me give you some facts that you can check easily.

Facts:

Saddam Hussein was a cruel ruler that killed thousands of Kurds with gas.

Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi, like most of the 7-11 attack terrorists.

Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were know enemies, at least before this year.

Iraq had nothing to do with 7-11 attack. Even Paul Wolfowitz (deputy secretary of defense) can't say otherwise.

It's not know that Iraq had supported any terrorist attack in the world.

No massive destruction weapon was found yet in Iraq.

AFTER USA invaded Iraq Bin Laden supposedly made some speechs urging iraquies to fight against coalition forces.

Terrorism in Iraq started from null to today situation since President Bush anounced end of fights.

"Old Europe" countries foretold this situation will happen. USA reacted renaming french fries.

Of course Old Europe also had important economical interests an Iraq, like USA.

There a lot of other interesting facts that you could find if you ever care.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

Really? What are you counting? try this

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - At least 3,240 civilians died across Iraq during a month of war, including 1,896 in Baghdad, according to a five-week Associated Press investigation.

The count is still fragmentary, and the complete toll - if it is ever tallied - is sure to be significantly higher.

Several surveys have looked at civilian casualties within Baghdad, but the AP tally is the first attempt to gauge the scale of such deaths from one end of the country to the other, from Mosul in the north to Basra in the south.

Re:bin laden..

[unborn]

This is very interesting. Where is this documented?

Re:bin laden..

[Ilgaz]

tip is given, is it true? on is just creating reason to make Kurdistan?

Sad, real sad.

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

Except for the problem that there WAS a peace treaty signed with Germany (which is what we decalred war on, not the Third Reich). Damn those facts! This isn't some obscure legal backdoor, it was a legal document that, by its very nature, authorizes the continuation of war if its provisions are not lived up to. There is no expiration date on these things. You, sir, need the healthy dose of common sense, or at least a high school history course.

Re:bin laden..

[NSupremo]

Wrong. The people who attacked NYC are dead.

That's the way a suicide bomber functions.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

Let supose you are in USA and the police enters your house, arrest you and keeps you months in prison while they search for a weapon you had. Is that legal? how much time could they keep you if they don't find evidence?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, great. Now we get back to finding Osama Bin Laden the one who actually launched an attack on the US rather than someone who barely had the resources to attack its neighbours. Bloody political smoke screens.

Re:bin laden..

[jrnchimera]

Oh give it a rest! Saddam was the one that killed his own people. All that oil money and the 12 multimillion dollar mansions and the oppulent life style that he and his followers lived in and yet his people nearly starved *BEFRE* the sanctions!

God damned ignorant assholes.

Re:bin laden..

[bryanthompson]

omg, this is insightful? This is liberal naysaying if I ever heard any. we should be HAPPY Saddam's captured, and all you can say is, 'well, we didn't get who we wanted'. You sniveling liberals will never be happy, and can't bear to see our success.

This is the message from http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com/.

I don't know what to say.. I am confused.. no ... I am very happy.. I am very happy.. .. I am very happy.. .. I am very happy.. .. I am very happy.. .. I am very happy.. .. I am very happy..

This is the end of tyranny.. congratulations .. a great day.. for Iraqi and all the good people.. share us our great day.. I can't express my feelings.. thanks to the coalition forces and all the honest people who helped in that great operation....thank you thank you thousand times..

Re:bin laden..

[DAldredge]

Were you this upset about what Saddam did to his people or are you just bitching because you don't like GWB?

So you know where I stand, I don't care for GWB either. He is spending money like a drunken sailor and he doesn't care about securing the USA from terror attacks. If he cared, you would not be able to carry man portable surface to air missles undected across our border.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

You are confusing friendly fire with collateral damage. I believe the question was in regards to friendly fire.
But, I do appreciate your last-ditch attempt to support Saddam in this trying time for him.

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

Quite. But we don't know which of those possibilities WMD is yet.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that military action to remove Saddam Hussein from power was expressly authorized by the United States Congress in October, 2002. So not only was the war legal in the fuzzy and internally inconsistent framework of "international law," if there were such a thing; it was also legal in the rock-solid and codified framework of U.S. law.

The folks who cry "the war was illegal" really mean "we live under the delusion that the world is a democracy, and therefore nothing we oppose could possibly be okay."

Re:bin laden..

[ahillen]

Except for the problem that there WAS a peace treaty signed with Germany.

Really? I thought not. Have you more information about this, e.g. when and where it was signed? I'm really curious...

Re:bin laden..

[crawling_chaos]

This actually could go either way at this point. Saddam could be a martyr, but considering that many of these people were fighting to maintain their priviledges under Saddam's rule, it could also weaken the resistance considerably. We don't know what will happen at this time, and I would guess that an awful lot of it will have to do with how Saddam is handled from here on out.

For example, Saddam is very concerned with preserving his own skin. What if he were to admit to everything Bush has accused him of in return for a nice safe cell in the US instead of firing squad in Iraq? Maybe he and Noriega can start playing Pinochle? I have no illusions that Saddam wouldn't sell his buddies down the river. This is a man who actually ordered his oldest son assasinated at one point and only relented after he'd been seriously injured in the attempt.

Re:bin laden..

[TGK]

What are you talking about?

The War is illegal, not because the US invaded a soverign state on the justification that there was the possibility of a chance of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.

The War is illegal because it was never declared. In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991. Since then we've bombed a soverign state for shits and giggles, but haven't really declared war. War has fairly cristiline properties in international law.

Further, your argument on WMD is excessively vapid. Just because we haven't found the WMD doesn't mean they don't exist. Therefore the war is not based on unfounded accusations and improperly motivated?

Great! So when Bush invades Madagasgar or possibly The Vatican City looking for Nuclear Weapons we'll say "well he hasn't found them yet, but they must be there?" At some point you have to break from the political claptrap the administration feeds you and start thinking for yourself.

When you've been in possession of a country for months at a time and you've had thousands of people to search it with the co-operation of most of the people in that country, how hard should it be to find anything? We're not gonna find WMD in Iraq. And if they turn up after all this time I'd be more inclined to go into tin-foil hat mode and accuse the Bush administration of planting the evidence then I would belive that we were so incompitant as to be unable to locate them up to now.

That, and by all reports and estimates of Saddam's state of mind he'd have used those weapons if he'd had them when we marched on Baghdad.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iraqis had one of the highest standards of living before the sanctions. Get your facts straight asshole.

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

Let supose you are in USA and the police enters your house, arrest you and keeps you months in prison while they search for a weapon you had. Is that legal? how much time could they keep you if they don't find evidence?

It would be surprising indeed if the time limits were the same in these two dissimilar scenarios.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Osama bin Laden was not part of the CIA-backed Afghan mujahideen. He was part of the Arab component that was brought in to assist the Afghans, but he has hated the United States for a long time. He has never accepted backing from the US ...

As far as I know, that's not entirely accurate. While I can believe that Osama bin Laden was never on "good terms" with the U.S., they did use Pakistan as a middle man for traficking arms, funds, and other resources during or around the time of Soviet occupation.

He had no need for money or training from the US. He could get that with his own money.

He definitely could.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

1) but did he say he did them?
2) maybe but those detained could had been torture to confess anything for all we know of Guantanamo conditions.
3) "interesting" doesn't sounds "beyond reasonable doubt"

I'm just pointing that you need a stronger case.

Re:bin laden..

[William Baric]

A tremendous victory? Why? Do you think Iraqi resistance will stop because of this?

But what I don't understand is why so many people know so little about Iraq. If there is a democracy in Iraq the ones who will be elected will be shiites leader... And the first thing they will do is transform Iraq into an islamic state like Iran.

The really funny part is that Saddam was fighting those shiites leader. For our safety, it would have been better to keep Saddam or at least keep the old regime.

Oh yes, it's a tremendous victory... for Islam!

Re:bin laden..

[scumdamn]

There a lot of other interesting facts that you could find if you ever care.

One of those interesting facts is that the attacks occured on September 11th. There were no known attacks by terrorists at a 7-11 I know of.
Of course, there was the decimation of the Circle K...

Re:bin laden..

[Darby]

Less than 12 this war.
Source: CNN.com
Sorry, but I think your comment was completely unresearched in this respect.

You honestly believe that with all the bombs, missles, and gunfire over there that only 12 innocent civilians were killed?!?

Are you thinking of "friendly fire" rather than "collateral damage"?

Re:bin laden..

[Beef Cake Charlie]

Agreed, and perhaps they can share a cell when we do apprehend him.

Re:bin laden..

[bryanthompson]

i seriously wish i had mod points to give you. the first real insightful post, yours, was FIVE pages down on slashdot. It will be modded flamebait and troll in a few minutes, which i'm sorry for.

I'm ruining my excellent karma by pointing this out, but take a look at all the "insightful" posts modded 4+. they are ALL ANTI-BUSH, and anti-war. Why do you think that is.

i don't understand how people can watch the news about this and not be happy! it amazes me that people will just ignore what a great thing this is for their own political agendas.

you don't have to like bush to be happy about this

----- This is the message from http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com/.

I don't know what to say.. I am confused.. no ... I am very happy.. I am very happy.. .. I am very happy.. .. I am very happy.. .. I am very happy.. .. I am very happy.. .. I am very happy..

This is the end of tyranny.. congratulations .. a great day.. for Iraqi and all the good people.. share us our great day.. I can't express my feelings.. thanks to the coalition forces and all the honest people who helped in that great operation....thank you thank you thousand times..

How can you argue with that? they are THANKING us for helping them get freedom. If you liberals had your way, Saddam would still be killing these people, instead, we stayed strong and now he's been captured.

Re:bin laden..

[Ilgaz]

Yep they aren't, also they live with us happily for 1000 years, no CIA agent will change it.

Re:bin laden..

[Beef Cake Charlie]

You misspelt UN.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowhere? Hehehe

Re:bin laden..

[bryanthompson]

sorry to rain on your parade of lies, but when they do the body count, they're also counting deaths saddam's own people caused. They aren't all people killed by US bombs. They take any deaths that have any connnection to the war at all. The reason, why to make a higher body count, of course.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

Are you thinking of "friendly fire" rather than "collateral damage"?

Um. Yes. I believe that was the parent question.

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

Admiral Karl Doenitz, Hitler's successor, sent General Alfred Jodl to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces detachment in Rheims to seek terms to end the war. On May 7, at 2:41 AM, General Jodl signed for the unconditional surrender of German forces on all fronts, which would take effect on May 8, 11:01 pm.

Does that answer your question?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice propaganda site asswipe. That's like reading about the dangers of eating meat from PETA.com.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

Yeah, and Saddam Hussein never accepted help or support of the United States also. And Noriega neither. Not the others of course!

Re:bin laden..

[bombadillo]

Try to explain to a widow that lost her family due to U.S bombs in the name of "freedom". Especally since we are wrapping their villages in barbed wire.

If your neighbor is beating his wife. You are not allowed to go over and capture the husband and accidentaly kill one of their children. You can not just make up your own law. You call the proper authorities. In the case of Iraq. The U.N. is the proper authorities. I have supported the U.S./U.N. actions in the past, 1st Gulf war, Kosovo, and Somalia. I would have also supported this Gulf War if the U.N. was involved. However, the U.N. realised that Iraq did not have WMD and did not have a military capable of projecting force on it's neighbors. Iraq was contained. By ignoring the U.N. The U.S had broken several international laws and has set a precedent that other countries can just ignore international law. If we were really so worried about freedom for Iraq we would never have supported Saddam back in the 80's. I like freedom and will stand up for any one's rights. However, I can not lie to my self and justify that this war was done in the interests of the Iraqi Oil....I mean people.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! I knew it! You are one of those flabby brained "liberal" wankers who play Monday morning football criticizing those who actual have the guts to get up and put it all on the line.

Not only do you not actively oppose the US because you don't have the spine to draw attention to yourself by standing up to be counted, you don't even help those you claim are being oppressed. Typical "liberal" hypocrisy: spouting off about what's "wrong" with the world from the safety of your couch.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Our soldiers are spread thin, I mean with protecting the EU pansies and all.

Re:bin laden..

[Darby]

They also haven't found evidence of WMD yet. That doesn't mean they won't. And therefore you can't yet say that the war was illegal.

Actually you can say that it was illegal. The US administration said that there are WMDs, that we know where they are, and that they will be found in a few days.

These are lies, they were known to be lies when Bush and co. made these statements.
Even if they do end up finding such weapons, it won't change in the least the simple fact that the US president and administration lied to the US population in the interest of starting a war against a country which didn't do anything against us while ignoring the people who did attack us on 9/11.

So rather than waiting to see if a different set of weapons than the ones Bush made up turn up, the patriotic among us are calling out to have that lying traitor impeached.

Please try to do your duty as a citizen rather than defend a known, proven liar and traitor.

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

1) the proof is in the putting - al qaeda was cranking out incriminating audio propaganda non-stop. in fact, in one tape, bin laden claimed that attacks on the world trade center were actually self-defense, and therefore supported by islamic law.


He approves of them, there is no doupt about that. But approving of something and doing something is not the same.

I approve curing cancer and introducing the duck-billed platypuss into the north-american eco-system, but I'm not doing anything about either of these things.

So, it might be a clue, but its not proof...

Hey, maybe he did, I totally believed it the first time they said he attacked the towers (remember the car bombings in the underground parking lot in the 90's?), so it might be true...I'd just like proof, not just repeated claims.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you are the one with the erotic world dream of Bush.

Why don't you mention the legailty of pre-emptive war that Bush unilatirally imposed during his rule? The first time in hundreds of year that we need no reason to invade other countries and take them over? Does that fact bother you?

So during the 90's, between Iraq wars, we were actually at war with Iraq?! My mistake, I guess you think Vietnam wasn't really a war either.... your facts are not straight. Gulf War I started and ended (treaty and cease fire irrelevant technicalities aside) and Gulf War II started separately and for less reason.

Saddam and Iraq provided information that their WMD were non-existant and destroyed, they provided thousands of pages of documentation to prove it. All of the world experts who went to Iraq found nothing. Our subsequent invasion found no WMD.... yet you claim the facts are on your side.

So what was our reason for invading then, douche bag? Let's hear your "facts"... The best you can say is the Gulf War I never ended? This is the least valid argument I've yet to hear about this whole fiasco.

Go suck Bush's dick and let me know if it passifies your erotic dreams.

Re:bin laden..

[Bedouin X]

Very few people act like Saddam was a good guy, but just being a bad guy isn't reason enough to break protocol and invade the country. This is why the WMD question is such a big one.

When Saddam gassed the Kurds, it was during the Iran-Iraq war (because the Kurdish village that was attacked was allegedly helping the Iranians) during which Saddam had the backing of the U.S. The U.S. knew exactly what went down and didn't do dick. As a matter of fact, the Pentagon co-developed a report afterwards saying that Iran was more than likely the ones who did the gassing. Evidence now says that was a B.S. cover story to justify the continuing relationship between the U.S. and Saddam.

Anyhow, if the WMD program was as dangerous as billed, I'm sure that a significant number of people know where these weapons are. Surely many more than those who knew where Saddam was hiding. Which one turns up first? Don't you think the person that could point out these weapons would become extraordinarily rich? Somebody has to know. So far they have gotten crap lead after crap lead. Not even a TRACE of the stuff.

Anyhow, they have Saddam now so we'll see where it goes. Personally I hope that they find them (WMD) because this could set a precedent that undermines stability worldwide. Not that worldwide stability is attainable anyway... but I'm sure you know what I mean.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

Maybe but deads are still deads. Do you think their families will be happier for it?
Please clarify me where in my life I attempted to support Saddam so I can correct it.

Re:bin laden..

[readpunk]

Your absolutely right. I think this war is PERFECTLY LEGAL. The state makes the laws of this nation and consortium of states makes international laws for the planet, I am always surprised when an "illegal" war takes place considering the state, who is the perpetuater, of said war makes the laws which are supposed to govern that action. Just because the war is "legal" doesn't mean I have to respect Bush. I still want to see

• his

capture and arrest. You better believe I am glad Saddam is caught too, hopefully soon he will be dead along with all of those who dominate over other human beings. Oh... and your point is so clever that I think I should be clever too. That useless bag of soulless shit named Ronald Regean let Saddam suck the power cock dry, so please can we recognize that both the democrats and republicans are complete morons?

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

They also haven't found evidence of WMD yet. That doesn't mean they won't. And therefore you can't yet say that the war was illegal.

There is a difference, they knew Saddam was there to begin with, for a fact.

And another: An arsenal of weapons of mass destruction takes up much more than a "spider hole" to hide.

And another: They interrogated all the scientists and administrators (with lie detectors) that would have been involved in the WMD projects, nada.

And they haven't found El Dorado yet, so there might yet still be a city of gold in peru?

Saddam asked Osama and Bigfoot to hide his WMD in atlantis?

Re:bin laden..

[Darby]

Quite. But we don't know which of those possibilities WMD is yet.

We know which possibility the WMDs Bush was talking about are, because he said that they know exactly where they are. Those haven't been found yet, hence they do not exist. There is a theoretical possibility that there are some lying around, but zero reason to suspect it.

Hey, maybe I buried a pot of gold in your backyard. Why don't you go look.

You probably don't believe it. Why do you trust me, who has never lied to you, less than you do Bush who has been proven to have been lying about exactly what you are believing?
Other than Bush's statements (and forged evidence and demonstrable false statements ) there isn't any evidence or reason to believe MWDs exist.

Re:bin laden..

[Lobo93]

Illegal? Nope. Read the U.N. resolutions leading up to the wars. You'll see that we were perfectly within our rights to wage the two wars.

What a load of crap! We both know that those resolutions only served as an attempt to create an illusion for the unwashed masses, that the wars in question should be "legitimate". In that respect, let me paraphrase former British Colonialist Cecil Rhodes: "Men come together for the sole intention of conspiring against other Men". Those resolutions would be important within the circle of UN offices, but in reality? they're merely worthless pieces of paper. And no, I'm not proposing that the complete history of UN is a matter of trivial or piffling efforts, quite the contrary; but in the aforementioned Casus belli, the aim should be to seperate the truth? from the omnipresent propaganda-crap...

You're just spouting what you've heard your left-wing heroes have said.

How true! But I will try to comfort and inform you that next week I'll embark on an ego-trip that will include the total invocation of a right-wing, spouse-beating, 7th adventist redneck persona! And as the saying goes: "True communication is only possible between equals"; maybe we could have a nice and dandy conversation when I've finished the projection?

Re:bin laden..

[/dev/trash]

All wars since WW2 have been illegal. Get used to it.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

Freedom has ALWAYS come at a cost. I served in the military for 6 years with full knowledge of a possible outcome that would hurt my friends and family by me being gone. I DO care about Americans and I was willing to die to protect even you. What price have YOU paid?

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

I have seen several incidences on television where families had just lost a loved one, but were still grateful for the US led war effort. To them, it's worth it. Freedom is worth it. This is the concept you need to grasp to understand why these people are literally dancing in the streets as we speak (write).

By not supporting the effort to remove the evil killer, you are in effect supporting the effort to keep him in power.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

My point is that you should take much more legal care to invade a full country than to enter a house with a judge order.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

"The War is illegal because it was never declared. In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991. Since then we've bombed a soverign state for shits and giggles, but haven't really declared war. "

You forget that the 1991 war was never ended. There was never a peace treaty with Iraq, neither was there a surrender of either country. The fighting didn't even stop (remember the no-fly-zones?).

The war is as legal as the war in 1991, because it is the same war. It was a new battle, but the same war.

Re:bin laden..

[readpunk]

Your absolutely right. I think this war is PERFECTLY LEGAL. The state makes the laws of this nation and consortium of states makes international laws for the planet, I am always surprised when an "illegal" war takes place considering the state, who is the perpetuator, of said war makes the laws which are supposed to govern that action. Just because the war is "legal" doesn't mean I have to respect Bush. I still want to see his capture and arrest. You better believe I am glad Saddam is caught too, hopefully soon he will be dead along with all of those who dominate over other human beings. Oh... and your point is so clever that I think I should be clever too. That useless bag of soulless shit named Ronald Reagan let Saddam suck the power cock dry, so please can we recognize that both the democrats and republicans are complete morons?

Re:bin laden..

[haxor.dk]

Only a USA-hater can claim that there is such a thing as "illegal war". You see, a law requires enforcement. If there is no enforcement, there is no law. Where do you see any international enforcement, other than the limited one the USA have provided over the last 50 years?

Here we see yet another mass murdering dicctator bite the dust, and all you can do is cry about "illegal war". Waah waah. So much for the humanity of the anti-war crowd.

Re:bin laden..

[BTWR]

All wars since WW2 have been illegal.

Agreed. If the arabs hadn't invaded Israel in 1948 (the first of these illegal wars), there would have been NO Israeli-Arab wars. At least that's my opinion.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

Military personnel (I know, I was one) accept the fact they can be killed and actually VOLUNTEER to do so in this country. As far as being a martyr, you have to be DEAD to have that status.

Re:bin laden..

[Zeinfeld]

A tremendous victory? Why? Do you think Iraqi resistance will stop because of this?

Did the Russian Revolution end with the capture of the Tzar?

The administration sees everything through the lens of their own preconceptions. They thought that the invasion would be greated with flowers from grateful Iraqis. They thought that it would be a cake walk. They even held the victory parade and declared 'Mission Accomplished' with Saddam still on the loose.

There is no shortage of would be Saddam replacements. The pentagon choice Chalabai is a thug with criminal convictions for BCCI scale embezlement in Jordan. There are plenty of jumped up clerics looking to become the next Ayatolah.

In the Russian revolution Lenin allowed the middle of the road Menchevick faction to do the hard work of overthrowing the Tzar. Then with the Tzar out of the way he replaced the Menchvicks with a second revolution.

There are a bunch of would be Ayatolahs waiting for the US to do their dirty work for them. All they need to do now is persuade the US to go home. Unfortunately the event that is cited most often in the arabic chat rooms is Reagan's decision to cut and run from Lebanon after the Marine barracks bombing.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, It is thought that OBL, not sadaam, is behind most of the attacks in iraq.

Sadly, Al Qaeda is rebuilding in numbers like never before. W is actually helping OBL's cause, not hurting it.

Re:bin laden..

[BTWR]

he said that they know exactly where they are

he never made any such claim that weapons A, B and C were located in X, Y and Z.

There is a theoretical possibility that there are some lying around, but zero reason to suspect it

Zero reason? Low - I'll give you. But NO ONE disputes this guy has already used gas on his own people. No own ever saw all the weapons destroyed. Hense, "ZERO reason" is wrong.

Re:bin laden..

[Almost-Retired]

Now let the hemming and hawwing and wiggling begin...

Thats the wiggling to see if there can be any good reason not to pay the reward monies, now 26 million that I know of, 25 from our government, and another 1 mill from Bruce Willis just the other day.

You can bet the farm that with that much money involved, there will be reason after reason after reason not to pay it, not a cent, ever.

So make me wrong GWB, just do it! Write the check, or checks, dividing it appropriately, if you think there were more than one person deserving to be 'made whole' over this. But I'm not sure I'd trust GWB's definition of "deserving" either.

After all, as an american citizen, it is my money, and a mere drop in the bucket compared to the spending rate of Wash, DC.

One advertising agency so the story goes had this take on a Billion dollars:

A billion seconds ago it was 1959

A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive

A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the stone age.

A billion dollars ago was 8 hours and 20 minutes at the rate Washington spends money.

Apologies for not giving credits, I got it at least 3rd hand, and the src didn't actually name the agency. IMO it is deserving of a credit line, unlike mastercard, it is priceless. :-)

--
Cheers, Gene

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fool and a bigot. The vast majority of Moslems have no truck with terrorism.

You are blind. What you say is literally true. But too many Moslems look the other way.

Moslem families in America need to tell their fellow Moslems overseas that America means no harm to Islam, and that in America Moslems are free to practice their religion.

Moslems in America need to tell their overseas brethren to stop trying to build theocracies; that only under a separation of church and state can they be truly free to practice their religion.

Yes, individual moslems mostly don't practice terrorism themselves. But I bet down at the local mosque, you can find a few quiet folks, maybe the Imam himself, who know where to send their money if they want to support Moslem terrorists in the Middle East or elsewhere.

Re:bin laden..

[Martin Blank]

As opposed to the peaceful Democrats that got involved in World War II (FDR), Korea (Truman), Vietnam (Kennedy/Johnson), and Yugoslavia (Clinton)?

Re:bin laden..

[Joe Tie.]

The Iraqis are grateful. If you can't see this then you are truly blind.

And if you can't see how badly broad statements like that apply to the human condition, I'd apply the same to you as well. You could plant money tress all over the USA and there would still be people bitching about it. There's no country, anywhere, that can have 'the so-and-so feel' applied to the people in it. One could say that the majority of a nation lean politically in one direction. But saying, or implying that ever single person in a country has the same political leanings as the writer does just makes him look like he's glossing over facts to make a better case for his own beliefs.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, my country did contribute quite some aid to Iraq the whole time. While you were busy bleeding them dry.

Re:bin laden..

[goranb]

I know this has nothing to do with the topic, and I'm not disagreeing with you here, but I was wondering (as english isn't my native language)...
Isn't a coalition an alliance between several parties? In that case... Can you really say "US coalition"?

Re:bin laden..

[Tackhead]

> Try explaining to an AMERICAN widow that the invasion of Iraq somehow made us in America SAFER despite the widow's husband is dead due to some random Islamic idiot's roadbomb. Oh, BUT WE'RE SAFER! FOX NEWS SAYS SO!

"Ma'am, your husband died doing what he volunteered to do. He got killed 'over there' because every Islamic thug we kill 'over there' is one less Islamic thug who can eventually try his luck at killing civilians 'over here', but sometimes the Islamic thugs get lucky 'over there' too. War is hell."

And since I'm really a civilian posting from behind the safety of my keyboard in the States, I'll add one more thing: "Your husband, as someone willing to put more than Slashdot karma points on the line for what he believed in, grew a pair and served, which is more than I ever did."

To all who've served in the past, and who are serving today - at home or abroad - I'll say "w00t", which is the geek equivalent of the Marines' "Semper Fi" (sorry for not knowing the Army, Navy, and Air Force equivalents!), and celebrate another victory with a nice steaming cup of Shut The Fuck Up.

Oh, and Saddam? j00=pwn3d. we>j00. Of course you fail it. Your last spider hole of a base is belong to us. Your people, for several million, welcome their new US overlords. No Natalie Portman and hot grits. All we had left was 50-grit. Your next interview is with Goatse Guy, and I suggest you listen very carefully to his advice.

Re:bin laden..

[vt0asta]

Speaking of which, were are the gay sex videos of him and Saddam in tutus that the weekly tabloids keep telling me they have?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it make you feel strong using such words anonymously on a web forum?

Don't you realize that using those words anonymously will make you look like an immature loser yourself? The only ways such words have power is when said in the face to a person bigger and stronger than you. Go ahead and try it, and enjoy the fight that results.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The UN did not act because France Germany and Russia were supplying weapons to Iraq and were owed billions. They want their money and don't really give a shit about Iraq killing their own people.

The war was not illegal. They didn't fulfill their obligations from the articles of surrender in the previous war. No reporting for years, inspectors were kicked out, violations of the no fly zone, firing on US and British planes. They chose the path they were on. They could have chosen to comply. They didn't. They got spanked. It's fairly cut and dry.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

That's just a simplification of a very complex reality. I agree that almost all of Iraq love to having get rid of Saddam, but that doen't mean they accept anything that happens. They may not like foreign troops in their country else.
Just answer me one question: do you support Paquistan evil dictatorship?

Re:bin laden..

[WindBourne]

It is not about whining. It is about looking at where the real problem is rather than going after symptoms. Sadaam was never a threat to the US. OBL is a threat to all, but extremists.
There is enough evidence to support the view that most of the attacks in Iraq are not ex-sadaam loyalists, but are new Al Qaeda who will be happy to keep doing what they have been doing all along.
As to feeling good about capturing Sadaam, Yeah (assuming that it really is him; DNA tests take much longer than 2 hours). It is nice to know that we got him alive. Hopefully, we allow the local Iraqis to try him and give him some mid-eastern justice; an eye for an eye.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you please continue masturbating to the American flag? The day will come when someone "frees" you from the "evil dictator" which is currently ruling you. We'll see how you dance in the streets then.

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

The War is illegal, not because the US invaded a soverign state on the justification that there was the possibility of a chance of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.

Yet read all the comments on this thread that say that that *is* the reason it was illegal. I'm addressing those. There are as many theories as tin foil hats.

The War is illegal because it was never declared. In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991. Since then we've bombed a soverign state for shits and giggles, but haven't really declared war. War has fairly cristiline properties in international law.

So your theory is based on the lack of the words "The USA declare war on Iraq" not coming out of Bush's mouth. OK. I can't be bothered arguing with that one.

Great! So when Bush invades Madagasgar or possibly The Vatican City looking for Nuclear Weapons we'll say "well he hasn't found them yet, but they must be there?" At some point you have to break from the political claptrap the administration feeds you and start thinking for yourself.

"The Administration"? You mean *your* administration. Don't assume that those who disagree with you are a) American, b) Subject to the same press influences that you are, c) Unable to think. You are the one being narrow minded on that one. I'm just saying the case for illegality though lack of WMD discovery is not yet there.

When you've been in possession of a country for months at a time and you've had thousands of people to search it with the co-operation of most of the people in that country, how hard should it be to find anything? It's taken X time to find Saddam under those circumstances. Why do you assume it must take less than X time to find evidence of WMD? Both can be buried in the ground, at least Saddam's bunker had a vent and a door. Have you any idea how big the dessert is? It might take less time, it might take more.

We're not gonna find WMD in Iraq.

People were saying that about Saddam till today.

And if they turn up after all this time I'd be more inclined to go into tin-foil hat mode and accuse the Bush administration of planting the evidence then I would belive that we were so incompitant as to be unable to locate them up to now.

You already have your tin-foil hat on.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

As I've stated before, I'm a veteran and that's an illogical argument. Personnel in the military are expected to figt battles and people die in battle. Am I supposed to think that John Doe dying in battle is any less important than Joe Smith? You people had better spend a few months in the military and with their families before making blanket statements like 'AMERICAN widow'. The risks were known, accepted and called upon. That American widow you spoke of knows that as well and should feel proud that she had the honor of intimately knowing someone who was willing to take the challenge of performing this task. The pain is still there but life goes on. My friends and family HATED that I was in the service but it wasn't up to them and I gladly accepted the challenge. BTW...we ARE safer with Saddam out of the picture and no, I'm not Rush Limbaugh.

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

Good, at least someone here recognizes the difference between "illegal" and "wrong." I'm almost convinced the AC thinks the two terms are interchangable. And I absolutely agree that during the time of the Cold War the US did lots of bad things and we are now learning that the enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend and it's important that we stick around to help pick up the pieces after we've wrecked a country. History is going to judge whether the "Bush doctrine" was a success or failure. At least it's different for the US. But I'll stand with you in recognizing that both the Democrats and Republicans are complete morons.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

Of course not. But, you have to generalize to some extent when discussing things of a national matter. As you admit, you can't apply the feel to everyone in the country, no matter what. That is hopefully a given in a conversation such as this. Would I say that EVERY Iraqi is grateful? Of course not. But when I say "The Iraqis are grateful", I mean it in a broad sense. This is the type of language used when solving global issues such as this.

You can't please everybody all the time, nor should you try.

Re:bin laden..

[andy1307]

The US army trained Tim McVeigh too...should they have let him go too? Your point is what again?

Re:bin laden..

[RickHunter]

but considering that many of these people were fighting to maintain their priviledges under Saddam's rule, it could also weaken the resistance considerably. We don't know what will happen at this time, and I would guess that an awful lot of it will have to do with how Saddam is handled from here on out.

Oooh. A well-reasoned contrary comment on Slashdot. That's very rare!

Yes... I'm going to have to agree here. But I'd like to further emphasize that we just don't know. Intelligence operations against the guerrillas are yet another thing the US botched. Thanks to that, I don't think we can be sure that many were fighting to get their privilages back. Its entirely possible that many are fundamentalist Islamic crusaders jumping on the opportunity to "liberate" what was once "secular" nation. If anything, Saddam's capture's only going to encourage them. Especially any Iranians with long memories - after all, the "friendly" dictator installed by Reagan to keep them contained is now gone. This seems to fit with the recent attacks - suicide bombings, hit-and-run attacks, booby traps, ambushes in populated areas...

But you're right, this might lead to the collapse of any Ba'athist (spelling probably horribly butchered) resistance. Or a blatant power-grab on their part. Instability makes things hard to call. I think its even harder to call how the population as a whole will jump... They might be more in-favour of the US now. Or they might feel more confident in opposing the foreigners, as there's now no chance of Saddam coming back when the Americans go away.

What if he were to admit to everything Bush has accused him of in return for a nice safe cell in the US instead of firing squad in Iraq? Maybe he and Noriega can start playing Pinochle? I have no illusions that Saddam wouldn't sell his buddies down the river.

Good point... But as others have pointed out, the Bush administration cannot afford to give him a fair international trial. He's got far too much dirt on the members of the Bush administration that pushed for this war in the first place. Specifically, the ones that provided him with biological and chemical weapons and delivery systems, helped him come to power, prevented the UN from intervening when he was slaughtering Kurds, and so on. If he doesn't bargain or get a show trial or conveniently commit suicide, things could get very embarassing for Bush.

Of course, they could put him on trial without playing the WMD and mass killings cards. But then they wouldn't have much to go on...

Still, this might be a good sign. Maybe the occupation forces are actually starting to listen to the Iraqis and try to win their trust instead of scaring them into compliance...

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Slight (major) problem with the "the authority of the UN" thing. If UN authorization of the first Gulf War makes it legal, what does UN (and World) oposition to the second Gulf War make it? Illegal.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

wow, the mods were right...that was insightful. Please give me a definition of a 'legal' war....that way I'll know when to shut up and bow to the gods of ancient Mesopotamia. And please don't use the UN argument, the UN is a farce.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

My stupid copy & paste mistake. Apologies.

Re:bin laden..

[/dev/trash]

Yeah but if the Arabs hadn't had land stolen from them....

Re:bin laden..

[headqtrs]

Do you (or the US government) have any proof? Any documents that say this? Witnesses?

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

You just made my point. Obviously I wouldn't dance in the streets because he truly isn't an evil dictator. You knew that when you asked it. It would have been a good point if most people would have danced in the streets if Bush was removed from power, except for his supporters, but we all know that most people wouldn't. Saddam on the other hand caused a different reaction when he was removed. Actual dancing in the streets. Good point AC.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Your selfless actions mean nothing to me. There was a good chance you were promised money for college, a nice retirment package. A bi-weekly paycheck. Your decision was not to protect some dope like me, and trying to call your actions like that selfless, heroic is down right disgraceful. You were compenstated, and the taxes of millions of americans compensated you. so quit your whinning.

Re:bin laden..

[10Ghz]

"Ma'am, your husband died doing what he volunteered to do. He got killed 'over there' because every Islamic thug we kill 'over there' is one less Islamic thug who can eventually try his luck at killing civilians 'over here', but sometimes the Islamic thugs get lucky 'over there' too. War is hell."

Well, the fighting seems to be mostly carried out my the Feyadeen militia. They operated strictly inside Iraq before the war. So the people who are killing americans (and others) in Iraq seem to be people who did NOT kill any americans outside Iraq before the war.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

HOO HOO, HA HA, that was funny! Powerpoint user! LOL! Obviously someone who watches Jerry Springer should be making statements about legal warfare. Good show!

Re:bin laden..

[_iris]

"the tremendous victory of the ... Americans"

I see it more like a Hockey team, favored by 3, coming out with a win 1-0 in third overtime.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

That's why we are trying to turn power over to them in the most reasonable time frame allowable.
I don't support any truly evil dictatorship. What's your point?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

__ promises to metamorate every +insightful or +interesting comment mentions grammar or spell

you grammar is wrong. the relative clause is missing the subject.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite so, The US I am sorry had nothing to with the first gulf war. Hang on just a second befor eyou bah me. The first gulf war was a UN action using US troops. So when the UN decided not to go to war a second time that decision should have been honored.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You should learn some political history. Until the early 70s, the GOP was the "Peace & Prosperity" party that generally opposed foreign involvement, and the Democrats were the "War" / "Anti-Tyranny" party. The military vote used to be primarily democrat, now it's primarily republican.

You have a point about Clinton, but keep in mind he spent ~6 years of diplomatic jawjacking while people were dying before dropping a single bomb.

Re:bin laden..

[Transcendent]

Try explaining to an AMERICAN widow that the invasion of Iraq somehow made us in America SAFER despite the widow's husband is dead due to some random Islamic idiot's roadbomb.

When you sign up for the military you have no guarantee for life - that's just part of the job.

When you're a citizen of a nation, the government must do everything it can to protect your life and your well being... that's part of it's job.

When you have a government that gasses and kills its own people, then the government isn't doing its job and must be removed. The forces that remove that government know it's going to be hard, know people are going to die or get wounded, and know that every day they're over there their life is in danger...

If they have a problem with that then they shouldn't have signed up with the military in the first place.

Re:bin laden..

[BTWR]

troll.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

Thank you!

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

Wrong. The UN did not oppose, it just did not support. Individual nations either supported or opposed the war completely independant of any UN resolution.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

we couldnt find him. thats why we targeted Iraq. to try and get the public to forget that the pres. said we'd "Get him." when obviously we couldnt.

im all for the war and i am glad this finally happened. i think the whole Weapons of Mass Destruction thing was lie from the get go, but sadaam's ass should have been Persian Gulf conflict. they shouldnt have lied. the pres should have just come out and said "we have unfinished business. that man is a menace to his own people and theres a bounty on my dady's head." if he would have said that, his popularity level would still be record high.

anyways, congrats to the troops. i personally have a friend who is heading over there next month for a year, so maybe things will get finished up now and it'll be over sooner than later.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

It's a US led coalition of (according to Wikipedia) 45 nations.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

You are nothing but an asshole looking for an argument. I joined right out of high school and....oh what the fuck. Why am I explaining myself to you? You know exactly NOTHING about me or about my life. I'm actually glad that you call a veteran disgraceful...it shows what kind of moron you actually are. The only whinning going on here is you. You sound like the kind of person that would say 'Make love, not war' when it's obvious you have no experience with either. Loser.

Re:bin laden..

[WindBourne]

Yes, we trained him (in reagan's cabinet; same group that was responsible for giving us Sadaam and his WMDs).
Yes, we very responsible for these attacks.
So why do you want to nuke Iraq, Iran, Syria, Israel (a jewish state, not muslim)?
Why do you wish to attack inocents?
While you will almost certainly be moded to flamebait (rightly so), I do want to know why you would want to go after ppl that simply wish to live their own life and knows nothing about US let alone wants to attack it.
There are ppl in the US (and europe, china, japan, russia, etc.) that are extremists as well. Do you wish to nuke all of them? About they only place without extremists is Antartica (and I suspect that is not true).

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

All the soldiers from the USA that are in Iraq, [b]chose to be there[/b]. This is not Vietnam, there is no draft. Anyone fighting in that country [b]believes[/b] it's worth fighting for. I'm sure that widow will explain to you that their husband (or wife) died for what they believed was a just cause.

Re:bin laden..

[patches]

How about this scenario. For 11 years you are in every news paper and media outlet telling the entire world that you had wepons that you shouldn't have had. You have shown your weapons to the media, and on a few occasions you shot a few animals in your yard to demonstrate that you had those weapons. Now tell me just how the police aren't justified in comming into your house and searching for those weapons.

Re:bin laden..

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Yep, Bin Laden is another one that has to be arrested, but those guys (saddam, osama) are just little girls, compared to the Big one that has to be arrested yet: Bush.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Also in 1989 or 1990, the US, France, and the Soviet Union signed a treaty with West Germany formally ending the occupation and granting the FRG full sovereignty (and the legal ability to annex East Germany).

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/42706.htm

Re:bin laden..

[Mr Pippin]

I would also add that those military men and women in Irag from the U.S. are volunteers, NOT draftee's. That even more so reenforces the statement above.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously I wouldn't dance in the streets because he truly isn't an evil dictator.

But as long as the victors have videos of some people dancing in the streets, who gives a damn what you think? Isn't that the way it works?

Re:bin laden..

[sterno]

I'm ruining my excellent karma by pointing this out, but take a look at all the "insightful" posts modded 4+. they are ALL ANTI-BUSH, and anti-war. Why do you think that is.

Yes, they are anti-bush and anti-war because Bush has forwarded a very dangerous foreign policy and started a pre-emptive war against a foe who was, quite clearly, a minimal threat to us. As am I, if you didn't figure that out.

Having said that, I still hope that this all works out like Bush thinks it will. If in the end we have one less dictator in the middle east, and a friendlier middle east, then I'll admit that he made a good choice. Saddam getting arreseted seems like a big step in the right direction, but we'll know in the next few weeks what difference it makes.

Personally I just think it's damn dangerous to go in and topple countries and hope you can control where the pieces fall at the end of the day. If I had my way, the anti-saddam forces that had existed in Iraq would have been given the support they needed way back in the early 90's. Working through the UN, making it impossible for Saddam to get WMD through rigorous inspections, and backing anti-saddam factions. That's how this should have happened. Too late now, but we'll see how it goes.

Re:bin laden..

[gyratedotorg]

The War is illegal because it was never declared.

actually, the last time america formally declared war was at the start of wwii. i cant seem to find anything to back this up at the moment, but i know it's true.

Re:bin laden..

[ibmman85]

If thats the truth then the earth is a snowglobe... and why the would you want to nuke israel!? aside from me being jewish theres alot of tech indiustry there... pharmacueticals and and computer research stuff. and jews are cool! and i havent had a chance to go there yet

Re:bin laden..

[DNS-and-BIND]

WTF are you talking about...the reward of $15 million a head was paid for Saddam's two sons. The reward for the CIA killer was paid as well. The $25 million will be paid in this case...don't get your panties in a knot.

Re:bin laden..

[10Ghz]

They also haven't found evidence of WMD yet. That doesn't mean they won't. And therefore you can't yet say that the war was illegal.

then let the weapons-inspectors back in the country. For some reason USA doesn't want them in there, instead USA is looking for the weapons themselves. What's there to stop them from planting those weapons there?

Funny thing is that first Colin Powell said that "Iraq has destroyed their WMD's". A bit later he said "Iraq has WMD's and we know where they are". So, if they knew were they are, shouldn't they have found them by now?

And why hasn't USA invaded Israel yet? There are strong suspicions that Israel has nukes. Strangly, USA doesn't do a thing, quite the contrary. Contrast that to the situation with Iran for example. Double standards?

Re:bin laden..

[rsheridan6]

I'm a liberal. I dislike Bush and have opposed the war from the start. That said, I still think Saddam was a bastard and it's good news that he was captured, and will be brought to justice. A quick check of the blogosphere shows my lefty fellow-travellers in agreement.

Move on, no Saddam sympathizers to see here.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, that guy really got under your skin with 3 replies. How exactly is a Iraqi Kurd a "Turk"?

BTW, most Americans are romantic nationalists, and would gladly support a Kurdistan if it were not for other "Great Game" politics.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

I agree with you. Thank you.

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

Wait, please, refresh my memory, was that a UN emblem on our soldier's uniforms or was that the American flag? Remember, Congress granted George H. W. Bush the authority to declare war, which he later did. Therefor, the US was at war with Iraq IN ADDITION to the UN.

Re:bin laden..

[10Ghz]

But in this case the police (weapons-inspectors) did search the house, and they came up with nothing.

Re:bin laden..

[Artifakt]

Osama, Shiek Omar, the moneymen who funded Al-Quida, whoever was mailing Anthrax...

Still, this is a very good thing.

Re:bin laden..

[Jet5053]

Is that why in 1988 after the Kurdish gassing there were UN sancations placed on Iraq? Is this a little historical revisionism? And since 1984 The US was giving much more aid to Iran than Iraq because of the US hostages in Lebanon and Iran. Get a grip and read something besides alt.history.left.commie.socialist.hates.democracy.

Re:bin laden..

[will_die]

Reading the US constitution and declarations of war President Bush Jr has the full legal right to do what he did. Just because you have don't like the guy does not make his actions illegal. If any significant portion in the legislative branch really though this was the case they have mays of fixing, instead they realise it is not and use it rile up the ignorant to sent them money and support.
You could start to make the case it was illegal in the eyes of the UN but even then the winning legal case would be that what he did was legal.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

USA supports Pakistan. Isn't that a truly evil dictatorship? didn't they give training to Talibans? then why supporting them and making them allies?
My point is that while dictatorships are evil and we are all happy there is one less dictator, we shouldn't be blinded that Iraq invation was inspired for a complex mix of economical-geopolitical interests and not for the love of freedom or war againt terrorism. That being the driving force of the ocupation there are high probabilities that this issue ends bad for all the parties involved (coallition, Iraq, UN, etc).
Other dictactors/terrorists are happily supported until they become inconvenient or get out of hand. Doesn't that disturb you?

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

I don't know about the condoms....aren't those illegal in Muslim states?

Re:bin laden..

[jstanfor]

You have read of many people that are thankful for their freedom. However, are the people posting in those websites truly representative of the overall population, or are they hired by America to say what American's need to hear? I am not saying that Saddam was a good ruler, however. I am saying that Bush does have a track record of only giving the information he wants people to hear, such as the WMD's. If we find any WMD's, then my argument is pointless, but until we do, it is something to think about.

Re:bin laden..

[ahillen]

Does that answer your question?

Hmm, not quite. I was aware of the unconditional surrender of the German army on May 8 1945, but I thought that this only marks the ending of the fights and does not constitute a peace treaty in the sense of international law.

In WWI, for example, there was the armistice from Nov 10 1918, there was the Versaille peace treaty on June 28, 1919 and additionally there was a special peace treaty between Germany and the US on August 25, 1921, since the Versaille treaty was not ratified by the US.

I think a peace treaty, as any treaty, has to be signed by (at least) two government authorities, and then usually ratified by the parliaments, like the treaties of WWI were.

Re:bin laden..

[cygnus]

If you liberals had your way, Saddam would still be killing these people,

but since you neo conservatives had your way, we're killing them instead. i agree, much better...

Re:bin laden..

[Ender_Wiggin]

And how do we know that? I mean, what evidence is there that he was involved? Bin Laden himself denied doing it, though he said that he supported it and the US had it coming.

As far as I know, Mohammad Atta was the planner, and he died in the plane. Ramzi Bin alSibh and Ramzi Yusuf were captured, and so was Khalid Sheikh Muhammad.

Why should I suspect Bin Laden? Becuase Bush did business deals with his family? Bush makes the accusation, and everyone buys it as truth.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

Ok, that's right. But the UN inspectors where the police and they complain didn't had enough time to search before the "Governor" which is in campaign sends state police, throws down the house, makes a hole and found nothing.

SH had chemical weapons he used to kill thousands of Kurds. Nobody cares. SH invades Kuwait oil camps. You know how it follows.

Re:bin laden..

[TGK]

We're talking illegal here in the sence of against international law. Under US law Bush does have the right to commit troops for..... I think it's 90 days.... without congressional approval.

Illegal isn't really the right word here. There's really not a word for it. We're talking about declared v. undeclared war. Morals and ethics enter into it as well. Strange stuff.

Re:bin laden..

[Wes Janson]

The issue isn't whether they're buried somewhere, but whether the chemical and biological and nuclear weapons were ever built to begin with. Every report coming out from Iraq, from the scientists who worked on Saddam's weapons programs, states that he simply didn't have anything after the first Gulf War.
Also, it should be noted that the Kurds, while citizens of Iraq, were definitely not "his people". And the gassing occured during war with Iran..which was also using similar chemical weaponry on Iraq.

Re:bin laden..

[bombadillo]

The maintanance of any Government comes at a price. Why do you think Iraqi's serverd in Sadam's Army? The fact is the majority of people sign up for the military as an economic means. In the US it is usually because they did not have the means to get into college or the military was their best bet at a good career. I was lucky enough to be able to afford university. I don't want to see our soldiers placed in harms way when it is not a matter of national security. Our military does protect this nation. However, as citizens it is our duty to protect our soldiers from hidden political/financial agendas. In hindsight, do you believe that Vietnam was worth even 1 american life? Unfortunately, most people only care that they have a job and not that we have soldiers dieing daily in Iraq.
Also, there are a lot of ex-military that were against the Iraq war. For example, my father in-law served as an Arabic linquist in the middle east for the Air Force in the 80's and 90's and was against the war. However, he never tries to act like society owes or should respect him for serving in the military as you did in your post.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

> the proof is in the putting

Why are all the pro-Bush posts full of poor writing and misspellings ? Is it the physical or mental age of his followers ?

Re:bin laden..

[emarkp]

The War is illegal because it was never declared. In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991. Since then we've bombed a soverign state for shits and giggles, but haven't really declared war. War has fairly cristiline properties in international law.

And because Saddam didn't comply with the treaty that ended that war, we were still at war.

Re:bin laden..

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Bullshit. I'm not and I don't know anybody else that is. You're trolling, right?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You actually accept that 'iraqi' blog as anything other than the astroturf propaganda that it obviously is? You see what you want to see, don't you?

Re:bin laden..

[will_die]

I guess it depends on what your definition of lie is.
Most non-hate filled people define lieing as "To present false information with the intention of deceiving." So far eveything you brought up and thoses you have not were not lies because based on his knowledge he was telling the truth; you could call it optimistic but it was not false at the time said. For example say I am thinking of a number and you make a guess, you guess wrong, are you lieing? No becaues based on your knowledge they was no really way for you to tell the truth.
The WMD are probably in the same place where they found Saddam, 14 air craft and other weapons , buried in the sand. Good luck find it without being told, he had 5+ year with noone watching to bury it.

As for thier not being WMD mention some people or organizations who firmly believe that they did not have such weapons and who do not a an interest in not having them found.
I have france,Germany, Russia and others saying that they existed and still do.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The war was illegal, the war was about weapons of mass destruction and after months of not finding any, they changed their story for "Booh Saddam! Bad bad Saddam!".

Before we invaded Iraq, everyone kept saying, "Give the weapons inspectors more time. Iraq will come around. We need more time."

After we went in, those same people kept saying, "We want you to find WMD, and find them yesterday." Don't you think that's a bit of a double standard?

Re:bin laden..

[MyHair]

Homer: "Mmmmmmm. Putting."

Also: "Woohoo!"

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to jrnchimera's post that cited no source whatsoever. Neocons will believe whatever is convenient for them to believe.

Re:bin laden..

[pr0c]

You don't need many documents, physical proof, etc to make proof of common knowledge, something you obviously lack. One of the most nasty dictators in the world and a you support this apparently? Either that or you have 2 yr old slashdot syndrome...

Re:bin laden..

[bombadillo]

No, if we liberals had our way. Sadam would never have had U.S. support in the 1980's.

Re:bin laden..

[TGK]

Bush can't declare war. That takes an act of Congress.

Saddam is one guy. He's about 3 cubic feet in volume and requires a supply of water and glucose (with trace elements) to be kept alive.

Weapons of Mass Destruction, at least in any useable form, are row after row after row of chemical/biological shells. Along with that comes storage and production facilities and other infrastructure. Volume of this material measures in the cubic kilometers (when taken as a whole).

Which one do -=you=- think is easier to hide. You assert that it's taken time X to find Saddam. I assert that time Y (the time it takes to find existing WMD and associated infrastructure) is at LEAST an order of magnitude less than X.

Seriously. One guys VS the chemical/biological/nuclear arsonal of one of the worlds most powerfull armies (I think Iraq ranked in the top 15 before 1991).

Re:bin laden..

[Ender_Wiggin]

Don't strawman and distort the issue here, nobody here supports Saddam.

Re:bin laden..

[Guppy06]

"The vast majority of Moslems have no truck with terrorism."

I thought the DOD called those things "technicals."

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The treaties of WW1 worked out so well.

Re:bin laden..

[will_die]

This was a declared war at least according to the US congress, he was still acting on the instructions of the congress from 1991, this say interpertation was used numerious time from 1992 to 2000 for similar things.
There was discussion on if President Bush Jr. should of gotten another right when he decided that enough was enough and that the rulings against Iraq should be inforced instead of being ignored, but that was for populatity reasons not legal ones.

Re:bin laden..

[WindBourne]

Yeah, I read the original article when it first came out. Much of it was easy to debunk by checking with earlier "facts". Much of this was put together by W's admin in much the same way that we had proof of hussein's buying of nuclear material.
One of the pieces of logic here is a friend of a friend association. If so, then W is guilty of being KKK (not likely, but he has friends who are KKK).
Likewise, several of the Al Qaeda mentioned as being in Iraq were in Iraq, but they were being support by the Kurds. They are the ones that are our "friends". They are the ones that helped Al Qaeda with their biologicals. The films on Fox and CNN of the Lab puppy being subjected to Sarin was in the kurd camp, not in hussein's camps.

Re:bin laden..

[Ender_Wiggin]

7,935 Civillian deaths in Iraq as of yesterday is still not acceptable. For what cause did they die?

Re:bin laden..

[bombadillo]

It doesn't really matter if Osama had U.S backing. The U.S. should never have been financing and empowering the ultra religous mujahideen. Have you ever seen pictures of Kabul back in the 1970's. Kabul looked like a western city. Kabul now looks like a 12 century village. All because our government wanted to humilate the Soviet Union.

Re:bin laden..

[Ender_Wiggin]

YET? Do you honestly expect that the alleged WMDs will be suddenly uncovered?

It's been months! We've interviewed Iraqi scientists, promised them cash and asylum if they could show us, and they STILL said there never were any. UN scientists, weapons inspectors, and US generals say that they don't exist. The white house is blaming faulty CIA intelligence for misleading the US into going to war, it sounds like Bush gave up the wait and decided to change the reason.

If Saddam continues to say while in custody that he has no WMDs, even while under "Stress and Duress" torture, are you going to believe us now?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's so naive! Words and actions have meaning beyond the narrow interpretation you give them. For example, there may not have been a formal declaration, but would you really argue that Vietnam was not a war? By the same token, do you really believe that there was not (on the whole) widespread opposition to the US led war on Iraq?

All of these points are tangental though. The fact is the US went to war with Iraq based on fear inspiring propaganda that has proven to be completely false. Your psuedo-legal justifications are no different than our governments (largely successful) attempts to refine terminolgy ("enemy combatants, anyone?) in order to justify it's actions. I for, for one, dissent.

Re:bin laden..

[Skjellifetti]

But what I don't understand is why so many people know so little about Iraq.

Especially yourself.

If there is a democracy in Iraq the ones who will be elected will be shiites leader... And the first thing they will do is transform Iraq into an islamic state like Iran.

You haven't been paying attention. Most of the Shi'ite leaders in Iraq have said that they do not want a theocracy dominated Islamic Republic like the one in Iran. The theocracy in Iran is despised by most Iranians at present. The Ayatollas spend too much time worrying about Islamic morality and not enough time figuring out how to provide jobs for the unemployed. The Islamic leadership in Iraq can read the handwriting and don't want to get caught in the same trap as the Iranian leadership. Iraq is also a nation with some very significant minorities (Kurds, Sunni Arab, Chaldean Christians). The Shi'ite leadership in Iraq wants to preserve Iraq as a whole nation. They recognize that if they impose an Iranian style Islamic Republic, they will likely have a civil war on their hands.

OK, two caveats. First, there are minority views in the Shi'ite community who do want an Islamic Republic, but they seem to be just that: a minority. Second, the majority also seems to want some kind of nod toward Islam in the Constitution. But before you get too bent out of shape, several West European nations have official churches (IIRC, Norway has the Lutherans and England the Church of England), so would an official acknowledgement that Islam is the religion of Iraq be that different from official practice in the West?

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

USA supports Pakistan. Isn't that a truly evil dictatorship? didn't they give training to Talibans? then why supporting them and making them allies?

Are you suggesting that we should take out every evil dictator? Don't you think that there are many factors involved as to whether we support a dictator or not. Some is just symbolic, some is economic, some is unwarranted, I agree ... but that doesn't mean I should have supported Saddam or his loyalists, or be against the coalition against him.

we shouldn't be blinded that Iraq invation was inspired for a complex mix of economical-geopolitical interests and not for the love of freedom or war againt terrorism

Whatever the reason (obviously we'll disagree there) we can still agree to be happy about his removal and therefore when many people (look at the posts) try to condemn Bush, give credence to Saddam, etc etc ... I have to ask can't you just take a deep breath and be glad that he's gone? (you said you are happy about it - so fine, be happy - we all know there are many other things going on in the world and in Iraq - but that doesn't mean we can't stop to say Hooray for Iraq!)
I'm just saying stop and smell the flowers along the way. There is always time for debate.

Comments like your last one make me think that some people like yourself don't want to acknowledge the event that happened today .. like you want to just ignore it as if it hadn't happened and rush off to complain about something else. It gets old. I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss other issues - but come on man - stop and smell the roses along the way.

Re:bin laden..

[Martin Blank]

"Personally neither I nor my brothers saw evidence of American help." -- Osama bin Laden

When he brought his 9,000 Arab fighters to support the Afghans in their conflict against the Soviet occupation army, hacking out the mountain trails with his construction equipment, building hospitals and arms dumps, he became a war hero. ... He and his comrades never saw "evidence of American help" in Afghanistan, he told me, but he must have been aware of the CIA's presence. -- Robert Fisk

And, at risk of alienating those who automatically assume Fox News to lie about everything...

Dispelling the CIA-Bin Laden Myth

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

YET? Do you honestly expect that Saddam Hussein will be suddenly uncovered? It's been months! He could be anywhere in the world. He has money to buy his secrecy and protection. Who's "us"?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you watching FOX NEWS? Something to do before WWE's RAW comes on?

Re:bin laden..

[haxor.dk]

Look, pal, the FOX News bash (por whatever news channel you and your anti-war buddies decide to bash today) is old and dusty.

Leave it, and besides, be thankful there somebody in this world dares to fight for other's freedom. You are apparently not one of them.

Re:bin laden..

[Wavicle]

It's not know that Iraq had supported any terrorist attack in the world.

So giving the families of palestinian suicide bombers $15,000 isn't supporting terrorism?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Only losers join the Army. Smart people get into business and make some bucks.

Which is exactly what good American CEOs did with the Iraq war. Who cares if a few worthless, replaceable idiots of your kind die or get crippled?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ma'am, your husband died doing what he volunteered to do"

These soldiers aren't as accepting of political propganda as you think. They volunteered to defend America, not engage in imperialist occupation and trade potshots with neighborhood thugs. There's a reason morale is in the shitter.

Re:bin laden..

[Martin Blank]

You have a point about the history (it was a slightly snapshot reaction due to me being up so early on a new work schedule). I wonder if the reason that the military vote was so strongly Democrat before had anything to do with that being the best way to funnel money to constituents before welfare, Social Security, MediCare, etc.

Re:bin laden..

[Ambush_Bug]

Actually, in the United States, though the president is commander-in-chief, the Constituion expressly gives the power to declare war to Congress. Obviously, it's been de facto made moot, but I raise the point that "USA declares war on Iraq" coming out of the President's mouth isn't meaningful either.

As an American, the fact that Congress relinquished this power to the President at least six months before the "decision was made" (according to the president at any rate) really pisses me off....

The framers never expected war to take less than a year.... they entrusted congress with war declaration powers for a reason, and I think this is another example of the consolidation of power in the executive which has been happening throughout the 20th (and now 21st) century.

Re:bin laden..

[Deadstick]

..or explain to the family of a suicide bomber why he surrendered without firing a shot.

rj

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

I'm curious. If Bush had murdered as many Americans and in the same fashion as Saddam and his sons and regime murdered and tortured his, would you support the removal of Bush?

Try not to answer this with some conspiracy theory that Bush has done that.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's still not a peace treaty. Do you actually know what a peace treaty is?

Re:bin laden..

[DohDamit]

I'm glad you got a funny one in. For stories like this, I make the insightful mod's negative and the troll mods positive. Oh, and the funny very positive. :)

Re:bin laden..

[Martin Blank]

No, it was to help to prevent the Soviet Union's expansion. Afghanistan would have provided an additional buffer between the world and Moscow (always important in the minds of the senior Party officials), and more importantly, a strategically strong point against Iran, forcing two fronts on which Iran would have to fight if it came to blows over oil rights or supply. It would also have provided a major victory in converting a Muslim country to communism, something which nearly happened in Iran, but which was thwarted with American (and I think British) help.

Re:bin laden..

[ElGuapoGolf]

That's slightly wrong.

Most of the population over here is smart enough to realize they're two different people.

Most of the population over here was dumb enough to forget all about that whole "weapons of mass destruction" lie, and dumb enough to think that Saddam planned 9/11.

Hey, Saddam was a bad guy, no doubt about it. But we should have never stopped looking for Osama. By pulling our best troops off that hunt, we let him get away. Brilliant move, guys.

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

I assert that time Y (the time it takes to find existing WMD and associated infrastructure) is at LEAST an order of magnitude less than X.

You can assert all you like. The fact is that events like these are subject to probabilities, not timetables. Any you and I guesstimate the probabilities differently. The US army had search the compound where the spider hole was before, but didn't find it. This time they did. Often a favourite horse will come in first in a race, more often it doesn't. If WMD exist they might have been found before Saddam, or they might not. Sorry if the logic doesn't fit into your view of the world.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans support terrorism. Right after 9/11 we were told that any and all drugs we buy support terrorism. That middle school kid buying pot.. he supports Osama.

Spin is a wonderful device. The only problem is, how much western spin do you have stuck in your head? Probably a scary amount that would make 1984 look like a children's story.

Re:bin laden..

[flewp]

It's not my blood that's burning...

...IT'S MY LOINS!

Re:bin laden..

[Kythe]

This is, of course, exactly the point. We can't afford to take out every evil dictator. So we need to use our resources sparingly, if we're going to go around doing this sort of thing. And I hate to break it to you, but Saddam wasn't the baddest ass around in the "tin-horn dictator" dept. So what was the reasoning here?

Even worse, Saddam's been on the lam for nearly 9 months. Planning for the war took longer, and involved damage to international relations we need to fight al Qaeda, to say nothing of taking valuable resources away from fighting our real enemy for the Iraq effort. Bush has basically taken more than a year of vacation from fighting the people who killed nearly 3000 Americans in order to overthrow Saddam, who wasn't a threat to us in any way, using nearly 500 more American lives. So the question remains: what was the reasoning here?

No one will be unhappy Saddam's captured (except, perhaps, Saddam himself). I'm very happy about it. I'm not happy about the cost/benefit analysis.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

What I'm affraid that Iraq was ill-conceived and the months since the start of hostilies have confirmed this IMHO. Terrorism has been incresing instead of the other way, as many predicted. This is independent of SH fall and arrest. Don't think it will change too much from now, that why it may seem I'm ignoring it.
In my country we had a dictatorship that leave with what many estimate in 30000 missing and tortured people in the name of the fight against subversion, that's why I have a lot of sceptism about what's going on.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, CNN or MSNBC or Gallup or whoever did that poll is.

(that is, the poster was alluding to a poll that showed over 70% of the country believed Saddam was involved/behind 9-11)

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

Absolutly. And clearly an awful lot more care did go into it. But the issues are far more complicated than your scenario.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there's a fairly diverse set of opinions and moderation on this story. Unlike, say, in the Apple section.

However, I think that they should just disable moderation on political stories. It only seems to encourage the trolls.

Re:bin laden..

[stevew]

Yeah - right -

And you forget to how the French bypassed the sanctions and had special deals with Saddam and how Saddam pocketed a bunch of the money from the UN food program while the French turned a blind eye!

Look - the facts are pretty simple. The UN sanctions were suppose to let food and medicine get to the people of Iraq - but instead that money lined Saddam's pocket instead of doing what it was designed to do - and the Russians and French helped! If you want to find someone to blame for the misery of the Iraqi people you'll find his picture on CNN/Foxnews/MSNBC as the guy we captured today!

Re:bin laden..

[antiMStroll]

That's an interesting perspective. Gulf War 1 was a coalition action sanctioned by the UN to counter Iraq's aggression against Kuwait. Gulf War 2 was a unilateral action by the US and the Brits against the express wishes of those same coalition members because of the lack of any agression, or any solid evidence of the capacity, on Iraq's part. I may be wrong but I don't recall the UN sanctioned this latest offensive.

Difficult though it is for some to deal with, the US didn't 'own' this war and any right to continue it is questionable. Even at that, it's irrelevant because they had no cause.

Re:bin laden..

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

If that was what was actually going through the poster's head... You and I have no idea what he was thinking. As I said, I don't know anyone who actually thinks that.

Re:bin laden..

[Bedouin X]

Your Iran comment shows how clueless you are and I feel bad even responding to it, but here goes anyway.

Give me a link showing UN sanctions imposed in 1988 on Iraq with respect to the Kurd gassing.

Even if you could find it, it's beside my original point because the Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988 that would have been the US equivalent but didn't make it through the House intact and was snuffed out. The Reagan Administration went out of its way to not punish Iraq, our ally, for the gassing of the Kurds. Those gassings has been going on for a while but Halabja just happened to be photographed by a journalist and shown to the world.

Re:bin laden..

[deja206]

I'm a TURK, goddamit!

Re:bin laden..

[randyest]

No, it wasn't about WMD, nor can you back up your claims that it ever was supposed to be all about WMD, or that it was illegal in any sense.

It's about this.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Re:bin laden..

[Hooded One]

Except that the 1991 war wasn't declared, either. It was another "military action." The only difference this time is Bush has the power to drop the pretense from the get-go that this isn't an all-out war and basically flaunt the Constitution. Which I find odd given that it wouldn't be that hard for him to convince Congress to declare war. I guess he gets a thrill out of playing the autocrat.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

Thanks for pointing this. This fact fall under my radar. I didn't want to put erroneous info. After a quick search I found this article

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

You appear to be discounting the possibility that the knew where they *were*. They aren't geological features you know.

I don't trust Bush in the way you are assuming. I am not American, he's not my president, and I don't even like the man or his politics. However I trust people with tin-foiled heads and conspiracy theorists even less.

But even that doesn't explain my post. My post is pure apolitical logic.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

A billion seconds ago was 1972 - a billion seconds is a mere 31.7 years.

A billion minutes is about 1901 years, so that would put a billion minutes ago at around 102AD. Now, I may be no fancy city slicker lawyer, but my bible says Geezus died in his 30s, and was born in 1AD. That would mean that a billion minutes ago, Jesus had been dead for about 70 years. Now, there are those Christians who would argue that Jesus is not dead, in which case there's no point in mentioning that he wasn't a billion minutes ago.

A billion hours ago puts us about 114,000 years. The period 2,000,000BC-3,500BC is considered Stone Age (Middle Paleolithic), so this one's probably correct.

A billion dollars ago is actually slightly worse than you suggest: about four hours. US total expenditure is currently around 2 trillion dollars a year.

Re:bin laden..

[randyest]

No, it wasn't about WMD, nor can you back up your claim that it ever was supposed to be all about WMD.

It's about this.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

"But Saddam gassed his own people!"

Re:bin laden..

[Hooded One]

No, you're not lying, because it is understood that your guess is purely that -- a guess.

However, if you swear that you *know* what the number is and that you have intelligence to back it up, but you don't, then you're lying.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Never seen so much cheap afhgan pot on the streets. This stuff gets zipped up and mailed back here these days... Now if only we could start attacking india. I want some opium!

Re:bin laden..

[randyest]

No, it wasn't about WMD, nor can you back up your claim that it ever was supposed to be all about WMD. Cite something for that false claim. Go on, try.

It's about this.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

I agree that I was simplifing. I can't agree that the issues are very complex. It bothers me when someone uses the "Saddam bad, Saddam hides weapons" mantra, because there is a lot more going than this.

Re:bin laden..

[Ender_Wiggin]

Ah, but nobody has ever debated whether Saddam has existed or not. Have independent internationa panels declared the finding that he didn't exist? Did fellow researchers come out and say it was a hoax?

Just come to grips with the fact that there never was any WMDs. Bush seems to have already. Notice how they don't talk about that anymore?

Re:bin laden..

[randyest]

No, it wasn't about WMD, nor can you back up your claim that it anyone in W's administration said they know exactly where they are.

It's about this.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

Sorry! my last post should be read: I can't agree more that the issues are very complex.
My mistake, please don't shot me.

Re:bin laden..

[bridnour]

Except if (in line with training they received back in the day when the Soviet Union was around) they got rid of the actual weapons, hardware, etc. and kept the blueprints, formulae, etc. used to make them.

One can assert that finding hidden documents would be as difficult as finding a hidden person...

Re:bin laden..

[kableh]

The sanctions ONLY hurt the Iraqi people, and despite pleas from our former friends in the UN and around the world, we by and large ignored them.

And keep in mind, much of this ignoring was under Clinton... This isn't a GOP/Democrat issue, it is an issue of fucked up foriegn policy.

One needs only to look to Cuba for an example of what sanctions do.

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

There is a difference, they knew Saddam was there to begin with, for a fact. They knew WMD were there to begin with for a fact. The gassing of the curds wasn't done with farts. The question is whether they were destroyed, and production stopped. And another: An arsenal of weapons of mass destruction takes up much more than a "spider hole" to hide. Do you know how big a gas canister is? Less than a square foot. Sarin? The Japanese underground was attacked with about a test tube of it IIRC. And they haven't found El Dorado yet, so there might yet still be a city of gold in peru? Now you are getting it. Although this is a few months versus more than a century.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

Bush has basically taken more than a year of vacation from fighting the people who killed nearly 3000 Americans in order to overthrow Saddam

Oh really, so we haven't been fighting Taliban and Afghani terrorists? My bad.

cost/benefit analysis? Were you doing a cost/benefit analysis when Clinton reduced our intelligence to peanuts? Did you do one when he bombed the aspirin factory?

I'm not saying Bush is perfect. I'm not saying the war is perfect either. But come on - we had a victory over an evil murderer. Put down the slide-rule and celebrate.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Doenitz was a GRAND ADMIRAL (Grossadmiral), not a mere ADMIRAL.

Re:bin laden..

[ShwAsasin]

And what freedom is that? The freedom to go poor while americans get rich? The freedom to be declared enemies if you don't believe in a war? Get over your screwed up version of freedom. Real freedom means an Arab can walk into an airport and not be looked at as a terrorist. Real freedom is not having the government which countried you can visit on a vacation or do business with (i.e. Cuba). The only thread Saddam was to the United States was in business interests. Your relations with Saudi Arabia was put into question after 15/19 hijackers were from Saudi decent and you needed an alternative oil source. What better way to get oil then lie to the american people about Iraq creating "weapons of mass destruction" which were partially given to Iraq from your retarded government and help settle the scores the Bush's had with Iraq in the fact they lost the first Iraq war to yet another third world country (for those keeping count North Korea, Vietnam). The united states is no safer today than it was 3 years ago and until you arrogant people stop thinking your the almighty freedom country of the world, people will continue to despise you. Your freedom is nothing more than a word. You always say your country is free but how free is it? Your freedoms are becoming less and less each day in the name of your own security. In the time Junior Bush has been in office, he's been in 2 wars, kill innocent men/women/children in numerous countries Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and others while trying to target some "terrorist".

I laughed at your last presidential election because you call yourselves the "greatest democrasy" yet your voting process was full of scandle. Even Russia has a better voting system in place then the almighty freedom loving americans did. Until the regime of Bush is over, there is no freedom, and standing behind your typical slogan of "we're fighting for your freedom", doesn't make the world safer, but adds more hatred towards your country. This will lead to more killings world wide and eventually to another major attack against your country, when you least expect it. You'll then want the entire world to feel your "pain" for a minor loss compared to the atrocities that happen around the world due to your foreign policies and then you'll want revenge and target a third world country to invade in the name of something stupid to show your "military might". Your freedom is over, face it you've got a dictator who doesn't give a shit about your lives but only about the corporate dollers.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right, Bush Sr. did drop the ball by buckling to UN pressure and not finishing the job while we were there last time.

Re:bin laden..

[anthony_dipierro]

The War is illegal because it was never declared.

Simple question. What law was broken?

In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991.

War wasn't declared then either.

Re:bin laden..

[Zonekeeper]

I agree. I've become used to seeing my karma go lower and lower anytime I say *anything* remotely pro-bush/war/ etc. I don't care anymore. I used to think my fellow geeks were geeks because they had brains. I was vey saddened to find out that so very many were ignorant enough to think that, for example, anything to do with Bush was automatically a bad thing, and were so often ready to jump on ANY anti-U.S. setiment that comes along. So many have ben brainwashed by the media, or have decided to just ignore facts, or just don't Get It (tm), that I just ignore them now. It's not worth my effort, as it is said, there are none so blind as those who will not see. Flame all you want, I really don't care.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

the Bush administration cannot afford to give him a fair international trial.
How do you can say such a thing? Bush senior gave Noriega a fair trial... eh...
Wait! perhaps they could trial in the international court made specifically for crimes against mankind, that one that Bush hates... oh.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam and bin Laden an item? I think you've been fed a little by propaganda, my friend...

Truth is (before the invasion of Iraq) if bin Laden had set foot inside Iraq, he would have been shot without further ado - there is no pleasant history between the two...

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

If Bush lied about WMD, so did Kofi Anan, Bill Clinton, Hans Blix , Al Gore, Chirac, etc...

Just give up the lame "Bush Lied!!!" bleating already, it just makes you look stupid and makes you even more ineffectual and irrelevant than you already are.

Re:bin laden..

[Wingnut64]

Yes, I would. However, I would not want France nor any other country to come in and do it.

Re:bin laden..

[goranb]

Hm... Does make sense... ;)

Thanks...

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

First, please care to demonstrate where I said there was no widespread oppisition to the war. I simply said the UN did not oppose it (the UN is more than Kofi Annon).

The "fear inspiring propaganda" was that A) Saddam had WMDs at some point. B) 12 UN resolutions that he disarm and prove to the international community that he has disarmed have been passed. C) He has failed to prove that he has disarmed.

Before the war there was not a single country besides Iraq that disputed this. This was because of Saddam's delaying tactics in dealing with inspections, throwing up conditions and declaring sites off limits. According to Iraqi officials that did maintain Iraq had no WMDs stockpiles were destroyed WITHOUT RECORDS BEING KEPT. The burden of proof that Iraq had no WMDs rested solely with Saddam under the UN resolutions, not with the Americans nor the British. He failed to meet that burden, that is a FACT, so no, the "fear inspiring propaganda" has not proven to be completely false. In addition, he was still attempting to obtain WMDs, but the system he set up to obtain them simply became "corrupt" and "embezelled" most of the money (I put them in quotation marks because the words are too strong for someone stealing from Saddam). Many of the projects Saddam invested in were complete frauds. It's unlikely Saddam even knew what he had, let alone the UN. The war was sold on uncertainty, which absolutely positively did exist. Argue against this, do not use rhetoric and mischaracterizations to fight against rehtoric and mischaracterizations. It simply makes you a hypocrit.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. has saved more lives than any country in the history of the world.

You moral lepers deserve the Saddams, Pol Pots, Stalins, Hitlers that you cozy up to.

Re:bin laden..

[Fazer]

Get your spelling straight. It's Muslims. Not Moslems.

Re:bin laden..

[deja206]

A SHAME that you live with us, kurdish racist moron. Also I'll check you with your university.

Oh, and this is what a Turk does to another... Says he will check me with my university (whatever that means) just because he thinks I'm a Kurd. The guy has no idea that I'd have the right to live & study in Turkey even if I were a Kurd, just as he probably would like to do, in the United States.

I'm so proud that I'm not one of "that kind of" Turks.

Re:bin laden..

[kableh]

Right, thank god kids are dying so Dick Cheney is free to recieve his xmas bonus check from Halliburton!

Thank god our soldiers are dying so at least Iraq can have a democratic election!

Re:bin laden..

[Kythe]

Oh really, so we haven't been fighting Taliban and Afghani terrorists? My bad

Indeed. Perhaps you haven't been paying attention: resources were pulled out of Afghanistan (notably special ops) in order to invade Iraq and hunt for non-existent WMD. Afghanistan itself is suffering from neglect, as the Taliban and al Qaeda have made a resurgence (the only safe place appears to be Kabul, now) and damage was done to our international efforts to stem al Qaeda terrorism through the heavy-handed non-diplomatic efforts leading up to the Iraq war. Even now, Bush is sticking his thumb in the eye of our NATO allies. These are things we can't afford.

cost/benefit analysis? Were you doing a cost/benefit analysis when Clinton reduced our intelligence to peanuts? Did you do one when he bombed the aspirin factory?

I'd be very interested in why you make the first claim, since the intelligence apparatus and military Bush has been using over the last couple of years have essentially been Clinton's.

As for a "cost/benefit" analysis on the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant bombing (putting aside, of course, the huge disparity in scale between that and the Iraq boondogle), the answer is, "of course". And it would seem that that was a bad choice, too.

As I said, I'm very happy Saddam's captured. The cost makes it very bittersweet.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not volunteers. They're paid soldiers. Big difference.

An American widow may or may not support the war. Hell, an American soldier may or may not support the war.

Does OSHA cover the US Military? Just an unrelated question I was wondering about.

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

If you liberals had your way, Saddam would still be killing these people, instead, we stayed strong and now he's been captured.

Yeah, now its the U.S. and the terrorist who are killing them. Much better.

20 Iraqi policement were killed by a bomb a few hours before they caught Saddam, I'm sure the families of those victims are saying "At least they weren't killed by Saddam, that would have been bad."

Hussein was a bad man who did bad things. I'm glad that they caught him and I hope he'll be put on trial (a real trial, not a Bush-reelection show trial), but the people of Iraq are not safe yet. Sure, they're happy he was caught, I would be too if he was my former dictator, but they are still getting killed. Their streets are still not safe.

Catching Saddam Hussein did not make everything allright. It will not stop the semi-dayly bombings (hope I'm wrong on that last one, but I fear I'm not).

all the "insightful" posts modded 4+. they are ALL ANTI-BUSH, and anti-war. Why do you think that is.

That is because you are a lying troll. The VERY FIRST comment modded 4+ is all "Yay team! Get Bin Ladden next". Sheesh.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam routinely fired at US aircraft in the no-fly zone and tried to assasinate President Bush. We've gone to war for far less.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, the kurds, Shiites and marsh arabs had it great before the sanctions. So did the million Iraqis who died fighting Iran.

Maybe if you lefty tools honored logic, reason or truth, you'd bother to pull your head out of your ass.

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

There is no dispute that WMD did exist. The kurds were gassed at halabja, and missiles were fired in Iraq war I. The questions are, were they all destroyed, and did production totally cease. The only supportable logic view right now is that we don't know. Months of not finding any is not evidence of complete eradication, any more than months of not finding Sadam was evidence of his death.

Re:bin laden..

[letxa2000]

These soldiers aren't as accepting of political propganda as you think. They volunteered to defend America, not engage in imperialist occupation and trade potshots with neighborhood thugs.

That you think that our military is going to be up against huge, conventional battles such as what we prepared for in the Cold War just shows how out-of-date your thinking is. Any soldier who has volunteered to service in the military in the last 10 years knew very well that they might be trading potshots with neighborhood thugs. That's been mostly what our military has done for the last decade.

As for imperialist occupation, you'll find that's more of a liberal stick up your ass rather than reality. Soldiers aren't robots and have minds of their own so not all of them will always agree with American foreign policy. But I'll bet more of them agree with us being in Iraq than agreed with us being in Somalia, and I'll bet the percentage of soldiers that agree with their mission is higher than the percentage of liberals in the U.S. that agree with the mission.

There's a reason morale is in the shitter.

I suspect because they've been subjected to guerilla warfare with no end in sight and no particular achievements since Bagdhad fell. I suspect the capture of Saddam is going to help troop morale tremendously. It's probably going to help our morale back in the states, too. And, yes, it's probably going to score Bush a boost in the polls.

Economy is improving, we've captured Saddam Hussein... Things aren't looking so bad this Christmas. Funny how when things go well in the U.S. the only ones that lose out are the liberals. :)

Re:bin laden..

[RickHunter]

Since Saddam violated the cease fire on many counts and on many occasions, the only way the continuation of hostilities by the US could be considered an illegal war would be if the first Gulf War was itself illegal.

Give me some proof. Every last one of the US's claimed reasons for going to war has been shot down. He didn't have any WMDs. He wasn't trying to acquire WMDs. He wasn't arming to attack his neighbours. He had no terror ties. Saddam did violate the cease-fire back in the late 90s, and Clinton attacked him for it, and he backed down. Many neo-cons then attacked Clinton for trying to distract attention from the whole trumped-up Lewinsky thing.

So not only was the war illegal, but you don't really have a leg to stand on when reasonable folk accuse Bush of starting the war to distract attention from his ongoing power grab and butchery of the domestic economy.

Re:bin laden..

[Jagasian]

Osama is dead. He is the type of guy that couldn't resist making new videos every week. After major bombings, all of a sudden his videos stopped? That means he is dead.

Re:bin laden..

[bryanthompson]

The hell I am, this is the first post according to my threshold:

bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful) by alexc (37361) on Sunday December 14, @08:09AM (#7715736) they still need to get Osama Bin Laden. he is the S.O.B. that attacked new york city

We don't kill innocents. You people act like we're out there just shooting up their town.

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

Bullshit. I'm not and I don't know anybody else that is. You're trolling, right?

Naah, he isn't. He's being innaccurate, but not trolling. What he doubtless meant was that roughly 70% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussain was responsible for the attacks on September 11. The frightening thing is that this figure does seem to be accurate.

The Bush government never actually *said* that Hussain was behind 9/11, but various officials, press announcements, State of the Union Addresses, etc, implied it rather strongly. Since our "liberal" media wouldn't dream of correcting the Bush government's insinuations the image of Saddam as the 9/11 mastermind stuck in the public's mind.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, you didn't. The US just wrote more fake history books than any country in the history of the world. But they'll be rewritten the day that the US empire falls. Count on it.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, same with the Jews too. They are secretly plotting things at their religious instituitions just as the Moslems are.

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

Ah, you are correct, my mistake for a poor choice of words. An unconditional surrender of a nation is not the same as a peace treaty. However, for purposes of this conversation, they have the same effect; declaring the end of a war, one does so by will of governments the other does so by will of the military. A cease fire agreement, on the other hand, does no such thing, often being initiated by field commanders for everything from removing wounded from a battle field (WWI) to negotiating surrenders (Afghanistan) up to pausing entire wars (Gulf War, Isreali-Palestinian conflict)

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I laughed when I saw your post. So many words, so little intelligence.

Get over your Bush hatred and look into what really happened. For instance, look at who supplied Saddam with weapons. You know, the Iraqi army wasn't using American tanks, American rifles or American anti-aircraft missiles. Iraq's nuclear reactor wasn't sold to them by the Americans. Americans didn't make the huge, multi-billion dollar oil deals with Saddam.

If you honestly look for guilty parties who propped up Saddam, the U.S. is far, far down the list. But that would get in the way of your anti-Americanism, and Bush hatred.

Re:bin laden..

[TheLink]

Well there were quite a lot of them cheering the 9-11 WTC attacks in at least one of the local universities in my country.

Yes there certainly are plenty of fools and bigots.

So far how many muslims have denounced the bombings on Israelis? AFAIK a significant proportion of so-called muslims don't seem to mind if people claiming to be muslims blow up Israelis. NOTE: I'm not saying the Israelis are in the right. But your statement would be correct if you said "The vast majority of Muslims _claim_ to have no truck with terrorism". Whether they have no truck with terrorism still seems open to debate.

Muslims only have a few guaranteed ways of getting to heaven. Many muslims believe that if you are a martyr (syahid) you go to Heaven. Without those ways, you must do enough good stuff vs the bad stuff. So if you don't think you'd ever do enough good to cover the bad and you need some insurance there are only a few options left to avoid hell.

Architecturally such a belief system would be more prone to certain sorts of behaviour than a few other popular belief systems that I am aware of.

Sure there will be a wide range given the large samples involved. It's a matter of it being statistically significant or not.

Re:bin laden..

[stevew]

Well - I'm sure you are going to see a pretty good spread on what a family of a soldier killed in action will have to say.

The simple fact is that they DID die in the service of their country - and that is the more important detail to remember. WHATEVER you think about the war - honor the men and women who ARE willing to put their lives on the line to protect your and my posteriors and allow us to have this discussion!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is: You wouldn't remove ANYONE from power if you couldn't gain something from it. You are not morally superior as you have been brainwashed to believe, you're the worst slime to ever walk on this planet.

Re:bin laden..

[Zork the Almighty]

I thought it was sarcasm!

Re:bin laden..

[JeanBaptiste]

Slight (major) problem with the "illegal war" thing. At the end of Gulf War I, there was no peace treaty, only a cease fire (something of which we had a dozen or so of in Afghanistan alone during that war). It went along the lines of "disarm all WMDS and prove to our satisfaction the destruction of said WMDs and cease all hostilities and we won't finish the job." Since Saddam violated the cease fire on many counts and on many occasions, the only way the continuation of hostilities by the US could be considered an illegal war would be if the first Gulf War was itself illegal. Since that was done by the authority of the UN, that's highly unlikely, unless you doubt the authority of the UN, in which case there's no one to call any war illegal. But of course, this conflicts with your erotic anti-Bush world dreams, so I'm sure you won't let facts get in your way.

Re:bin laden..

[letxa2000]

Other than Bush's statements (and forged evidence and demonstrable false statements ) there isn't any evidence or reason to believe MWDs exist.

Well, no reason except that Saddam has used them in the past and the U.N. has "found" that Iraq probably posessed them at some point which is why the world (not just the U.S.) insisted on the arms inspectors. They weren't there because the world thought Saddam was innocent.

The fact is, everyone believes he had them at some point. If he no longer has them he should have cooperated fully with U.N. arms inspectors, proven it to the world, and taken the wind out of Bush's arguments for war. Saddam did the exact opposite. He was not cooperative, did not give us (or the U.N.) any reason to believe him, and paid the consequences.

If Saddam didn't have WMDs then he will go down in history as the most inept poker player in the world. If he did have WMDs, they'll be found.

Anyway, only people like you believe that the only reason to believe WMDs exist is because of what you perceive as Bush lies and forged evidence. There is plenty of evidence and history behind why the U.N. believed he had WMDs--or had failed to properly account for missing WMDs. He has used them in the past. If you want to close your eyes to that, feel free, but don't be surprised when people ignore you as just another bitter, anti-Bush-hated without a clue and a very loose grip on reality.

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

No, it wasn't about WMD, nor can you back up your claims that it ever was supposed to be all about WMD

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush turns his attention on Friday to the United Nations after the Senate joined the House in strong votes authorizing a possible U.S. attack on Iraq.

The Republican-led House and Democratic-led Senate by wide margins approved the resolution that Bush wanted to reinforce his demand that the U.N. Security Council threaten the use of force, if necessary, to enforce its requirements that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein abandon programs for biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

"The Congress has spoken clearly to the international community and the United Nations Security Council," Bush said in a statement issued after the early-hours vote.

"Saddam Hussein and his outlaw regime pose a grave threat to the region, the world, and the United States. Inaction is not an option, disarmament is a must," Bush said.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you consider a "legal" war?

Re:bin laden..

[Valar]

Perhaps you are forgetting that months ago we found facilities for producing WMD. The complaint at the time was that we didn't find any actual weapons. Remember those tracker-trailer labs, for example? Now, granted they didn't find any traces of chemical or biological weapons, but what the fuck else are you going to use a biological research facility on wheels for?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

It was perfectly legal. Congress authorized it. It was Constitutionally legal. That is all that matters.

The world is free to give their opinions, but they don't affect the laws of the U.S.

Re:bin laden..

[canajin56]

Wrong. Please stop repeating that. The Kurds were killed in a fight between Iranian and Iraqi forces in their city. They were not the intentional targets of either sides chemical weapons. And the US Army sent in specialists after the battle, that concluded in a nice big official report that they were killed by Iranian chemical weapons, since Iraq was using Mustard Gas, but they were killed by a blood agent, which chlorine gas is not. So, IRAN accidentially killed Kurds with chemical weapons. Both sides were irresponsible for using their US weapons in a populated city, however. (That's right, both bought their chemical weapons from the US government)

While we are talking about that sort of thing, mass graves: In accordance with their religion, Muslims bury their dead as soon as possible. That is why there was such an outrage over displaying the corpses of Hussein's sons. Because it was desecrating their dead! Especially dressing them up and cleaning their wounds, which you are also not supposed to do! (To put it in a Sci-Fi context, the series Space: Above and Beyond. The aliens mutulated fallen human troops. Humans were outraged and disgusted. But it turns out that the aliens were honouring their fallen foes as they honoured their own dead. And they were outraged in turn, by humans daring to cover their fallen with dirt, or else burn them to nothing.)
But anyways, the result is that if thousands of people are killed, mass graves are really the only option. So what killed all of these people. Well, after Gulf War I, the US told the Shi'ite and the Kurds that they had completely destroyed the Iraqi army. Both peoples revolted, slaughtering entire cities. Now, the Republican Guard was not so decimated as the US told them, and they regrouped after the war, and put down the rebellions with deadly force. That is where the mass graves came from. Because it would dishonor the dead to fix them up, and put them in their best clothes, and ship them off to their family, and THEN bury them. They needed to be burried as soon as possible.

Now, perhaps they used too much force...let's imagine this: Say some group in the US somewhere, it doesn't really matter who, realizes that most of the National Guard and army Reserves are already off in Iraq. So they rise up in a few cities, and kill all of the police, and the mayor, and basically anybody who works for any sort of government. City sanitation, DMV, everybody. Now, that done, they move on to the next city. People who fight back at them are killed, too. Now, what would the National Guard be justified in doing to them? Should they bust out the tear gas and rubber bullets? Or the mortars and the gunships?

Now, on to Kuwait. In 1990, Hussein in person flew to the White House, and asked G. H. W. Bush's permission to invade. And George said to go for it, it was none of his business what Iraq did to protect itself from oil thieves. And I think everybody knows what follows after that. Either way, Kuwait is run by a dictatorship with death squards, too. But the dictator is pro-US, so it is a good brutal regeim. But that sort of thing completely negates any "We had to get rid of a brutah dictator!" argument, since they are propping up another right next door!

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I like Saddam, or think he was a particularly good leader. But many of the justifications given are pure lies, plain and simple. They said he had WMD, and he didn't. People have been saying "Well he shouldn't have made us think he did!" but he spend a year professing his innocence, saying he had none. He gave the inspectors free reign (He didn't want them in his palaces, but eventually gave in. Understandable, they ARE his houses, after all) People say his commits genocide. But many of the supporting evidence for that statement is false. (Unless there are others I have missed, of course. But the US reports clearly state that it wasn't Iraq that did it. So the only way to prove the US right is by first proving the US

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Iraq was a secular state under Hussain.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that insightful, it seems pretty obvious to me

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

They knew WMD were there to begin with for a fact.

They know because they kept the reciept.

The gassing of the curds wasn't done with farts.

That was 20 years ago, and there was never proof that it was Saddam who did it. As far as we know, it might have been Siria. Hussein is the likliest suspect, but it wasn't proved.

Do you know how big a gas canister is?

Sorry Bub, they weren't talking about a canister, they were talking about an arsenal deployable in less than 45 minutes.
An immediate threat to the entire world.

Lets stick to the original story.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

What, the same Hans Blix who was saying, over and over again like a stuck record, that Saddam did not have any WMD? Along with the same Kofi Anan who branded U.S action in Iraq "dangerous"?

What sort of bad acid do you have to take to believe any of the guys you listed supported action against Iraq?

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

And here's where it gets interesting.
The difference is that the Iraqi people did not have the means to do it by themselves. They are (were) terrified of Saddam.
Iraqi people did try to rise up against Saddam. Those people are being dug up as we speak.

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

Everytime he fired at one of our aircraft patroling the no-fly zone he violated the agreement. Everytime he failed to provide adequete documentation that he had no WMDs (the burden of proof rested on him) he violated the agreement (and find me one country before the war besides Iraq that contended he provided adequete documentation to prove he had no WMDs, not even France made that claim). The charges that he was not trying to acquire WMDs has never been proven false, only a single CIA source about Saddam attempting to aquire Uranium from Nigeria, which was never used as justification for the war. Reports from Iraqi officials was that he was indeed attempting to acquire WMDs, only very ineptly. As for terror ties, not disproven, but currently tenuous (although the arguement was not that he had ties but what would happen if he created them. It's important to listen to people otherwise you might do something stupid, like start a war.)

BTW: I thought neo-cons was a term that was supposed to describe those who subscribed to the Bush doctrine, in which case I'd like to know when they got the time machine to go back and attack Clinton for bombing an asprin factory.

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

We don't kill innocents.

Count 'em!

Re:bin laden..

[Compenguin]

The part I don't understand is 29,000+ people died from cancer last year. Thats almost 10 times as many as died in the WTC but you don't see a "War on Cancer"

Re:bin laden..

[ealar dlanvuli]

Just something to remember: a religious minority with guns is very scary.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

Not sure why I'm replying to this mindless post.
I wouldn't remove blah blah blah if I couldn't gain something from it? I must be pretty selfish! (Either that, or you don't know me at all) ... do you know me? Now I'm scared.
Point is ... you are so off track you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Bye AC.

Re:bin laden..

[Dorothy 86]

Technically all wars since 1928 in which America was involved have been illegal as per the Kellogg Peace treaty where it was agreed upon and signed that War will be outlawed. Show's how much that did.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think I'm a liberal?* Because I called a Spade a Spade?

The soldiers on the ground understand the Oil and Great Game rationales, even if "imperialism" is a 4-bit word. As for "occupation", they certainly fully understand that.

* BTW, I'm a communist. I hate fucking liberals as well.

Re:bin laden..

[anno1a]

Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein is two completely unrelated persons (even though Bush wants to make that impression). They probably still need to get a lot of people, but now they've gotten one.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking the land from the Arabs wasn't a great solution. I'd much rather see the Jews get their land back that was stolen from them in Europe.

Thousands of square kilometers in Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, Warsaw, etc. should be repatriated to the Jews, and given independance to protect them from the racism stewing in Europe.

Somehow I don't see the European Jew haters liking that plan much either. Maybe it isn't about justice or the rights of people to their land. Maybe it is more about Jew hatred.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if Rumsfeld will take another picture of himself shaking hands with Saddam.. I love it how ignorant people always look the other way unless it serves their interests.. let us not remember the contras supported terrorism.. vietnam had air america which smuggled drugs.. and not to mention the us supporting troops in colombia who have been known to use terrorist tactics..

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

http://www.nci.nih.gov/
I could list 100s more, but this will get you started on your homework assignment.
Oh, maybe you meant little green soldiers should be shrunk down and injected into our bodies to kill the cancer?

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

good point, thank you.

Re:bin laden..

[mqduck]

"In the Russian revolution Lenin allowed the middle of the road Menchevick faction to do the hard work of overthrowing the Tzar. Then with the Tzar out of the way he replaced the Menchvicks with a second revolution."

Actually, the split of the Russian Social-Democratic Party in the Majority (Bolshevik) and Minority (Menshevik) factions didn't take place until after the first Russian revolution. Lenin didn't "use" it's supporters. The eventual Bolsheviks were full, active supporters. The first revolution was Russia's bourgeois (Capitalist) revolution. The Mensheviks believed that Russia was not yet ready for the Glorious Socialist Revolution, though that's not even why they first split. It was an argument over who should be allowed in the party.

Re:bin laden..

[ealar dlanvuli]

Do you seriously think economic sanctions are ever a good thing for anyone?

The level of idiocy here astounds me.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

We didn't declare war on Iraq in 1991, it was executive action. kthx.

Re:bin laden..

[randyest]

That's the best you can do? Weak.

-1, Inconclusive. Thanks for playing.

Re:bin laden..

[Kythe]

Actually, you have a good point, and I'd like to modify my previous remarks: Considering his condition, I'm not at all sure Saddam wasn't happy to have been captured.

Sort of brings home the fact that Hussein wasn't in much of a position to have been directing the guerilla war against American troops (hell, Bremer's having enough trouble directing events in Iraq from a palace). Which makes me a tad nervous for the future...

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

1) There were no actal weapons.

2) There were no chemical or biological materials present.

How the fuck is he going to drag his WMD out into plain sight and destroy them it all he has is a few trucks, with not actual weapons, Per GWB's demands to no invade Iraq.

Re:bin laden..

[gui_tarzan2000]

Isn't it sad when people resort to name calling instead of admitting the truth? I see it more and more with people that believe the rhetoric of the left whether they're American or not. The thing that puzzles me is why someone with supposed intelligence can't come up with something better than name calling? Such crude and immature behavior. The wars were necessary and they -were- legal whether you want to believe it or not. Denial is a wonderful pacifier.

As a conservative, right-wing, non-wife bashing, anti-religion Christian with southern "redneck" ancestors (I was born and raised in the north) I can say with all sincerity that you sir are either so wrapped up in yourself that you can't see the truth or you are in constant denial just to survive your daily journeyon this trip we call life.

A person who's honestly interested in the truth can research the information for themselves and decide based on facts instead of idiology and party bias. I don't like some of what our government is doing, but it's on both sides, not just one. I believe the disregard for what's been happening overseas over the last couple of decades by our Democratic party leaders (Clinton, Kennedy, Daschle, et al) has a direct connection to the problems we have right now.

I also believe that our Republican party has turned their backs on the social problems we've got in our own country. This has led to a tremendous increase in "I don't give a damn about anyone but myself" attitude that hurts our country and gives us a bad reputation world-wide. We as people of the best nation in the world need to go back to what's best for our country and our friends world-wide instead of focusing on what we want for ourselves.

With all due respect as a fellow human being, your one sided views make you look very foolish. Look at the real problem and see if you can offer real solutions in stead of just name calling and bashing.

These comments are from your friendly neighborhood "right-wing, spouse-beating, 7th (Day) Adventist redneck". :)

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

The Iraqis are grateful. If you can't see this then you are truly blind.

Yup. So grateful that they've been killing American solders at a rate of roughly 1 per day since GWB's "Mission Accomplished" photo-op. Interesting way these Iraqis show their gratitude...

Look, I'm not saying that Saddam Hussain wasn't a vile thug, he was. The fact that he is out of power is a good thing, no argument. But. Hating Saddam isn't the same as loving the US. Most Iraqis are doubtless overjoyed that Saddam's government has been toppled, that doesn't mean they like a US occupation of their country either.

On a broader note, I object to the "we're doing it for the poor downtroden people" chest-thumping coming from the Bush government because it is a horrible lie. The same Bush government that is now telling us the war was about human rights, not oil or WMD, has steadfastly ignored the abuses of other dictators, and continues to provide military support for several people at least as bad as Hussain. Look at Indonesia and Uzbekistan, both ruled with an iron fist by people who use mass murder and torture (just like Saddam). Yet neither nation is even being publicly rebuked by the Bush government. Uzbekistan is getting $100M in aid, and the Bush government is pushing to "normalize" military relations with the dictator of Indonesia.

As soon as the Bush government stops giving money and military support to torturing, mass murdering, dictatorships, I'll start believing the "we did it because Saddam was a bad man" line. But let's be honest, getting rid of the vile Saddam Hussain was a side issue. The real issue was letting Halliburton and other corporations that gave millions in "campaign contributons" access to Iraq's oil.

Re:bin laden..

[iconian]

If they have a problem with that then they shouldn't have signed up with the military in the first place.

The issue is not that simple. You make it sound as if the weight decision to join the military is the same for everyone. The fact of the matter is the majority of the people who are in the military are from your lower income bracket. Talk to them without the threat of an dishonorable discharge and most of them will admit to you that they joined primarily because they needed the money (a la Jessica Lynch for college). These people did not have to make the same decision as those in your upper income class.

If you look at the members of current administration (or any adminstration), many of them do not have relatives in the military. Making the decision to go to war is certainly easier if you don't have a family member in the military. Instead of taxation without representation, it's military confrontation without representation. That's why folks like Charles Rangel advocate equal military responsibility to force politicians to think of their position on war.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, and how do I know that journal (in perfect english) isn't propaganda?

I'm having real troble convincing myself.

Re:bin laden..

[William Baric]

Obviously we don't have the same source of information (or one of us is partial).

Most of the Shi'ite leaders in Iraq have said that they do not want a theocracy dominated Islamic Republic like the one in Iran.

And we all know that someone who wants to get elected always tell exactly what he thinks. 15 years ago the Iraqi people would have been able to know that. They were the most educated people of the region. But after so many years of sanctions, I'm pretty sure a lot of them will listen to the most demagogic leader.

And if the minority who wants an fundamentalist state do not get elected, they will blame the US for it. They will say the election was a sham and it will end up with a civil war or, at least, with terrorist attacks for several years. Which means US troops will have to stay, which means more hatred towards Americans.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

One big reason is that the South was traditionally the base of both the Democratic Party and the Military. When the Demos went with McGovern in 72, they started losing both.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Point is: Stop talking about morals when you've got none yourself. Who put Saddam in power again? And now you're celebrating his removal from power as some kind of heroic act?

Hello? Are you really that dumb?

And by the way: Would it help you if I created an account with some random name (say "Max Power") and used it for all future replies? Since you seem to think that filling out an online form adds to one's credibility.

Re:bin laden..

[eforhan]

"Well, the fighting seems to be mostly carried out my the Feyadeen militia. They operated strictly inside Iraq before the war. So the people who are killing americans (and others) in Iraq seem to be people who did NOT kill any americans outside Iraq before the war."

They were too busy killing Iraqis under Hussein's orders.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

He was born 14BC~5AD. It's not really known (or important).

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

Wow, I need a nap after that one. Why can't we mod as 'spam'? That's the most propaganda in one post I've ever seen....maybe he should run for president of the US; he apparently has better ideas on world policy.

Re:bin laden..

[Catskul]

The 1991 gulf war was never legally declared over. Only a ceasfire was declared. On those grounds the war would not be considered illegal. That is why no one has said anything while the US, (including under Clinton) and UK have, for the past 12 years leading up to this second conflict, intermittantly bombed Iraq's air defense systems.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

sig:
The American government is officially totalitarian
This is not a nightmare
It really is this bad

Do you even *know* what a totalitarian government is? I mean, I know hyperbole when talking about politics is common, but do you seriously believe this?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't support the U.S. action, but all of them agreed that Saddam was not fully cooperating with the U.N. resoutions. He was ordered to account for his WMD (or what happened to them), and EVERYONE agreed that he hadn't. Even Blix. He had WMD (everyone agrees), he didn't account for them (everyone agrees), the only sensible conclusion is that he still had them.

The fact that they didn't support their own threat of "severe consequences" for non-complaince only shows how corrupt they are.

Re:bin laden..

[rende]

The War is illegal because it was never declared. The war is not illegal. The President no longer has to declare war to attack a sovereign state its called the war powers act which was passed in 1973. The war powers act has superceded the antiquated notion of 'declaring war'. It gives Congress the right to give the President (who I will also remind you is Commander-in-Chief), the right to use the military forces, which by law he commands, to invade and attack a foreign nation. The reason behind the war powers act was twofold. One, it declares our intent to use force without actually demanding action as the old way of declaring war did. The hope was that this would be enough to scare the foreign nation into backing down and give us what we want without the lose of lives. Two, it allows the use of force at anytime once Congress gives the President the right to use force. This allows for more tactical strategies to be used in a war. Instead of the country under attack being prepared and knowing more or less when the first strike will be coming (as in the old system), it gives us a much larger window to attack. Again, this gives us an upper hand, but also helps to minizmize the loss of lives. (Think Normandy beach.) In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time 1991. Wrong again. The United States never declared war with Iraq in its entire history. In fact, the last time the United States declared war was World War II. The war powers act was used in the Vietnam war, the Korean war, and the Persian Gulf wars. As far as legality under our country's constitution, this war is just as legal as the rest of the wars in or history have been. Since then we've bombed a soverign state for shits and giggles, but haven't really declared war. I wouldn't really call it shits and giggles. The bottom line is, while no weapons of mass destruction were found in ready yo use form, the reasearch and facilities for making these weapons was obvious. Given time to continue these pursuits, Saddam would have unquestionably had weapons of mass destruction at his disposal. But he didn't have them now you say? Welcome to current foreign policy. The neew theme to our countries foreign policy is based as a direct result of Vietnam. We are no longer going to wait until a country develops its weapons and mechanics of war to a point where we can no longer stop them easily if they become a threat to us or our allies in surrounding nations. Again, you can rant and rave as much as you want about the motivation behind Bush's reason for invading, but the bottom line is, we are trying to stop a threat that could potentially cause the loss of lives equaling or exceeding that of Vietnam if let to grow and fester. Our new foreign policy now is to squelch these threats now before they become to big too handle.

Re:bin laden..

[EinarH]

Yes a cease fire. Resolution 687 for those that wants to read it.

Yeah, and read the last section; and I quote:

34. Decides to remain seized of the matter and to take such further steps as may be required for the implementation of the present resolution and to secure peace and security in the area.

That means that no part in the conflict can act to enforce the further enforcement of the cease fire. In other words, USA can not attack Iraq even if Iraq violates the resolution.

So _that_ is why you tried to get UN approval for an invation. That failed; but USA attacked anyway.
Clearly an illegal war.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, all it takes to make nerve gas is isopropyl alcohol (humanitarian hospital supplies and a basic industrial compound) and pesticide (humanitarian agricultural supplies for the starving people). You don't even have to combine your components until the weapon is actually in flight. (It's called a "binary" chemical weapon, and people invented them precisely so that you wouldn't have to have dangerous nerve gas sitting around in row and row of shells.)

http://www.iraqwatch.org/wmd/chemical.html

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm....field research!?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I know nothing, but I will explain everything to you, now let's play star spangled banner and have a big mac.

Re:bin laden..

[blair1q]

>It's not irrelevent to the people of Iraq. Try to explain to a widow of a Saddam victim that the war is illegal.

That's illogical.

Try to explain to Saddam that his mass graves were illegal.

See? He'll never believe it either. But it is.

That's why there's an impartial system of courts; to sort out law from emotion.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

Breaking protocol? That's a new one in the same sentence as Saddam.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Name a country that has saved more lives. You don't even have to count the technological progress that came out of the U.S., such as the Polio vaccine.

You could say that Stalin saved a few million lives in Western Europe, but then again he killed many more millions in Central and Eastern Europe.

So who are your life-saving countries? Which people were saved?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

He got killed 'over there' because every Islamic thug we kill 'over there' is one less Islamic thug who can eventually try his luck at killing civilians 'over here'

I see, in others words you're a racist, right?
Because, let's face it, you're basically saying that they're all the same and we should kill them all for their POSSIBLE future crimes.
Possible like in you could possibly kill your wife or friends, couldn't you, you have at your disposion every tool needed to do so and you never know how your mental health will be tomorrow.
Now, do you think we should arrest you right away because POSSIBLY you could harm other US citizens?

Re:bin laden..

[love2hateMS]

The war is not illegal. Congress voted overwhelmingly to give the President the authority to attack Iraq. When some moronic congressman took the matter to the Supreme Court using the same argument you have made, the Supreme Court RULED (I believe seven to two) that the war was legal.

Futher, if Saddam violated the terms of the cease-fire in Gulf War I, which he did for over a decade, then we are still at war.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

HA! excellent! funny! great that you got insightful mod too, but I just about fell out my chair laughing! you r0x0rs!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a country that saved more lives....um....let me think......actually you are right.

Re:bin laden..

[Stray7Xi]

Except you don't mention is a single barrel is enough to kill every person on this planet .. a single barrel that doesn't need food, water, or air.. or in other words can be buried. Look at how long it took to find Saddam Hussein... if there's only a single barrel, I think it's safe to say it may never be found.

I don't believe they were an imminent threat, however I think it's pretty conclusive that Iraq had a CBW development program.

As far as infrastructure... they found the infrastructure..

Chemical Warheads:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy n?pagename= article&node=&contentId=A15557-2003Jan19&notFound= true

Live Botulism:
Kay report, http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/2003 1002-1830-kay-text.html

Mobile Labs:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/14/s prj.irq .labs/

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

No cause you say. As Austin Powers would say: Riiiigght.

Re:bin laden..

[love2hateMS]

Iraq had the third largest standing army in 1991, not the fifteenth. Try reading history before commenting on it.

Re:bin laden..

[mizhi]

You know, for someone getting all huffy about facts and "stupid wars" you sure shot yourself in the foot by asserting, multiple times, that the attack was 7-11 and not 9-11.

Re:bin laden..

[Valar]

Field research? With a truck full of microscopes, hazardous materials isolation equipment, and clean room conditions? If anything dangerous enough to warrant that exists in 'the field' under normal conditions, we have a lot more pressing concerns than Saddam.

Re:bin laden..

[chunkwhite86]

You are a fool and a bigot. The vast majority of Moslems have no truck with terrorism. In all my years reading Slashdot, I have never seen the sobriquet "Anonymous Coward" more aptly applied.

Yes, There are non-terrorist, non-violent muslims in the world.

But Islam, as a religion, has a huge percentage of it's practitioners who are members of known terrorist organizations - an order of magnitude higher than any other organized religion. Just as a small example, have a look at the list of known terrorist organizations - it is a long list, composed primarily of islamic militant groups.

Question: Hypothetically speaking, if 90% of all practicing Muslims were members of known terrorist organizations, would you still assert that "There are some extremists out there, but Islam is an inherently peaceful religion!". No, you wouldn't, because you'd look like a fool. In that case, there are more violent extremists than peaceful members, making the peaceful members the minority fringe.

A person or group is a product of what they do, not what they claim to be.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I rember a whole lot of AMERICANS dying just over two years ago in New York. Do you?

Re:bin laden..

[Morosoph]

Then try to explain why those allowed by the US to help rebuild Iraq are so few.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Again: It is pointless to talk about how many lives you saved when you were responsible for creating the threat (Saddam) in the first place. (Don't get me started about how some people you know very well financed Hitler...)

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

lol!

Yeah, actual quotes of Bush telling the UN that he wants to use force to remove Iraq's WMDs is "weak proof" that Bush said that he wanted to attack Iraq because it had WMD.

At least you're a funny troll : )

Re:bin laden..

[Talence]

Yes, but the thing that many people hold against US policy is that the US supported this terrible person in the past, even after his ethics were more than clear. It's more a matter of cleaning up the mess that western countries left behind than behind. While we can rightfully be very glad that this mess is in the process of being cleaned up, let us not forget our own roles in that mess.

Look here for some links...

More or less the same of course applies to That Other Guy who was also well supported by the West when his agenda appeared beneficial.

Re:bin laden..

[JohnwheeleR]

Personally I just think it's damn dangerous to go in and topple countries and hope you can control where the pieces fall at the end of the day.

We conquered Iraq. That's what happened. It has happened all throughout history, and the results are usually a win for one side and a loss for another. simple.

I am a US citizen, and I am happy to be on the winning side. I like George W. Bush. I think he is an excellent leader. He stood up for this country during 9/11, and he is still standing up for us. People whine about the US being too powerful, fat, greedy, lazy, overworked, whatever... Well, how many times do you see us whining about people in Belgium, France, and the other shitfuck countries that didn't want to help us when we needed them. We don't whine about their people. We don't say they deserve it when bad things happen to them.

Re:bin laden..

[Valar]

1)It is spelled 'actual.' Saddam claimed he didn't have weapons of mass destruction in 1990, but then he started lobbing SCUDs at anyone he could reach. Why should we believe him now? Also, why refuse UN inspections if you have nothing to hide. The rules are (under UN orders) that he couldn't even have those kinds of facilities (and that he had to comply with inspections). Actual weapons or not, he was still disobeying several UN resolutions.

2) I said there were no materials present. That could either mean that they weren't active yet, or that they had been wiped clean. It is notoriously difficult to wipe such a lab clean, so my guess is the first. Does that really make the situation any better?

Re:bin laden..

[TheLinuxSRC]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - At least 3,240 civilians died across Iraq during a month of war, including 1,896 in Baghdad, according to a five-week Associated Press investigation.

And if you do the math, Saddam Hussein killed roughly twice that per month during his ~25 year tenure as leader. 2,000,000 Iraqis killed by Hussein over 25 years is appx 6700 innocent civilians per month. Kinda puts a new outlook on the losses, no?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck the technological progress. You know very well that Germany was ahead of you there before WW2 and that even today many of the scientists working in the US come from Europe. Just take a look at the Nobel Prize listings.

You know who made it possible that you were allowed to jerk off on your TV screen while watching the moon landing, right?

Re:bin laden..

[Talence]

Yes, many of those are the ones who rose up against him believing that the US would support them. Unfortunately for them, Mr. Bush senior decided it was better to leave Saddam in place.

There are a few more sides to this story.... it's great that Saddam is caught, but the reality is not black/white.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to news outlets like al-terroristo (I can't spell al-jevera) and CNN, they wouldn't be calling it occupation. Did the US occupy france in WW2? Did the US occupy most of Europe during WW2? The answer is no, we liberated them, my grandfather was wounded in France trying to help the French. Now, the French who were helping Saddam up until the war started, turned against us. I say we bomb France next, then they will know what "occupy" really means. Asshats.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is too forgiving to say "the war was sold on uncertainty, which absolutely positively did exist." The fact that there was wide spread opposition suggests there was another way to look at the situation.

With any suffiently complex subject (such as life) there are many ways to present "the facts". When you choose to highlight some "facts" (e.g. "UN did not oppose it") instead of others (e.g. "there was widespread opposition") you contribute to painting a picture of reality. Sometimes that picture contains more or less truth, but underlying it there is almost always an intention.

What is your intention?

Re:bin laden..

[Kaboom13]

Research is being done on Cancer, much of it government funded, and treatmentis often subsidized by government programs for those who can't afford it. At the end of the day however, cancer deaths are something we cant stop. Automobile accidents etc. and all the other accidental of medical deaths we can't do much about that isnt being done. The WTC deaths were pointless deaths. They werent deaths by accident, or deaths for a cause, they were just deaths caused by a pointless act of violence that can only lead to more death and pain. Thats the problem with terrorism, it never achieves the terrorists goals, it just makes things worse.

Re:bin laden..

[anagama]

If only I had mod points, you deserve them. It's refreshing to hear a voice of reason amoung all the "chest thumping" as you say.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's justified.

Re:bin laden..

[bedessen]

I think that widow would ask you why the US had supported Saddam for decades while he went on these barbaric killing sprees. She would ask you why the US government provided guns, weapons, money, and direct support to Saddam while he was committing all of these atrocities. The notion that the US government is somehow appauled by his actions is ludicrous. If that were the case, why has Saddam had US support for the whole time until recently?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The French NEVER bypassed the sanctions (or not more than the US, actually).
Everybody was aware the Iraqi people never got the medecine, but this didn't prevent the US to be the biggest "buyer" (legally and illegally) of Iraqi oil.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, im glad your suck ass contry is going poor, even if Bush does it. 0wned.

Re:bin laden..

[Talence]

Even if the US nuked Iraq, they'd be better off than living under Saddam... as has been said elsewhere too: gratitude for removal of Saddam still won't mean they enjoy a foreign force in their country, i.e. the enemy of one's enemy is not always one's friend.

Re:bin laden..

[cstangle]

I really hate to say this, but the American media has an incredible habit of, ah, forgetting about relevant issues and facts. Osama Bin Laden seems to have completely dropped off of the map. Even the fact that the US had a budget surplus during the Clinton administration is almost unheard of in the midst of all of the hype surrounding the "War on Terror". In case nobody remembers, we trained these people to fight.
This probably explains why polls have shown that some 50-60% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9-11 attacks
Please do not mod this as flamebait, as it is not intended as such
This may be inflammatory, but it's worth looking at just to get a fresh perspective

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

Give me a BREAK people.
Who said it's black and white? Who said mistakes weren't made along the way? Who said it wasn't PERFECT??
I could say the exact same thing to you. So what? It's not black and white.
Being redundent ...
There is still a lot that needs to be done. But, that shouldn't take away from the tremendous victory of the Iraqis and the Americans here.
Some people are perpetually negative. This is a great moment for these people. Relish in it. Stop looking for something to whine about ... please!

Congratulations Iraq! Congratulations US coalition!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect?

Re:bin laden..

[timiscool999]

Dear Mr. Ashcroft,

Now that we've captured Saddam, may I please have my rights back? I promise to use them responsibly and to never support terrorism (just like I did before 9/11).

Re:bin laden..

[NickFitz]

It's Muslims. Not Moslems.

Both spellings are acceptable.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

speak for yourself.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

America need to tell their overseas brethren to stop trying to build theocracies; that only under a separation of church and state can they be truly free to practice their religion.

Yeah. Liberate the Vatican!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ma'am, your husband died doing what he volunteered to do. He got killed 'over there' because every Islamic thug we kill 'over there' is one less Islamic thug who can eventually try his luck at killing civilians 'over here', but sometimes the Islamic thugs get lucky 'over there' too. War is hell."

"Unfortunately, for every thug we kill, we kill a few innocent non-thugs. For every non-thug we kill we make a dozen new enemies who become thugs. The thugs attack civilian targets killing more innocents. The relatives of the dead know the attack wouldn't have happened if Iraq we're an occupied country, so for every innocent the thugs kill, they make a dozen more thugs. This war will likely turn a secular dictatorship into a more dangerous religious extremist dictatorship. Eventually the terrorists we are creating over there will bring the war to our own soil."

"Your husband died bravely doing his duty to his country. Unfortunately his duty was dictated by a Commander-in-Chief, who, when it was his time, dodged his duty to his country. He was unwilling to put his own life on the line, but he believes he has been chosen by God to wage a holy war, much as Osama bin-Laden believes he have been called upon to do the same. It's a war that won't have any winners in the long run. It's a war that will increase the hatred of the U.S. in the islamic world. Unfortunately your husband won't be the last to make the ultimate sacrifice in this misguided war."

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU mispelled mispelled!

Re:bin laden..

[Xua]

I don't agree when someone who fights for freedom lies to the whole world about their motivation. That's my main protest to this war. The biggest reason that Bush and his command used to start this war that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that threatened US. UN inspections didn't find anything but they started the war anyway.

Now they claim that Saddam's regime was evil anyway (here I agree with them), so the war was justified. But think of it, in future they can say that any country that they chose has weapons of mass destruction whatever anyone else thinks and use this as justification for invading this country. Nice war for freedom, don't you think?

Re:bin laden..

[yellowjacket03]

You don't remember Secretary Powell's presentation to the UN? He had satellite pictures of the "labs" and "stores" that they used to make and store the weapons. He even had a little vial of "anthrax". With "irrefutable" evidence like that, how could you not invade.

Re:bin laden..

[dankdirk77]

Oh excuse me, what country are you from? Whatever your answer is it will suck compared to America. "Because with GDP, size does matter".

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Now le me get this straight. You're saying that there are Arabs in airports that aren't terrorists?

Re:bin laden..

[Talence]

You are being black & white again. Like I said: it's *great* that he's caught now, but let us not forget that western countries (and NOT just the US) had supported him along the way in one way or another.

I'm very glad for this chapter being closed, but I am also sad for the role that my country/economy/etc had (indirectly) played in creating the situation. What is "Saddam" in the end..? An old deranged man, the type of which can probably be found in many mental institutions.

I think you're overreacting a bit with your condescending "perpetually negative" and "whining" remarks or at least reacting to someone else than myself. I don't see why being glad about one thing means I need to close my eyes to another. I think it would be really great if in the future, there would be no need to celebrate "victories" over brutal dictators... for the simple reason that I wish for such dictatorships to never exist.

Re:bin laden..

[Perl-Pusher]

Real freedom means an Arab can walk into an airport and not be looked at as a terrorist.

I weep crocodile tears for you! If arabs were the peace loving followers of Islam you claim to be, and no arabs were ever involved in 9/11, khobar towers, USS Cole etc. Then you would have a gripe. But when 9/11 happened where was the outrage from the muslim world? I saw the celebrations! American muslims were more worried about possible backlash than condemning the attacks. John Allen Mohammed and his son went on a killing spree for allah. The court records here in Virginia show the drawings praising allah and pictures of infidels dying drawn by his accomplice. But the politically correct press here doesn't want to upset the peace loving muslims. So they don't delve into that too deeply. I've been to the Middle East too many times, and I've seen the racism and corruption. I've seen indentured servants from poor countries like Bangladesh beaten in Saudi Arabia by their masters. So forgive me if I don't turn my back so you can shove a knife in it. You don't like America? Don' come here! If you are here leave!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam got caught because he followed the Hitler model, Have a big powerful nation, wage war, get bombed and invaded, and in the end, hide in a bunker, but not fearing the Russians, Saddam just gave up. Bin Laden, too smart for that, wages war without a big powerful nation, skips the getting bombed and invaded (no one knows where he is, no country where he is supposed to be) and is still free somewhere. Japan in WWII got bombed big-time, and so Osama just figured he'd skip that, and attack the USA, and others from nowhere. We dropped bombs in the mountains in Afghanistan, blew up somebody, I guess, (various Taliban), but apparently not OBL!. Saddam had a need for big palaces, lotsa money, etc., that Osama does without. We'll eventually find Osama, with the help of the Paks, but when, no one knows. Saddam didn't read or understand modern history, apparently, only ancient history, and he tried to model himself after ancient kings, long gone thousands of years ago. Osama probably got an "A" in history, and understood the subject better than we would have liked him to.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Rank 3 falls in the top 15. Try reading my post before commenting on it.

Re:bin laden..

[chunkwhite86]

Did the Russian Revolution end with the capture of the Tzar? The administration sees everything through the lens of their own preconceptions. They thought that the invasion would be greated with flowers from grateful Iraqis. They thought that it would be a cake walk. They even held the victory parade and declared 'Mission Accomplished' with Saddam still on the loose.

On the contrary, It is the liberal extremists who see everything through the lens of their own preconceptions.

Your logic is severely flawed. By your train of thoughts here, shouldn't we retire all our police officers? Why bother arresting the rapists and murderers when there are a bunch of would-be criminals waiting to take their place and will commit the same crimes? How dare you cast a shadow over this monumentous occation?

Re:bin laden..

[Richard Allen]

I'm glad that we can agree on that.
I was reacting to many posts by the way - not just yours.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Chicken]

And since when does cut and paste:

• substitute numbers
• swallow every 'n' in the word 'known'
• turn "weapons of mass destruction" into "massive destruction weapon" ?

Though the last one could be a solution the the problem alltogether :)

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it help you if I created an account with some random name (say "Max Power") and used it for all future replies?

It would. You will build reputation and personality on /. It is better than anonymous coward. For example, nobody can prove that I am not you. I don't have an account because I fear I will spend far too much time. But sometimes I wish I did because when I post nobody takes me seriously.

Re:bin laden..

[geekoid]

"When you've been in possession of a country for months at a time and you've had thousands of people to search it with the co-operation of most of the people in that country, how hard should it be to find anything?"

According to UN inspectors, pretty hard.

Imagine you had years and, for practical reasons, unlimitad money to hid something in California.
How long would it take to find it, while being shot at?

I'm not saying they exist, I'm just pointing that your reasoning is also flawed.

"That, and by all reports and estimates of Saddam's state of mind he'd have used those weapons if he'd had them when we marched on Baghdad."
there is a lot of assumption there.

Re:bin laden..

[mijok]

The War is illegal because it was never declared. In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991. Since then we've bombed a soverign state for shits and giggles, but haven't really declared war. War has fairly cristiline properties in international law.

You're wrong. Yes, the war was illegal but not because of the reason you give. International law is complicated but as far as war is concerned it's very simple:
1. War is illegal except in two cases:
2. It's legal as defense against an immediate attack.
3. It's legal if it has a UN mandate.

Thus the war was illegal but declaring or not declaring it has nothing to do with that.

Re:bin laden..

[haxor.dk]

You dont get it , do you ? Saddam is caught, the Iraqis have freedoms they havent even had the freedom to TALk about for 20 years (and dancing in the strees today), they're getting better living standards every fucking day, and you and you moronic peers keep talking about shitty oil ?

There can be no doubt. You hate freedom. You hate life. You love dictators and murders. If there was a hell, I'd sincerily wish you go there.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be a start. But, you need a lot more help.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Salk's parents were Russian Jews, but he was able to develop the Polio Vaccine in America. Von Braun was German, but was only able to realize his ambitions to go to the moon in America.

You are proving my point even more - despite the raw genetic talent that is present all over the world, these geniouses aren't able to get anything done until they come to America.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

So? Fuck reputation. Focus on what's being said instead of who says it, non?

Re:bin laden..

[Chainsaw Messiah]

go read the telegraph.co.uk story about hussain support of al qaida - will you call it a vast right-wing conspiracy if it proves to be true?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You're retarded. 7-11 was supposed to be a joke. Get it?- 7-11: it's a convenience store. Convenience stores are run by dark guys in turbans.

nigger.

Re:bin laden..

[jd_esguerra]

You always say your country is free but how free is it?

Free enough that if I walk down the steet, I won't be shot/beaten/stabbed as an infidel or enemy of society. Sure, people can call me what ever they want and say what they want to say, but that's their right in a free country.

This will lead to more killings world wide and eventually to another major attack against your country, when you least expect it.

I believe this is true. But consider this: As attacks grow in number and severity, the attackers will have more than just the military to deal with. You rant and rave about the US government and corporations being evil-- and they may be. But attacks on the US people (not government targets) does more and more to promote vigilantism and fuel a "private" war. Sometimes (more often these days) the US leadership disgusts me. But don't think *I* won't go out of my way to guarantee the safety and integrity of the things that I do love about my country (namely, the people). The US government is not my shield from your hatred. I do not expect anything of them other than to be left alone. If it ever comes time to fight for my country's people, and my own "freedom," I do not expect the government to mobilize to persue my interests. That's my job. And I'll do it my way.

Re:bin laden..

[tho 1234]

"When you have a government that gasses and kills its own people, then the government isn't doing its job and must be removed."

I find it really strange that conservatives are using this line of reasoning. I always thought spending huge amounts of money humanitarian purposes/foreign aid was a liberal policy. I wonder if the US, if they are acting on principle as they now claim, are going to be consistant and plan on "liberating" Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, DR congo, North Korea, and probably dozens of other countries which the media completely ignores

And funny how you write off soldiers lives as "part of their jobs they signed up for" while you sit at home typing safely away at your computer. These are people who put their lives on the line because they a) love their country so much or b)it is their only hope for an education/better future. It makes me sick that you belive it is their duty to sacrifice their lives to protect "your life and your well being" while you do nothing in return.

Funny how armchair war supporters like you call yourselves patriotic while anyone who questions the governemnt and tries to bring up debate on whether their sacrifice is going to a worthwhile cause is automatically labled a traitor.

Re:bin laden..

[localman]

Sure, I'm happy that this screwy dictator was caught. Saddam is a bad man, and I don't think anyone here thinks otherwise.

Now here's why I'm unhappy: many Americans will see this as a "victory" and be more likely to support war in the future. Unfortunately the world is not a safer place (according to our own intelligence), and we just invaded a nation under false pretenses.

Now, if the US had made the case that Saddam needed to be removed it would be a different story. But as it is, we were lied to by our leaders about why this war was being started. That is not good no matter how it is whitewashed now.

It is a series of small steps like this lead to the downfall of great nations. Just look at history to see what happened to all of the countries that started becoming outwardly aggressive for their own "security".

Now, tell my what you're so happy about.

Cheers.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, von Braun managed to construct an impressive weapon and killed quite a few Brits when they were just staring at the skies thinking "WTF?!" - is that nothing?

What was the moon landing good for except "beating" the russians? (And anyway, don't fool yourselves into thinking that the Germans wouldn't have attempted a space mission sooner or later had they won the war)

Re:bin laden..

[Holi]

Actaully in 1973 Congress passed the War Powers Act, which in short allows the president to send in troops where he see's fit with out the approval of congress.

It's just a little bit of history I thought you should know.

Re:bin laden..

[m3rr]

Real freedom means an Arab can walk into an airport and not be looked at as a terrorist.

Discrimination is something we're all going to have to get used to. This "real freedom" you are ranting about is ridiculous in my opinion. "Perfect freedom" cannot be allowed and there are somethings that people will just have to accept along with a "relative freedom."

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact: 7-11 is a convenience store.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

I don't known what you mean.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? Laws are an administrative convenience for the maintenance of social order, not something sacred.
I live in prosperity because of the same Empire that gave you your precious personal computer from which you post. It is in the interest of that Empire and of Civilisation generally to smash and remake tribalist Islamic societies in our image. Global war would be a reasonable price to pay if need be.

Re:bin laden..

[MrMr]

It was a joke.
You cross '70% of statistics are made up' with 'the other side are evil and stupid' propaganda and add some familiar names from the news.
I quite liked the result.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

I'm sorry, I'm gonna hit my head at the wall, ok?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

keep telling yourself that...

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

and nobody did anything about it how much? about 15 years? while Iraq was an ally, right?

Re:bin laden..

[NanoGator]

"millions??? you mean those who died because of the sanctions, set under US pressure, right? "

Considering who was in charge in Iraq, and what he was doing with his power, I find it difficult to blame the US for that. Cause, then effect.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, von Braun made the V2. That program was tiny in comparison to the moon program.

What was the moon landing good for? Who knows. I'm just mentioning Von Braun because the earlier poster brought him (and the Apollo program) up as not being American.

American medical, agricultural and safety technology has saved millions of lives. Add in our elimination of Imperial Japan, Stalinist U.S.S.R., Socialist Germany, and now Baathist Iraq and you get a pretty huge number of lives saved. Probably hundreds of millions.

Now, what other country can you say has done more for humanity?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

your karma speaks for your inteligence

Re:bin laden..

[Rick.C]

Everyone knows that Hussein's bedpal is none other than Satan! (Think Southpark)

That was so two-years-ago.

Weekly World News (that oh-so-factual tabloid) featured Saddam and Osama on the cover a while back (with Sadam in a tux and Osama in a bridal gown) and they looked like they were definitely in L-U-V!

I get all the news I need at the supermarket checkout (with apologies to Paul Simon).

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi, like most of the 7-11 attack terrorists.

Ah yes, from the lesser known Jyhad against convenience stores...

Those big-gulp hating bastards!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it isn't.

Re:bin laden..

[bolix]

"Celebrating" in the streets?

You see more Iraqis celebrating when the Al Qaeda backed militia kill US forces.

This is a dirty war. An attempt by George Bush to gain some cheap victory in the face of his inability to capture Osama. All he did was open another front.

Saddam was absolutely irrelevant.

Re:bin laden..

[Tonytheloony]

How does a post with NO evidence whatsoever get modded so high? Fine you hate the french, that's great, but keep it to yourself ok?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you argue with that? they are THANKING us for helping them get freedom.

Actually, you're not in Iraq. Neither am I nor most other /. readers.

So I hate to be pedantic, but they're thanking THE PEOPLE THAT ARE ACTUALLY OVER THERE, not 'us'. You and I didn't do shit.

Thanks :)

Re:bin laden..

[jeremyp]

Socialist Germany???

I don't think you can be as simplistic about this whole thing as you are. For instance, the USA would have done nothing about Nazi Germany if my country hadn't held out long enough for you to have a base to launch your invasion from.

Come to think of it, your country wouldn't exist as a separate entity if my county hadn't buggered up its handling of the War of Independence.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

What "lies"?? You (and most liberals) didn't listen to Bush's speach very well. He said that "According to British intelligence", and "our best intelligence". He did not say we are 100% absolutly sure. Besides, we haven't found them yet, so, how can YOU say they do not exist.

The Clinton Admin knew they existed and the inspectors knew it in 1998, when they were kicked out. Do you think that Saddam just said, "ok, now that no one is watching us, we should get rid of our weapons"?? I don't think so.

The difference between the US and its allies having WMD and countries like Iraq, Iran and Korea having them, is that Iran, Korea and the old Iraq don't care who they sell them to (including terrorists, etc).

Even though Iraq hasn't stablized yet, more people have electricity and running water, than did before the start of the war. They also have more schools and better education, than before the war. Plus we now have Saddam, who tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of his own people.

I have personally talked to a number of US soldiers that have come back from Iraq for R&R. They all say it is worth being over there.

But, I guess, what do I know...

Re:bin laden..

[Transcendent]

I find it really strange that conservatives are using this line of reasoning.

Don't start spewing political crap. You put people in too broad of catagories. Fix that.

And funny how you write off soldiers lives as "part of their jobs they signed up for" while you sit at home typing safely away at your computer. These are people who put their lives on the line because they a) love their country so much or b)it is their only hope for an education/better future. It makes me sick that you belive it is their duty to sacrifice their lives to protect "your life and your well being" while you do nothing in return.

Not at all. First, I didn't sign up for that job... they did and it was their choice. I thought about it, but decided against it so I could get a CE and EE degree.

Second, your logic suggests that the entire population should sign up for the military or they shouldn't have any rights that their government defends. That's complete bull. That's not how a government/economy/society operates.

No, it's not their duty to sacrifice their lives. It's their duty to defend their lives and the lives of others achieve achieve their goal. You're little twists on wording need improvement.

What do I do in return? I pay my taxes, I contribute to the economy, I support our government, I back them whole hartedly (I have a buddy in the marines coming home soon... and no, he didn't need the money to go to college. On that note, there are always other alternatives to signing up in the military to get money for college). Everybody has their own role in this nation, this economy, and the entire world's civilization... and they all differ greatly...

//after thought.

You start your comments by stating that the US is hypocritical if they don't go to war with all the other countries.... but you finish with mocking war supporters (in which case, I never said I supported the war... I just gave logical statements to clarify the roles of the military and governments)... make up your mind.

Re:bin laden..

[jeremyp]

Actually, the V2, being supersonic, gave no warning whatever of impending doom. If you knew about it, you had survived.

Infact, it was arguable that by diverting lots of resources to the V2 effort, that could otherwise have been used for tanks etc, the V2 programme saved allied lives on the whole.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, "just as I did before 9/11".

Re:bin laden..

[dandelion_wine]

I remember the dancing in the streets. First thought: where are the women? Where are the old people?

You can get a crowd of young men to dance in front of any western camera and smile and wave and cheer, people. (and that's not considering the stock-supplied crowds at most political events in the west -- of course, the army would never set up a press event that didn't reflect the whole truth.)

Seriously, you think what you see on CNN is what is going on? Why is this the first war with no bodies? (do you remember seeing any? so clean!) After 9/11, why weren't Bin Laden's tapes, where he talks about Palestine, not aired? (don't want to think 9/11 could be retribution for anything. He's just a madman!)

So what do we get from Iraq? Young men dancing in the street. And yes, later, interviews with old people, women. Selected, can there be any doubt? You know, you've seen, the degree to which dissent has been tolerated by this administration. So WHY do you persist in thinking that you're getting the whole picture from army-cleared reports thousands of miles away???

The only thing worse are these recent "anti-war" protests that aren't anti-war protests at all. They are "Americans are dying" protests. They are half the reason why Bush and co. would rather bomb villages into the ground before sending troops in -- even if it means far more deaths -- but not American deaths, oh no. And this is what I'd like the administration to admit, since it is so obvious in its every decision (and in the arguments of many Americans, too):

We know you don't value an American life as equal to a foreign one, military, civilian, woman, man or child. Make a good master's thesis -- based on decisions where there's a tremendous net loss of (non-American) life, what is the ratio?

10 to 1?
100 to 1?
1000 to 1?

Does it matter if they look like us, sound like us, have a similar religion?

The rules of war governing the protection of civilians can't mean much to a country that views foreign civilians as little more than ants. "Collateral damage" -- what can those words mean to someone who's own territory has not suffered an invasion?

America: you are right to be paranoid. The rest of the world does want your ass, but you're not making it better.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

Ah yes, from the lesser known Jyhad card game.

Isn't it funny when OTHERS make the typos?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Nazi is an overplayed word. I thought I'd drop the "National" part of it.

I give Britain a lot of credit too. America was tremendously influenced by Britain. We owe a lot to British culture, and the role of the U.K in WW2 is hard to over estimate. Australia and NZ also.

But could you say that Britain has saved more lives in the world than the U.S.?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I belive that most of the German super weapon programs killed more Germans than Allies. V2, Me-163, "Natter", etc.

The V1 was most sucessful, but it was mostly obsolete as soon as the Allies figured out how to tip them over.

Re:bin laden..

[Archie Steel]

I think the Fox-bashing will stop when they stop being a conservative propaganda machine. Although then, the conservatives would bash it for being liberal, so it would continue.

The question is, if the conservative viewpoint is what's considered "fair and balanced", why do they need to resort to disinformation through biased selection of news items and stack their discussion panels so far to the right?

As for Saddam, is capture is welcome but pretty much irrelevant. The US business interests have one, there'll be plenty of cheap oil (the cheapest oil in the world) for U.S. companies and plenty of reconstruction contracts for U.S. firms and those of their allies. The war was never about Saddam's oppression of his people in the first place - otherwise it would have happened long ago, and the U.S. wouldn't have been supporting him with weapons and biological agents for so many years.

This was a private war for Bush's electoral buddies, it just happened to serve a good cause, to right a wrong to which Washington contributed.

If only the U.S. defended democracy in as many countries as those where it contributed to its repression, then perhaps we could see a positive impact to american foreign policy. As it happens, there is quite a democracy deficit in that regard.

Re:bin laden..

[LMariachi]

Plenty of Wehrmacht soldiers died in the service of their country too. Remember that "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" is a lie. An honorable man's death does not elevate a dishonorable cause.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point. If the US trains someone who ultimately becomes a turncoat, we have more of a right to go after them. After all, in training someone, a mutual contract is agreed upon. When Bin Laden attacked the USS Cole and the US Embassy, he became a traitor.

Re:bin laden..

[Zeinfeld]

Actually, the split of the Russian Social-Democratic Party in the Majority (Bolshevik) and Minority (Menshevik) factions didn't take place until after the first Russian revolution.

Well for starters the Bolshevick faction was actually the minority faction, they just called themselves the majority.

The first revolution in 1905 failed, the split in the party was final in 1912, before the first world war started.

The Mensheviks believed that Russia was not yet ready for the Glorious Socialist Revolution, though that's not even why they first split. It was an argument over who should be allowed in the party.

It was an argument over whether the party should be a party of the people or a party of the elite who supported Lenin.

It was the masses who deposed the Tsar, Lenin then deposed the masses. Substitute the US for masses and that is probably what just happened in Iraq.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

bin laden claimed that attacks on the world trade center were actually self-defense, and therefore supported by islamic law.

Never mind Islamic law, that's practically the Bush Doctrine: The 9-11 attacks were a pre-emptive strike on international terrorism. They may have even had intelligence. You know, exactly the defense some administration spin doctor gives when the U.S. bombs an orphanage.

Though I'd agree with you if you said it's propaganda either way.

Re:bin laden..

[CrazyClimber]

I've been a little confused about this one--exactly *which* rights has the Attorney General taken from you?

Re:bin laden..

[TGK]

Mobile labs? You mean these mobile labs?

Sorry... no WMD there. Try again?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Look - the facts are pretty simple"

Yes they are, the US helped make Saddam strong in the 80s, turning a blind eye to the atrocities he comitted then. Shoddy foreign policy, leads to shoddy foreign policy, and both of you on each "side" are refusing to admit the SIMPLE FACTS that exist...

The US helped Saddam become a power in the reigion, then after Gulf War I, Saddam found ways to profit out off humanitarian efforts.

Ask yourself this... Would Saddam had been the power he was, had we and other foreign governments not backed his regime for our own political agendas in the years leading up to Gulf War I? Would we have had to lose one single American life in Iraq, had we not propped up that sick bastard? Oh, but you'll turn a blind eye to THOSE simple facts...

Shoddy foreign policy breeds shoddy foreign policy, and while you ninnies on each "side" of the argument accuse the other, the truth is, you're both to blame. Your "side" because it didn't speak up when our government was supporting the SOB in the 80s. Their "side" for refusing to see that he profited from the humanitarian aid.

So shoddy foreign policy led to an illegal war, which in itself is shoddy foreign policy. And the arab world? Hates us more than ever. Yeah, some victory. We got a bee(not even one that was responsible for stinging us), and the hive that attacked us in the first place is still free, and angrier at us than ever. Sorry ass situation endorsed by sorry ass people.

Re:bin laden..

[wondafucka]

I hate replying to ACs, but the whole point of pointing out what's wrong is to bring it into the discussion. If everyone is complacent with a problem it will never get dealt with.

As for not having the guts to get up and put it all on the line, how the hell does one "put it all on the line" I'm supposed to get off the couch and fight all the major media outlets, all the backwards social groups, all the corrupt corporations and the powerhungry military complex to boot? It's not like we can put on fatigues and start shooting at people. The only power this worker bee has is to "whine" about what is wrong, and try to make it an issue, so more than one person can focus it.

Re:bin laden..

[Chris Burke]

The risks were known, accepted and called upon. That American widow you spoke of knows that as well and should feel proud that she had the honor of intimately knowing someone who was willing to take the challenge of performing this task.

Damn straight. I hold only the deepest respect for soldiers. I feel only pride for my uncles, my cousin, my friends in the military. Someone who has the courage and dedication to give their lives for their country is precious.

Which is why look long and hard at the reasons for this war, and look long and hard at the result of the war and the people who are dying. The one thing that can mar the beauty of the soldier's courage is when that courage is abused and taken advantage of. So when my uncle, my cousin, my friends are sent overseas to fight and possibly die, I want to know that the people sending them there aren't wasting them. I want to know that their belief that they are fighting for their country is not being abused.

My uncle, a Vietnam vet, already knows that betrayal. I don't want my other uncles, my cousin, and my friends to find out the same thing. They have vowed to give their life for this country, and I respect that choice, but damned if it doesn't mean that Mr. Commander in Chief George W. Bush (or whoever he is) had better take good fucking care of them.

BTW...we ARE safer with Saddam out of the picture and no, I'm not Rush Limbaugh.

Whether we are going to be safer as a result of this war versus if we had never waged it at all remains to be seen. However we are certainly safer now that Saddam has been captured versus when he was on the run. My worst fear in this was a Saddam who was deposed and now had no reason not to use terrorism to regain power. I'm a little worried that it seems he wasn't leading any of the insurgency forces at all (meaning our soldiers will keep dying), but overall it is extremely good news.

Re:bin laden..

[TGK]

Except the UN hasn't been searching since we took the country. To paralell your statement.

Imagine I had, for practical reasons an unlimited amount of money to hide something in CA.

So it would take you X time to find it, while I'm still running CA and shooting at you.

After you've droped tons of high expolsives on on the citizens of California, ousted me from power (and elected an Austrian body builder?) and taken military possession of the state... how long would it take then? Probably a whole lot less time than X.

Re:bin laden..

[Temsi]

Why do you assume it must take less than X time to find evidence of WMD?
Oh, I don't know... perhaps because Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell said they knew for a fact Iraq had them, what kind, how many and in fact, where they were.
So forgive me if I seem a bit sceptical, when they can't back that up after looking for 8 months.
It doesn't make any difference "how big the desert is", if they say they know about them, and then can't find them or even trace evidence they were ever there, then either they were mistaken, or they lied.

That having been said.
I'm glad they caught the guy. I was against the invasion, and I still maintain it was the wrong thing to do. But they did, and since they did, this is a better outcome than not finding him.
The military is great, and deserves our support 100% (make sure you tell your representative you're dissappointed in Bush for cutting benefits for Veterans - Way to support our troops, George!). But the soldiers don't make the policies, they follow orders and do their jobs better than any other military on Earth. It's the policy makers that are inept and need to be replaced. Our troops never should have been there in the first place.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Patriot Act.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he didn't, but you did misspell "misspelled". Dumbass.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. That's concise. I wish I'd thought of that. Cheers!

--TGK

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

the USA would have done nothing about Nazi Germany if my country hadn't held out long enough for you to have a base

Well, actually, they had plans to launch Operation Torch directly from the US to Morocco rather than staging in Britain. Or then there was the B-15 project, a design for a bomber with over 8000 km range, capable of bombing Germany from US bases. The US had contingency plans that they luckily didn't need to implement.

Besides, you slight Britain's role by condemning them to being just "a base".

Come to think of it, your country wouldn't exist... if my county hadn't buggered up

Not to mention buggering up the politics before the war.

How could you just stand around in those bright red uniforms while the clever colonials hid behind trees, sniping on the roads in an attempt to get rid of the hated invaders? Wait, that sounds like Ir...

[This message has been terminated at the request of the Department of Homeland Security. Nothing to see here. Move along.]

Re:bin laden..

[Loadmaster]

I love how the anti-war people here just know that there are no WMD in Iraq anywhere. They also know that there were no terrorists planning attacks on America in Iraq at all. It amazes me how Iraq can be so squeaky clean. They should have invaded us.

The point is, we can't say Iraq didn't pose an imminent threat nor can we say they have no WMD. All we can say is that we have not found proof yet for either WMD or plans for attacks on America. However, I am sure that our action has disrupted some plans of violence against America or its allies. The problem is, how will we know that we have stopped such an attack? I'm sure every aggressive terror cell that our actions foiled will leave us a note that says, "Curses!"

Re:bin laden..

[Scrameustache]

Ah yes, from the lesser known Jyhad card game.

Actually, that's the Vampire card game now, they were pressured to change the name...

Isn't it funny when OTHERS make the typos?

Yes, yes it is.

Re:bin laden..

[stevew]

First - I didn't even MENTION what I think of the war in this post, merely that there are some amazying people who are willing to give their lives to protect my freedom - Consequently this rebuttal is out of place and bull shit.

Re:bin laden..

[wondafucka]

Again I hate replying to ACs but once again nationalism has gotten in the way of truth. Yes the USA does do good. It also does bad. Ignoring the bad is one of the worst things that can be done. Most of the US citizens that criticize the US would probably settle down a little bit if the popular self-perception of the US was a little bit less glazed over.

Yes, we're heroes in the middle east. But no we're not, because we contributed heavily to the whole situation. Admitting that the US is also wrong isn't cozying up to hitler, it's the truth.

Re:bin laden..

[Zeinfeld]

Your logic is severely flawed. By your train of thoughts here, shouldn't we retire all our police officers?

The purpose of a police officer is to uphold the rule of law. What we are seeing today in Iraq is the rule of power, not law. The Bush administration decided that it was above the rule of law.

As a matter of historical fact the US has consistently talked about the virtues of democracy while supporting any tyrant that happens to be convenient at the time. Iran actually had a democracy until the CIA decided that it was expedient to eliminate it and impose the shah as military dictator.

In this particular case there is every sign that Chalablai, the pentagon's favored replacement for Saddam is every bit as bad. He has already embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars from the bank he ran in Jordan.

How dare you cast a shadow over this monumentous occation?

You sound just like John Ashcroft.

It is those like you who try to silence dissent with threats who cast the shaddows here.

Re:bin laden..

[craigtay]

I always thought this war was about WMD not Saddam. It only turned into a war about Saddam after WMD was not found right away

Re:bin laden..

[crawling_chaos]

I'd be careful here. Some of the accusations you throw out about Bush-Saddam ties have about as much evidence for them as Bush had for Iraq's WMD program. It is equally likely that neither Putin or Chirac want a fair trial either, since the two major oil companies in Iraq are based in their countries and there was a fair amount of oil smuggling going on, in spite of UN sanctions.

I think it's safe to say that most "important" people would rather that he had gone out in a blaze of glory. It would provide a real martyr and leave sleeping dogs lie for all concerned. I think Saddam may know this too, which is why I think my scenario isn't that farfetched. All the Bushies have to do is offer him life imprisonment in the US in return for cooperation. The US doesn't recognize the World Court, so an extradition order from them might as well be written on Charmin.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

"When you're a citizen of a nation, the government must do everything it can to protect your life and your well being... that's part of it's job."

Such faith in goverment is the road to ruin.

"When you have a government that gasses and kills its own people, then the government isn't doing its job and must be removed.

What about a government that allows the sale of radioactive milk to its citizens? What about a government that conducts mind control experiments on its citizens without their consent? What about a government that ear marks money for bullet proof vests and body armour for the soldiers, and then sit on that money, while they deliver the cash to the presidents corporate buddies pronto?

"If they have a problem with that then they shouldn't have signed up with the military in the first place"

That's cute, except that some of us signed up to defend the States, not foreign people from their own leaders. Had Saddam been demonstrated to have been a threat(something you and the others arguing like this seem to conveniently forget), I'd venture to say half of us wouldn't even be objecting. As it is, the real SOB, Bin Laden, is still on the loose. We should have went after his ass with the bulk of our fighting forces, not mister scud sheister, who has till not been proven to have been a threat.

Re:bin laden..

[craigtay]

Here is a nice picture of Rumsfeld shakind hands with the evil Saddam. Oh wait, he wasn't evil then..

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think acknowledment of the U.S.'s failures is much more common among the right than acknowledgement of the U.S.'s strengths are among the left.

The left are the ones saying Bush = Hitler and raising money for the Feyadeen. The left are the ones saying that the U.S. is the greatest threat in the world today.

This isn't a reasoned acknoledgment of the bad things that the U.S. has done, it is a blanket condemnation of a country which, on the whole, has been the most positive force in the world for the last 100 years.

Re:bin laden..

[durtbag]

I enjoy every time someone calls me a leftist or a liberal like it's a curse word. Many of us wear our empathy as a badge of honor, the same way a conservative wears his warmongering.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

shouldn't it be \. so the slash leans to the left like most of the readers?

Hmmm.. I think this should be: "leans to the left like most people who know how to read.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

go read the telegraph.co.uk story about hussain support of al qaida - will you call it a vast right-wing conspiracy if it proves to be true?

That would be absurd. The Telegraph is a relatively small right wing conspiracy.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

I hope so. And I also hope they include inceredulous quotes like yours so we don't look so 'stupid'.

Re:bin laden..

[Warshadow]

>I'm a little worried that it seems he wasn't
>leading any of the insurgency forces at all
>(meaning our soldiers will keep dying), but
>overall it is extremely good news.

I'm worried about this also as my brother will be heading over to Iraq sometime not to long after the first of the year, but you also have to remember a lot of these people who are killing American soldiers may have been doing so out of fear of Saddam and what he might do to them if through some random alignment of the stars did regain power. As long as Saddam was free or not known to be dead there was a lot of fear for the people of Iraq.

While I don't think his capture will cure the problems our soldiers are facing; I do honestly think some of the people who were fighting us out of their fear of him, might just quietly fade away into the background and try and live as normal of a live as an Iraqi citizen can given the current cituation there.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who are loose in their use of lose and loose lose.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

The US imports less than 5% of its oil from Iraq. Do some research asshole.

Re:bin laden..

[Zeinfeld]

Soldiers aren't robots and have minds of their own so not all of them will always agree with American foreign policy. But I'll bet more of them agree with us being in Iraq than agreed with us being in Somalia, and I'll bet the percentage of soldiers that agree with their mission is higher than the percentage of liberals in the U.S. that agree with the mission.

Point of fact here is that Bush mkI ordered the troops into Somalia, not Clinton. At the time the mission was pretty popular because it was seen as being widely supported by the locals. By the time people realized that it was an ill considered intervention in a civil war the helicopter had been shot down.

And, yes, it's probably going to score Bush a boost in the polls.

There is only one poll that counts, and defeating Saddam the first time round did not seem to do Bush mkI any good.

Re:bin laden..

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

So throw them all in the brig. I don't see the problem.

YLFI

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Riiiight! It was because of you liberals that this entire thing happened in the first place.

Re:bin laden..

[raque]

Why is it that people who disagree with the War in Iraqi are LIberals? Do you mean that people who point out lies are LIberals? Does that mean that non-Liberals are liars? This whole post is scary shit. There was nothing in the original rational for the war about stopping terrorists in general, or liberating the Iraqi people, it was to get the Weapons of Mass Destruction. The are none, so we are finding other rationals. There is nothing here about LIberals and non-liberals, it is a out lieing. The moral of our troops is sinking because they were lied to, and it is that simple. The capture of Saddam with not effect that.

Re:bin laden..

[acidtripp101]

WOAH!
You're saying that it's the French and Russians fault that this was allowed to happen?
Bullshit.
The sanctions themselves were the problem. Iraq couldn't import vital items like CHLORINE, a critical ingredient for the purification of water. THIS is a human rights violation (in a sense) worse than anything that Saddam did. Allowing innocent children die due to poor water is a GROSS violation of human rights. These childred were dieing by the THOUSANDS because THE UNITED STATES wouldn't let them import critical water/food treatment chemicals.
Granted, a lot of the problems wouldn't have existed if Saddam wouldn't have been in power, but the fact still remains that the US allowed these sanctions to destroy the people of Iraq.

And, we can't forget the fact that Bush OPENLY ADMITTED that there would be civillian casualties. This was in direct violation of the Geneva convention. Here's the proof
Step off your high horse and realize that Bush was just as bad for openly killing thousands of innocent civillians, as Saddam was for killing his people.
In a certain light, Bush is even worse because he brought it upon himself (against nearly every other country in the world) to force democracy down the throats of Iraq.
Look at political philosophers that specialize in the middle east and you'll see that DEMOCRACY WON'T WORK IN THE MIDDLE EAST. There are so many opposing groups (and I'm not talking Democrats vs Republicans opposition... I'm talking about 'willing to suicide bomb' opposition) in Iraq, that there will NEVER be a clear majority in favor or in opposition of any proposition that a democratic government needs to work.
All democracy will succeed at doing is commiting cultural genocide in the region, and that is by far the worst kind of dehuminization imaginiable. If I were to die, it wouldn't be as large a deal, because people would still be able to carry on my heritage. If my culture is taken away, I might as well not even live because something was taken away from me that can NEVER be replaced. These people are being raped of their herritage to satisfy Big Oil (tm)!
That's the real war crime.

Re:bin laden..

[shaunyb]

a detailed body count is here. here. the current number is 7935-9766. most of the large numbers are air raids, but a significant number are gunfire, which could be by the coalition or by Iraqi forces.

Re:bin laden..

[CmdrGravy]

SCUD's aren't weapons of mass destruction. Why believe anyone who isn't telling you what you want to hear ?

Re:bin laden..

[sg_oneill]

elimination of Imperial Japan, Stalinist U.S.S.R., Socialist Germany, and now Baathist Iraq

Socialist germany?

You been smokin that whacky weed? The nazis where not socialist. there policy of killing communists and socialists mighta given a few hints on this matter.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the parent of this comment's parent get a 5 and this one's parent is still a 1?? Mod it up!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You should think about reading more than just USA Today.

Re:bin laden..

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

As long as you got your thrill.

Re:bin laden..

[TheLinuxSRC]

I agree 100%; the U.S.A. did take advantage of a volatile regime. However, something was eventually done. I do not intend to sound dismissive, but, "Better late than never.", right? I mean, it may (or may not) have been done for all the wrong reasons, but it finally got done.

The U.S. govt. and especially GWB are taking a lot of heat over Iraq. Should they be under pressure? Hell yes. Should we (the entire world) condemn them for what was done in Iraq? I don't think so. Considering all reasonable alternatives (the worst of which is do nothing, which is pretty much what the U.N. had in mind...), I think what happened was the best thing that could have. 25 years late.

Re:bin laden..

[Rayonic]

You are a complete idiot. How can you possibly say that the "Iraqis" have been the ones killing American troops? Blowing up the Red Cross? Destroying their own police stations? Cutting their own power lines?

The "resistance" is just the remnants of Saddam's foul old regime, with some foreign help.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

Thank you Mr. Insight. I wasn't aware there was an enlightened person, such as yourself, out there. Now that you've stated your opinion about an entire nation and its people, I clearly see that I'm party to a nation that is nothing but evil and plan to move myself and my family to Iraq. As a matter of fact, under my new found revelation, I don't understand why people of the world even want to be educated by Americans or why they want to live here. I now realize that America is SO evil I'm willing to renounce my citizenship because YOU said so. Thank you...I don't know how I survived this long without you.

Re:bin laden..

[Fallen_Knight]

Look, if 99% of the population supports the US, but theres 1% that don't that means there are going to be ppl willing to kill US soldiers for their belifes. Why is it when ppl hear of the attacks on the US's forces their they assume it means the ENTIRE population is fakeing their joy at being free and saddam being now captured, just so they can stab the US in the back tomorrow.

no, its that theres a small portion of the population that resents the US and all they stand for and will continue to attack regardless of what the US does, if tomorrow the US decided to spend 100 billion dollers to rebult all of iraq. they would still hate it and still kill us forces.

Also the fact the iraq is not being rebuilt as fast as some would like, or that everything is back to normal yet is also causeing ppl to get angry.

I belive the ppl killing US forces are only a smally minority of the iraq population, witch will get smaller as time goes on (unless the US fuckes up bigtime witch could happen)

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

so if you got it 3rd hand, how do you know the facts are accurate or is this just you spreading some FUD?

i believe nothing unless i know the source.

Re:bin laden..

[durtbag]

I beg your pardon, but the rising economy and Saddam's capture is good for everyone, including those horrid liberals.
Look just because many of us did not support this war or our reason's for it, does NOT mean we don't support our troops or care about obvious victories. This is great news, becuase the truth is, once we invaded Iraq there was no turning back. Had we pulled up and left it would have become open season on the American People and the American Way of Life(tm).
The capture of Saddam is a good thing, but doesnt justify misleading an entire country into supporting a war.
There are alot of losers here. The people who have lost family members (both here and Iraq and other countries who offered troops) have experienced real loss. Dont trivialize that with petty "liberals are the anti-christ cuz they don't kill everything with a heart beat" bullshit.

Merry Christmas

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

and when the oil sands of canada are up and running, we may not even need middle east oil.

Re:bin laden..

[LMariachi]

No, it's directly to the point: How has any US serviceman's death in Iraq served to protect your freedom?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

So Churchill and FDR were guilty of killing German and Japanese civilians during WWII? Get a clue dumbass.

Re:bin laden..

[CmdrGravy]

No, a lot of people didn't think there were any WMD powerful enough to cause us any problems and were happy to let the Weapons inspectors do enough investigation to prove that was the case for definate.

Then everyone decided they needed a war anyway on the pretext of the overwhelming danger posed to us all by Saddam and his huge stockpiles of WMD.

We would now like everyone who told us about how sure they were these weapons existed to show them to us and prove it was not all a pretext to grab oil and make a bit of money at all.

So far they haven't been able to prove this and are instead trying to pretend that didn't say all those things about WMD which they did in fact say.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well sorry to wake you up from your erotic Bush world dreams, but capturing Saddam IS pretty irrelevant and you're still fighting an illegal war."

The Iraqi people celebrating his capture would disagree with your assessment that it was an illegal war. So would the 300,000 buried in mass graves if they were still alive.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly an illegal war.

May I take this conversation in another direction? What are you going to do about this? You see, I live in something called reality. If you think some is/isn't illegal, there's generally a followup question: What are you going to do about it?

Without getting into a discussion about whether or not something is illegal, there's a larger problem of what you can possible do (or not do) to stop it.

Bow down to your American overlords, piggie.

Re:bin laden..

[wondafucka]

"If you liberals had your way, Saddam would still be killing these people, instead, we stayed strong and now he's been captured."

Um...no. If we liberals had our way we wouldn't have been seling him WMD in the first place. We wouldn't have stood for the UN sanctions that helped kill millions in the 90s. We wouldn't have used depleted uranium shells in the 1991 war.

I think that the main reason why so many left wing thinkers appear to be Saddam Huggers right now is because we are mad at the president. We are mad at the way he acts, we are mad at the way he talks. If this were a war of liberation, and always was one from the beginning, then yes, he would have my full support. But there's something fishy about the Pres and his actions. It's hard to support war when you can't trust the leader's motives. He wouldn't give a rats ass about the Iraqi people if he weren't scared shitless that the Saddam would razzle the youths into making one way trips to America.

Am I happy he's captured? Damn Straight. Hopefully this will take the wind out of a lot of the "terrorism" guerilla fighting. I want peace in Iraq and I want our soldiers to be safe.

Why am I still bitching? Because the president has the gall to call his critics "revisionist historians." Because everytime we try and bring up the shortcomings of America we are told that we are "out of step" with mainstream America.

We're targets for terror for some very good reasons. There is a simple way to address those reasons and still go kick some terrorist ass. We're bitching even though they've captured Saddam, because the president says things like "The terrorists hate us because we support freedom." Yes the terrorists hate us because we have ways of life that are unacceptable in a more strict conservative culture. But they also hate us because we're swaggering assholes.

I'm sick of it being either or. Either you support the president or you support the terrorists. Either you support the troops or you personally sleep with a grin everytime a soldier is killed. We are all on the same side. Some of us are just very very scared that Bush has this much power. It doesn't take much to make things escalate, and the president doesn't always demonstrate wise decision makeing skills. We should all be very thankfull the surrounding countries have been level headed.

Re:bin laden..

[stonecypher]

Hey, Saddam was a bad guy, no doubt about it. But we should have never stopped looking for Osama. By pulling our best troops off that hunt, we let him get away. Brilliant move, guys.

Yeah, and we got Saddamn Fucking Hussein.

This is like being angry that we let a burglar go to catch a rapist. Osama is not anywhere nearly the problem Saddam is. Open a history book that goes back more than three years.

Re:bin laden..

[CardiffMan]

Economy is improving, we've captured Saddam Hussein... Things aren't looking so bad this Christmas. Funny how when things go well in the U.S. the only ones that lose out are the liberals. :)

I'm a liberal, and I fail to see how I lose out. Let's look at my recent circumstances and see if I'm missing something that should make me sad:

• I just got a nice severance package from a big company as I left to join a small one.
• I get to loaf for two weeks between the old job and the new one.
• The Sun is shining.
• The U.S. Supreme Court just upheld bans on soft money in Federal election campaigns.
• As a result of a war that I endorsed (not that you were listening), Saddam Hussein is now captured.
• As a result of a war that I endorsed, thousands of people have died, the French hate the U.S., and Bush might get reelected.
• Howard Dean was just endorsed by Al Gore.
• The dollar is in the dumper.

Some good, some bad. Most of the bad won't affect my personal lifestyle directly. I guess I win. I agree with the rest of your comments. There's a difference between a liberal and a crypto-Marxist.

Re:bin laden..

[CmdrGravy]

Yeah how dare you ( stamps foot and begins to scream )

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

" Let supose you are in USA and the police enters your house, arrest you and keeps you months in prison while they search for a weapon you had. Is that legal? how much time could they keep you if they don't find evidence?"

I think if you killed 300,00 people, the police had a right to arrest you, regardless of the reasons.

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

No, it's not the French and Russian's fault...not at all. They just want a piece of the pie after someone else did the dirty work and didn't support the function because they had significant financial interests. Talk about heritage, the legacy left behind on this one will be completely financial; with the exception of US blood that's been spilled. I guess that'll be spun too to make America look like the devil and Saddam a saint. What a shame.

Re:bin laden..

[spongman]

erm, so Nazi isn't an abreviation of Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiter-Partei (National Socialist German Workers' Party), then?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot have freedom without security. Without security, the only freedom you have is through your own strength. Many systems, such as dictatorships and anarchy, supress freedom by denying security and removing rights. Claiming the US is not a free country because they are concerned with security, and claiming right you don't actually have because of security concerns is nonsense.

Re:bin laden..

[Cpt_Kirks]

So sorry, BatBoy ate the tapes...

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

that blog is probably written by a 55 year old white guy working out of the DOD.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

So where were you when he did most of his killing, back in the 80s and 90s?

Don't tell me you care about Iraqis when you're at war with them.

Re:bin laden..

[shaunyb]

seeing as how this comes from an editor of the Independent, it has credibility, however he is merely repeating something bin Laden said. and the fox news article just references fisk. so we're taking this right from the horse's mouth.

why should i not trust anything bin Laden says elsewhere, and trust him here?

there are those of us who raise the bin Laden-CIA connection to say that "we were once his friends, so it's hypocritical to go after him now"; and there are those of us who raise it to say "we were once his friends, how do you know we're not anymore?" his quote is a credible argument against only the former theory.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

How can the people that suggest they they are the "defenders of the helpless" be so fucking blind in their hatred of Bush that they would rather see a dictator like Saddam in power killing millions of innocent people, rather than see the people there liberated, and not rejoice that the dictator finally captured? Would they have reacted the same way about Pol Pot or Hilter?

Unbelievable.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

" Very few people act like Saddam was a good guy, but just being a bad guy isn't reason enough to break protocol and invade the country."

Nobody protested when Clinton went into the Balkans, without UN approval. Saddam was a bigger killer than Miloselvitch

Re:bin laden..

[crabpeople]

but americans created the problem with the sanctions. All the other countries tried to help the battered people of iraq and you dare call acuse them? what about blaming the americans for supplying the biological and chemical weapons to use on the kurds?

also please provide a link that links the french and russians with helping sadam steal food from his people. otherwise its just normal american racist FUD.

the only thing interesting about him being captured is to observe what the usa does to him. i say make him some sort of commentator from behind bars on american polocies. he could be on cnn and stuff when the president makes a decision he could give his opinion. i doubt hes an insane psycho, i want to know what his perspective is.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been to anti-war protests, I've read liberal and conservative papers. Please tell me, who in ANY party, including anti-war, has ever shown support of Saddam Hussein? Please give a link too.

Re:bin laden..

[Kelz]

Look: If we didn't have the sanctions, Saddam would've had 30 palaces instead of 10. He kept any money that came in for himself.

And at least we got our shit together and took him out sooner rather than later. If we had left him there, more and more Iraqis would've died. I don't give a shit about WMDs, but the people of Iraq.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

The problem is: are the government arresting Saddam the same who gave him his toys? take in mind that Rumsfeld is mentioned as giving SH toxic gas. If so they are just blaming him for what he did and what they did.
And it wasn't just that UN just did nothing. Bush father asked oppository groups to rebel against Saddam, but when they did he looked to other place while they where slaughtered. Why he didn't invade? He didn't want to pay the political cost of american body bags coming on tv. Of course Bush the minor just forbids to watch that and problem solved.

Re:bin laden..

[Kelz]

Great job representing the left AC. I congratulate you on making an ass out of yourself.
Grow up.

Re:bin laden..

[tho 1234]

"First, I didn't sign up for that job... they did and it was their choice. I thought about it, but decided against it so I could get a CE and EE degree."

Gee, i wonder how many of those soldiers, given the choice of studing electronics or getting shot at, would choose the latter.

Most people who sign up for millitary service (ie department of DEFENSE) do so under the belief that they will risk their lives to protect the country's security. Others simply have no other way to make ends meet. Yes, they signed up for this "job", but trust that if they lose their lives, it will go to a worthwhile cause.

the governemnt, and by extension its citizens, has the responsibility to make sure that these armed forces are used in a responsible way, and that the loss of lives resulting from a war is less than the cost of inaction.

So just because they agreed to a job with some risk does not mean the governement doesn't responsibility to protect their lives and only put them at risk when it is absolutely necessary.

"make up your mind"

Or maybe you should develop some reading comprehension skills. For a supposed enginineer, your logic and reasoning skills are pretty poor. My whole point was that starting wars to remove "governements that aren't doing its job" has never been, and never will be a part of US foreign policy. Actually, its illegal under international law, what gives you the right to decide which governments in the world are "doing its job"? This war was never about liberating the poor iraqi people, or WMD, or terrorism, or any of the other explanations the government has tried to use in the past. My point about conservatives was that that this justification of saving the poor iraqi people is entirely contrary to their beliefs, so when the conservative government uses it as a justification for war, a rational persion would question that justification. (look up the quote from bush, from before he got elected, that said roughly "one reason we're often viewed around the world as the big bad american, a bully, is because we say to countries, 'we do things this way, so should you'") Your not doing your country any favors by blindly accepting everything the governemnt feeds you.

Re:bin laden..

[Bedouin X]

So the U.S. can sink to the level of every vicious dictator in the world?

Re:bin laden..

[Directrix1]

Jeez, I've never seen so many mod points carelessly tossed out to ACs. Anyways, the sanctions obviously weren't aimed at killing the people of Iraq. America is too PC to do that in the first place. The intentions of America were in the right place. The method chosen was wrong. If a bad consequence is realized only in retrospect, than obviously this bad consequence was not intentional.

Saddam purposefully killed brutally, ruthlessly, and without pity. That is what was wrong with this corner of the world, not America trying to right one of its old wrongs. A brutal dictator has been taken down as the result of a relatively mild war. This is obviously a major victory. And not just for America and the Iraqi people, but for the promotion of this new form of modern warfare.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit, there's the guy who let them all die! I've been looking for that fucker.

Re:bin laden..

[msim]

Osama Bin Who?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

inceredulous?

I believe you look stupid already.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

An illegal war... Now there's an oxymoron.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is. But the name is pretty much all it had in common with socialism.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

So... taking out a leader who commited genocide of 300,000 people is illegal? Would you have us wait until it grew to holocaust proportions?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You might be safer with Saddam out of the picture, if you're one of the yanks that are occupying Iraq. To americans that stayed at home it makes no differance.
While the world would be safer with Bush out of the picture.

Re:bin laden..

[stonecypher]

Yup. So grateful that they've been killing American solders at a rate of roughly 1 per day since GWB's "Mission Accomplished" photo-op. Interesting way these Iraqis show their gratitude...

Ah yes, because in cities with millions of people, having one of tens of thousands of occupying soldiers attacked two or three times a day clearly shows that the whole populace is up in arms. I mean, if they all hated it, they probably would have attacked more than ... oh, wait.

See, this is the problem. It's a war torn nation. Formerly rich families are destitute, but still proud. There's starvation. Infrastructure is ruined. Therefore, tempers are high. This isn't even New York barfight level anger, if only one person is dying a day. Soccer mobs actually do more damage.

In the meantime, we've got well fed well paid well clothed well apointed white people, a few of whom are genuinely racist, a number of whom are going to be drunk or occasionally high, saying things they shouldn't, doing things they shouldn't. Many things which are normal to us are morally, religiously and legally abominable to them - such as being drunk.

Furthermore, there's the small branch of Iraqis which profited under Saddam. They're almost certainly mightily pissed.

Oh, and right, there's all the political mumbo jumbo going on in the area; a number of these are actually funded by (insert random dictator x) whose vested interest in making the foreign powers seem evil to maintain domestic control has a particularly fruitful avenue while tampering with one of the first major mations to revert to rule by the people in the area in decades.

I think it's a show of incredible control that in a ruined once prosperous city of millions which has been crippled first by dictatorship and next by sanction and resultant economic collapse a set of ill-behaved foreigners which have been propogandized to be about to do this very thing haven't been murdered in droves.

There hasn't been a single street mob. No lynchings. No organized revolt. No underground. We can't say that about any three adjacent states in our country's history. Doesn't it strike you as odd that these people seem about as riled up as a Saint Patrick's Day parade? Yeah, maybe Rumsfeld took everyone out of baghdad and made those human celebrations - WHICH YOU COULD SEE MOVING ON TERRASERVER - with a giant 1920s style dancing cast. Good thing they didn't fake it in Utah; FOX would have found it and done a special.

Jackass.

But. Hating Saddam isn't the same as loving the US. Most Iraqis are doubtless overjoyed that Saddam's government has been toppled, that doesn't mean they like a US occupation of their country either.

I'm sure a great many Germans were none too happy about the French occupation of Berlin, either. Nevertheless, when you escape Mumm-Ra only to fall into the hands of Ratar-O, you know you've traded up in the world.

Look, I'm not standing up for our coup government. But W isn't nearly as capably evil as Saddam is, and Cheniwell is basically a Hanna Barbera bumbling ne'er-do-well. Their kind of antics are things like charging double for gasoline and misplacing girders at the cost of the US taxpayer, not cutting off limbs for wayward glances. If I were king, cheney would indeed be against the wall, but there are a helluvalot of people that would go first.

Note to secret service: the above is literate exaggeration. Look up the dictionary entry for sarcasm, and proceed to investigate every facet of my life. Hint: it's a music reference.

On a broader note, I object to the "we're doing it for the poor downtroden people" chest-thumping coming from the Bush government because it is a horrible lie.

A villiage sits at the base of a valley. One year, the winter is bad, and damages the soil holding back a river; the surveyors suggest it will break through in a few years, and that though it can be shored up, a dam is needed.

The pr

Re:bin laden..

[TomHoward]

Ummm... excuse me, but what right did the US, the UK, Australia and any member of the US led coalition have to go in and depose Saddam?

At the time, I seam to remember it was under the pretence of Saddam not complying with UN regulations to cooperate with arms inspections.

How was he non-compliant? He didn't hand over his WMD and WMD production facilities. Since the WMD and WMD production facilites have been more elusive than Saddam himself, I think we can safely assume that they did not exist and thus there were no grounds for the invasion.

Yes, I know Saddam is evil. Yes I know he murdered too many people to count. Still doesn't given anyone else the right to just invade and depose him.

I'm glad he's been deposed and I'm glad they have caught him, but I cannot support the way it which it was done

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Germans knew they had lost the war at that point anyway. So they probably thought "Hell, if we're going down, let's at least build some cool stuff before."

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

Let's get 2 things straight: 1) Not all Americans are rich and not all Americans are terrorists; 2) Not all Arabs are terrorists. That said, you don't generally see some 'white guy' (timothy mcveigh notwithstanding) traveling down the street with a suitcase bomb willing to sacrifice a hundred people at his whim in the name of allaha. Call it corporate if you want, but at least Americans call a spade a spade at the end of the day. We have never started a holy crusade nor have we based any of our conflicts in religion. This whole 'jihad' thing is a joke and all it does is spark tension where it's not needed. You can laugh all you want at our election system but it still remains the model for any democratic hopeful society; unless that's what you're afraid of. The only thing that leads to more fighting is rhetoric like yours sparks people's tendency to throw the first stone. Stop. You are NOT enlightened, intelligent or educated....you are just another scab on an unhealed wound that refuses to heal.

Re:bin laden..

[Kelz]

The freedom to be declared enemies if you don't believe in a war?

I do believe you are speaking of France. We are not declaring them enemies. We are pissed off because they stabbed us in the back pre-war and caused more US Soldiers to die than should have.

...which were partially given to Iraq from your retarded government and help settle the scores the Bush's had with Iraq in the fact they lost the first Iraq war to yet another third world country

Umm what world are you living in? We won that war. Hell, we kicked their asses. We went to Kuwait and liberated it, and got the hell out. It's what we came to do. This time, we came to get Saddam out. And we did. Hooray.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there were many reasons for the war.
The mistake of Bush administration was overemphasizing WMD.

Since possible death toll from smallpox
in the US alone is 50 million then if you
expect war to be quick with death toll below
500 then even if there is 1/1000th chance for the WMD - you go for it.

But in fact the real reasons were also:

1. Saudi Arabia - most of the 9/11 terrorists
were from there - the reason ?
Singnificant presence of the US Army at the
wholy Muslim land. But the US could not move
out with Iraq problem unsolved.

2. Saddam did support Palestinian terrorists.
The Palestinian problem is the 2nd reason for
9/11.

3. Look at the map - US control over Iraq and
friendly relation with Turkey splits Muslim
world in half.

4. Possible success of democratization in
Arab country may significantly educe support
for terrorists

5. more control over oil prices

So WMD was only one of the reasons.
Bush made a bet for it and he lost it.
But it does not mean it was the only reason
for the war and that the war was not worth it.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

" see it more like a Hockey team, favored by 3, coming out with a win 1-0 in third overtime."

The US takes Baghdad in under a month, and finds Hussein hiding in a hole 8 months later, and you call that a narrow victory?

Re:bin laden..

[Kelz]

What if they find your fingerprints at a crime scene, and a bullet fired from your gun? They ask where's the gun, and you say you got rid of it years ago, but have no evidence of its destruction and couldn't tell them where you threw it away.

*Smack* DOH!

Re:bin laden..

[acidtripp101]

Nobody in their right mind would ever say that Saddam was a saint. Certain groups are sure to look at him as a martyr, though. People have to realize that America isn't always right, and especially when dealing with the Middle East, people don't like us. Saddam (in some groups) WILL go down as someone who stood up to the Western world. I'm not saying that is right, but that's the way things will work.
Take North Korea for example. The people living under the tyranny of Kim-Jung-Il honestly believe that they have the best life they could get, given their sircumstance. They are brainwashed to believe that the US started the Korean war. Is their view on the world right? No. But, do they believe it? Yes.
You do, bring up another very good point, though. You said that the French and Russians wanted a piece of the pie after the dirty work was done.
What evidence do you have to back this up?
Because as far as I can tell, the oil rights have been given to American Companies. No offense to the Iraqi people, but they don't have much else to build an infrastructure off of (again, because of the sanctions), and we gave the oil rights to an American company (Ok... granted, the Iraqi people will get a cut, but why not build up their oil infrastructure and then give all of it to them... if we really cared about the people of Iraq, that's what would happen)
What I'm trying to say here is that the US is the one that is trying to get something for nothing.
For example, first we give the UN the finger and invade iraq. THEN we ask them for money and support to rebuild it. What truely good organization would disregard the fact that over 50% of Iraqis don't have a job because the US overthrew the government and bombed the factiories that gave them employment. And, of these 50% another 50% (25% of the Iraqi people) are employed by the US, which means that they will no longer have a job when we pull out.
Again, what TRUELY good organization could refuse to help the people of Iraq. The US knows this, and they are exploiting it. The US realized that by engaging in neo-empirialism, that the UN would back us up once we got so far to help the people.
End of story. This war may have looked like it had a humanitarian goal, but when one looks at the after effects (50% unemployment MONTHS after the 'war ended'... that is unexcusable), you'll see that Americans now own the oil infrastructure, and the people of Iraq are much worse off. Their situation might improve, but if you look to my parent post, you'll see that the democracy we're trying to implement, will cause even more tension in the middle east.

People always as me what I think about the war, and I tell them "I think we should win." I don't agree with the reasoning behind why we went to war, but I think that now that we are there, we need to give control back to the people of Iraq as soon as possible.

Re:bin laden..

[Prune]

Because this is Slashdot, silly!

Re:bin laden..

[TheLinuxSRC]

OK. You are right again. I agree that all of this should have been handled years ago; at the absolute latest this should have been resolved in '91. My only response is that I hope the Iraqi people can forgive the U.S. for its extreme short-sightedness and thank them for their new found freedom. I really don't believe that this is "too little too late". It is just "too late".

Re:bin laden..

[msim]

Go to www.google.com punch in

"freedom fries" idiot

and then hit "im feeling lucky".

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

Starting with the most off-topic issue, then working my way back to topic here.

if tomorrow the US decided to spend 100 billion dollers to rebult all of iraq

Ahem. The US is already spending $87 billion rebuilding Iraq, and current estimates indicate that it will cost at least tripple that overall. The price is doubtless inflated due to the "no-bid, let's just give GWB's friends huge contracts with no oversight and no audit" style of spending the Bush government seems to like, but we (the US taxpayer) has already spent very close to $100 billion. On the US side of things we're seeing the economic crunch greatly accelerated by the Bush government's wild spending coupled with equally wild tax cuts for billionares. Remember, when the Bush government cuts taxes for billionares, *someone's* got to pick up the tab. Guess who gets to foot the bill for GWB's departure from the hunt for Al-Qida? If you said "gee, I guess its the average joe" then you guessed right. The bottom 40% of the population in the US controls about 1% of the money, yet they *pay* about 2% of the taxes. By comparison, the top 1% controls about 36% of the money, and they pay about 36% of the taxes. Dollar for dollar this means that the upper 1% pay half as much in taxes as the bottom 40%.

Look, if 99% of the population supports the US, but theres 1% that don't that means there are going to be ppl willing to kill US soldiers for their belifes

Actually, it would be quite useful if there were some way to get real numbers out of Iraq, but it isn't. I suspect that quite a few more than 1% want the US out. Again, this doesn't mean that Saddam wasn't bad, and that they aren't happy that he's gone; they just want the US gone too. The reason I suspect that more than 1% are unhappy (to put it mildly) with the US is because of what happens *after* a US soldier gets killed: there's usually a cheering crowd gathered around, which can't be good for moral.

More to the point, 1% can't organize the kind of gurilla attacks that we've been seeing. It doesn't take many people to shoot a gun, or fire off an RPG, or what have you, but it does take a rather large support base in the general population to hide the combatants, keep them supplied, etc. Notice that the US soldiers have only caught a handful of Iraqi gurillas. This means that, at a minimum, the average Iraqi isn't helping the US find these gurillas, which implies a certain degree of sympathy with the gurillas.
I honestly don't know what the answer to the problem is, a complete US withdrawl from Iraq at this point would plunge the entire country into the kind of anarchistic chaos that grows dictators, and hurts lots of people. The US soldiers don't like being there, and they are (quite understandably) nervious every time they see an Iraqi. They're trained to respond to a threat of violence with overwealming force; which is great for winning wars, but not so good for keeping order after you win.

More international help would doubtless be tremendously helpful. Unfortunately, the Bush government managed to waste all the goodwill the US had worldwide by starting this war the way he did... The general attitude among other nations seems to be: "He started this war on his own, why should I help now?" I can't say I really blame them for having that attitude, it'd be nice if the other major powers would just forget about all the insults, etc, that the Bush government has smacked them with, but that isn't going to happen.

Of course, in the midst of all this Osama is still at large, Afghanistan is coming back under Taliban control (remember back in the old days when the US beat someone and they stayed beaten? Not under the Bush government), and international terrorism seems to have been completely unaffected by the Bush government's decision to invade Iraq. The entire thing has been a hundreds of billions dollar distraction from the *real* objective of ending kind of terrorism that resulted in 9/11.

Re:bin laden..

[Martin Blank]

Aside from some obviously boastful statements, bin Laden generally tells the straight truth as he sees it, if nothing else out of religious obligation. There may have been some cross-over higher up the chain, such as CIA officials arranging for arms purchases by Arab sponsors, but I think it's generally safe to say that bin Laden has not knowingly taken direct support from Washington. If he had, he'd be boasting about how he played Langley for funds and weapons that would eventually be turned against them.

Re:bin laden..

[glitch23]

Fuck the UN. The UN is just a means to an end of having an international gov't, which in itself is not a good idea. We've gotten this far w/o the UN being needed and we don't need the UN now(and neither does any other country) to say what we can and can not do. The terrorists don't seem to ask the UN whether they can bomb us or the Israelis so the US has no obligation to ask the UN for any type of permission.

Re:bin laden..

[gangien]

Real freedom means an Arab can walk into an airport and not be looked at as a terrorist

Wow.. this would be freedom from being judged, which umm will never fucking happen. As long as that Arab can walk into a place and do his buisness or leave if he wants, he's free. Yes it will be harder for him to do things but this is irrelevant to freedom, this is people judging him. Which happens every fucking where so drop the BS.

Your relations with Saudi Arabia was put into question after 15/19 hijackers were from Saudi decent and you needed an alternative oil source. What better way to get oil then lie to the american people about Iraq creating "weapons of mass destruction" which were partially given to Iraq from your retarded government and help settle the scores the Bush's had with Iraq in the fact they lost the first Iraq war to yet another third world country (for those keeping count North Korea, Vietnam).

First, I don't think anyone in any power has misunderstood our relationship with saudia arabia.
What better way than lie? really.. this is all speculation and more BS. They haven't found WMD? do you know how hard they are to find. Look how long it took us to find Saddam and bin Laden. Give it awhile before you start claiming they lied.

Retarded governement.. really what government isn't retarded? Atleast I can say fuck you George bush and not get shot. Maybe get kicked out of where ever I am. But that's about it. Lost the first war?? how are you saying this? Umm because we stopped the invasion.. umm we didn't march on and dominate Iraq, we lost teh war? boy you have some interesting views of winning and losing.

The united states is no safer today than it was 3 years ago and until you arrogant people stop thinking your the almighty freedom country of the world, people will continue to despise you.

Maybe so, maybe not. it's a judgement call, and I don't consider us much safer. And I'm arrogant now? wow. Personally I say we pull out all our troops across the world and let everyone have at each other and die.(I'm being sarcastic). People will dispise us becase we're the most powerful and richest nation. End of Story. Just like people will, no matter how good willed, always dispise a politcian.

Your freedom is nothing more than a word. You always say your country is free but how free is it? Your freedoms are becoming less and less each day in the name of your own security.

Oh yes because, as I said before, I can still think whatever I want of the president and openly display that.. that's more free than half the world? Becoming less and less? what ? the patriot act? wow. The patriot act may be wrong but it's not exactly oppressing us or limiting us.

I laughed at your last presidential election because you call yourselves the "greatest democrasy" yet your voting process was full of scandle. Even Russia has a better voting system in place then the almighty freedom loving americans did.

we have scandals? no shit??? holy crap. guess what, everyplace does. To think it doesn't is being extemely ignorant. ANd not to mention the fact that was hardly a scandal. But I'm not going to convince anyone of that. Good for russia! Maybe we can learn from them. But I don't think your being unbiased.

Until the regime of Bush is over, there is no freedom, and standing behind your typical slogan of "we're fighting for your freedom", doesn't make the world safer, but adds more hatred towards your country.

Everything we do adds hatred. Just because we got the balls to do something we believe in. People hate us for lack of actiona nd people hate us for action. Our choice, do what we believe is right. Maybe we're not always correct but.. i don't see a better option.

You'll then want the entire world to feel your "pain" for a minor loss compared to the atrocities that happen around the world due to your foreign policies and then you'll want revenge and targe

Re:bin laden..

[acidtripp101]

Ok, I know that you're a troll, but I'm going to respond anyway.
1) I know this sidesteps the issue a bit, but when you look at FDRs stance in WWII he OPENLY disregarded the fact that genocide was being commited by the German people. He completely turned the other cheek. And, in the early days of Japan's impirialism, we actually supported them by selling them fuel, rubber, and steel! That was bullshit.
2) The difference between Bush and FDR/Churchill is that Bush openly admitted that he would kill innocent civillians. FDR and Churchill didn't. I know you're going to bring up Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but you'd be wrong. That wasn't FDR OR Churchill. That was Wilson, and yes, I think that in the long run, it was a VERY bad thing. But, at the time, we didn't even know what the effects of radiation would be on the Japanese people, so while it's still an attrocious crime against humanity, at the time, we didn't know just how bad it would be.
2) You make it sound like killing German and Japanese civillians is OK, just because their leaders were fuckheads. Wrong again, buddy. The killing of non-military persons is a war crime, and if Churchill and FDR would have openly said that the killing of Civillians was OK, then I say we should have tried them in International court. But, they tried at all costs to avoid civillian casualties. Something bush didn't do.

So, I'd suggest you start cracking those history books again, because your views on the world are very elementary. Don't forget to celebrate Christopher Columbus day, too! (In case you didn't know, CC openly and knowingly gave Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox. If you read his diaries, you'll see that CC HATED Native Americans, and we celebrate this man?)

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

None. The lefties just like to think they have, so they don't feel so bad about the DMCA.

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

Because widespread opposition in no way shape or form makes something illegal. It is irrelevant. I could cite the weather in Baghdad at the time, or I could cite the financial success of the Harry Potter series of books, but these things don't impact on the legality of a war, and neither does the prevailing opinion of the world's population, so I chose not to highlight them.

Re:bin laden..

[Micah]

> The real issue was letting Halliburton and other corporations that gave millions in "campaign contributons" access to Iraq's oil.

If you really believe that, you have an unjustifiably low view of Bush.

I'm not Bush's biggest fan, but to think this whole war effort was JUST to reward rich campaign contributors is ridiculous.

Re:bin laden..

[coopaq]

Ted Kaczynski is such a hair styling trend setter
when it comes to bad guys.

Saddam

Bin Laden

Ted

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

Where do you get that? The closest you come is "Decides to remain seized of the matter", but gramatically that says the matter has control over the UN, not that the UN has sole control over the matter and no country can act without UN authorization. The phrase means "this topic will remain on the front burner," that's it. If that phrase meant what you say it means, that would mean the UN was the only organization with authority to deal with the September 11th Attacks.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm a stupid american and I think Saddam Hussein is a terrorist too

Re:bin laden..

[Guppy06]

"On a broader note, I object to the "we're doing it for the poor downtroden people" chest-thumping coming from the Bush government because it is a horrible lie. The same Bush government that is now telling us the war was about human rights, not oil or WMD, has steadfastly ignored the abuses of other dictators,"

Hussein is (was) the only dictator Bush has a legal leg to stand on to go after. The one and only rule in the UN is "thou shalt not kill thy neighbor's people." If a tin-plated despot lines up his people and has them each use a sledge hammer to crush the skull of the person in front of them, the UN will not condemn and many times quietly condone that behavior. Kim Jong Il is letting his people starve to death, but so long as they're still North Koreans dying and not any other nationality, any attack by an outside power to oust him will be seen as aggression by the international community. There are only two reasons we see Milosevic before the Hague today, with the first being that he signed a piece of paper in Dayton that said "I agree to be put before the Hauge if I do bad stuff" and the second because the ethnic Muslims he butchered were considered to be living in another country.

And if you've been paying any attention, you'd see that Bush is trying to get other such despots out of power (there's a reason why the word "Wilsonian" has been used here and there describing his foreigh policy to date), but can only go so far as Congress and the UN (yes, I said "UN") will let him. Unfortunately, with the international community so unwilling to get involved in "domestic disputes" and the historical tendancy of the US towards isolationism, all he can do is give stern talking-tos to Egypt and the Saudis to move towards real democratic reform.

The phrase "WMD" was used to the American public in order to overcome our disdain for helping out peoples whose skin colors are darker than ours ("Oh, their 'culture' just doesn't allow democracy...") and to the UN to cause at least enough dischord in the body to keep other nations from coming to Iraq's aid. And while it would have been more honest to say something along the liens of "It's despotic governments like this that is the birthplace of the zealotry that breeds terrorism, and it should be our duty as human beings to do all we can to elimiate them wherever they appear" the philosophical argument wouldn't have gone anywhere either at home or abroad.

Do the ends justify the means? That's a different matter.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

No it wasnt supposed to get medicin throught it wasnt even supposed to get a pencil throught since that could be used to create weapons of mass destruction. But I dont think that US media ever mentioned that.

Re:bin laden..

[Lobo93]

Well, what can I say...other than that I'm sincerly sorry for any offence I may have put upon your person with my remarks in my previous post. I hope you accept this apology and acknowledge the fact that I was merely trying to make a point in regard of me being categorized, and a subject to name calling by this particular poster.

The text in question was basically a futile attempt to show the antagonist that I was beyond the practise of thinking in labeled terms. I hope you believe me when I say that I consider myself wise enough not to seriously trample on other peoples ontology or way of life. Stereotypes are so easily abused, won't you agree? ;)

Again, I'm terribly sorry...

Respectfully yours - and since I hail from the cold and dark territory of Norway: God Jul & Godt nytt aar!

Re:bin laden..

[autopr0n]

Duh? What does the UK (or AU) labor party have to do with the labor movement? Look at what they actualy did, rather then their name. The Nazis had nothing to do with any sort of normaly defined socialism

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me one leader, news outlet, government, or person that does show all the sides? CNN would rather see people die so that they could get interviews, they have done this in the past and buried stories about Iraq and mass murders so that they could get special treatment. France was aiding Hussain up until the war and Germany and Russia (France also) only cared about their money that they would get for selling arms. What side are you really on? Murderers or murderers? (I meant to say it twice.

Re:bin laden..

[aled]

I'm not explaining myself very well. I'll put it this way. IMHO a lot of people around the world sees the whole Iraq affaire as USA invading Iraq to:

A) control oil flow and derail OPEC. Oil is a critical resource to USA. OPEC is a pain in the neck for USA. Venezuela is controled by Chavez who is not liked at White House and is the main supply of oil in Americas (and is the OPEC). Note that I'm talking about influencing the flow, not taking over which would be seen badly by the rest of the world.
B) Impose democracy at middle east. This paradoxical objetive can only be understud if we take in account that for USA government democracy only applies to allies. Take the Chavez case where USA was actively working in the coup attempt, even when Chavez was democrately elected (even if one disagree with his goverment).
C) Use Iraq as a permanent base. Bases in Saudi Arab are being downsized. After all, Bin Laden is Saudi.
D) Government of Iraq only for friends of USA. Even if they have null following in people like most of the council. They don't dare to have elections for fear that the muslim mayority would make Iraq an islamic country like ex foe Iran.
E) most of Irak infrastructure was destroyed in the war. The country was already in misery after 10 years of embargo. Ocupation forces wasn't able to restore security to the people.

There are more factors (like pushing out old Europe of the zone) but lets keep with those.
So people there may be happy but I don't expect them to be very grateful. They know that Saddam arrest wasn't for them or for justice. It was more PR. And for freedom, sooner or later they will want to exercise it fully, and nobody knows what may happen then.

Re:bin laden..

[Almost-Retired]

Humphh. The reward may have been paid. In that event, whyinhell hasn't the media made note of it, or am I not watching the right newschannel?

--
Cheers, Gene

Re:bin laden..

[BigGerman]

For those a little bit older, this is the same Hans Blix who was sent with inspection to Chernobyl and concluded it was not a big deal.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is the dictator of Indonesia?

Re:bin laden..

[Xabraxas]

This is like being angry that we let a burglar go to catch a rapist. Osama is not anywhere nearly the problem Saddam is. Open a history book that goes back more than three years.

Osama bin Laden killed 3000 people in the US.

Saddam Hussein killed none.

Osama has, and continues to kill people all over the world (and for a lot longer than the past 3 years, maybe you should open your history book).

Saddam has not been a threat to anyone outside of Iraq since the Gulf war over ten years ago.

It seems that we let the rapist get away to catch the burglar.

Re:bin laden..

[autopr0n]

"Ma'am, your husband died doing what he volunteered to do. He got killed 'over there' because every Islamic thug we kill 'over there' is one less Islamic thug who can eventually try his luck at killing civilians 'over here', but sometimes the Islamic thugs get lucky 'over there' too. War is hell."

Well, the point is to make her feel better, not worse by treating her like a 3-year old. You think she dosn't know what the words "Iraq" and "America" mean? You think she dosn't know the diffrence between Al-Quaida and the Fedayeen Saddam?

Re:bin laden..

[fupeg]

The point of the sanctions was not to prevent Saddam from having a nice palace, but to prevent Saddam from waging war. It actually did a great job at this, far better than the Bush & Co. would like to admit. That's why the Iraqi army was trivially defeated earlier this year and that's a big reason why there were no WMDs in Iraq.

The reason that so many Iraqis died of starvation in Iraq was because of the failure of the "Oil for Food" program. This was intended to be a way for Iraq to raise money by selling oil, and using this money to buy food for its people. Saddam instead took the money and bought palaces, cars, etc. Of course Saddam apologists would argue that since "we knew" how he would spend the money then we should have lifted the sanctions so that he had much more money and would have then found it in his heart to spend some of it on his people.

Re:bin laden..

[love2hateMS]

Virtually no Americans (Canadians maybe?) believe Hussein planned the 9/11 attack. We are not stupid.

Bush never said that. He never implied it. What he said was Saddam Hussein supports terrorists, including Al Qaeda. That is a fact. He said Hussein refused to demonstrate he had destroyed WMD's. That is a fact even asserted by the U.N.
Go READ Bush's speeches again-- I have.

If people want to infer something that was never implied, that is an issue for them and their respective psychiatrists.

Re:bin laden..

[Xabraxas]

I suppose you'd go AC if you told that to the Iraqi people where millions were slaughtered by that thug.

What about the thousands the US slaughtered during the war and afterward? Or the thousands the US killed with sanctions? How is that any better?

Re:bin laden..

[azzy]

Can we use good old English billions instead?

Re:bin laden..

[MegaHamsterX]

Me too!

Sorry, had to say it :-)

I regularly ignore the mod system as it is so totally broken. I don't meta mod or mod anymore due to the BS, so I stopped caring about how I'm modded, it's useless for me, likely useless for others like myself.

Any slashdotter with enough time on their hands and the zeal to repost articles and lame links can get modded up enough to become a moderator.

I wish I could rank people 0-5 and view their posts by my mod system, it doesn't matter to me someone else found it interesting, I find people and not posts interesting.

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

Wow. You really like analogy, don't you? Personally, I kinda like analogy, but I think yours was both a bit too long, and a bit too fuzzy.

A few points here that you seem to be either in error on, or putting words into my mouth on.

1. I have no particular opposition to a for profit corporation making money out of rebuilding Iraq. I object quite strongly to the fact that the contracts have been awarded with no bid to GWB campaign contributors. I also object to the fact that oversight and audit of said firms is non-existant.
   
2. I have no doubt that the average guy in Iraq is quite pleased, even jubulant, that Saddam is dead. Likewise during the initial liberation people were happy, of course. But that sort of thing doesn't last long, its the "what have you done for me lately" syndrome. Probably some of the people attacking US soldiers are old Saddam supporters, but in all likelyhood several of them were part of the celebrations that took place when the Saddam government fell. I say again: someone who hates Saddam can, at the same time, hate the US.
   
3. The fact that the average Iraqi doesn't seem to be saying "Look, I just saw a gurilla running that way" and offering help to US forces after an attack tends to indicate that the average Iraqi isn't that happy with the US occupiers. Again, they certainly didn't like Saddam, but they don't have to like the US just because they don't like Saddam.
   
4. None of this means that I liked Saddam, or that an occupation of some sort isn't necessary.
   

The aid money we give to Uzbekistan goes to the people, doesn't it?

Nope, its mostly going to buy the dictator more weapons to oppress them with. That was kinda my point. I'm not in favor of the US assinating foreign heads of state, and I'm not in favor of the US trying to police the world. But the very fricking least our government could do would be to stop supporting dictators.

This is why I say that the Bush government's "we did it because Saddam was bad" line is nothing more than a disgusting lie. Nevermind the fact that the US isn't trying to overthrow other people just as bad, no, the Bush government is supporting people who are as bad as Saddam was. Read up on what the Indonesian dictator is doing to his people (and to American citizens, two were raped and tortured last year). Yet the Bush government is actually working to send aid to the Indonesian dictator. And they have succeeded in getting $100M sent to Uzbekistan, where the dictator engages in rape, murder, and torture, just like Saddam, yet the Bush government treats him like a friend. This is hypocracy, plain and simple, and its why I cannot stand hearing the Bush government claim that it took out Saddam because of his human rights violations.

Re:bin laden..

[ElGuapoGolf]

Open a history book that goes back more than three years?

How about I go back to the 80s? When we funded Saddam in his fight against Iran? When those pictures were taken of Rumsfeld giving ol Saddam a big hug?

Face facts. We f'ed up by not finishing the job with Osama. Period.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... I remember reading in a (dutch) newspaper that *no* reward was paid in that case, because the whole thing was under the operation of government agencies.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

According to CIA assessment, your attack on Iraq has actually created a few million more fanatical America-haters. Aggressive attack on a sovereign nation without cause and breaking the international law hasn't brought America any new friends. Quite the opposite in fact.

So getting Saddam doesn't make things any safer for Americans. Quite the opposite for the troops in Iraq as well, as the Shias are now likely to demand that you get the hell out of their country,
as you no longer have any business there. Mission accomplished, time to get the hell out.

Re:bin laden..

[MegaHamsterX]

I love how the ACs shout doom and destruction from their soap boxes afraid to even commit to an alias.

You are pathetic, get an alias and contribute to slashdot rather than posting flamebait.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

It was the French and the Russians! I swear! They can read our minds! Help Help!

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

I'm not Bush's biggest fan, but to think this whole war effort was JUST to reward rich campaign contributors is ridiculous.

Well, not *just* for that, though it was doubtless a major component of the deal. The fact is that a certain group of Washington insiders (Rumsfeld and Cheney among them) has been wanting a US/Iraq war for some time now. Doubtless both the oil, and the prospect of getting a major US militry base in that region prompted this.

Bear in mind that before the dust had settled from the Oklahoma City bombing this same crowd was calling for an immediate invasion of Iraq. Then they discovered it was done by McVeigh. Right after the *first* WTC attack, this same group was calling for an invasion of Iraq. Right after 9/11, this same group was calling for an invasion of Iraq. If their Aunt Marge got the gout, they called for an invasion of Iraq...
My point here is that these people have, for reasons of their own, wanted an invasion of Iraq for more than a decade now. Liberating the Iraqi people isn't their reason.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

If they have freedom, is that why the Americans
have been destroying the shia-newspapers and radio-stations?

Oh, the ignorance, the ignorance...

Re:bin laden..

[mubar]

Yeah, it is. What they called themselves doesn't mean their ideology or politics had anything to do with it. Do you know what DDR standed for? Deutsche Democratische Republic. Was it democratic?

Names are just semantics, what matters are the deeds. Nazis, Fascists and other '30s nationalist movements in Europe and America can clearly be counted to the extreme right wing, unfortunately along with many political views in today's US.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

US Sanctions killed 1.5 Million Iraqis, mostly women and children. Those are the official UN figures. Modern day legalized mass murder.

Re:bin laden..

[blankinthefill]

While it may be true that saddam is only one guy, It is also much harder to hide one man than a lot of in-organic, non living substances. Saddam had to be kept alive, or it would have done no good to fight the US. The WMD, on the other hand, do not have certain requirements that living beings do, like breathing, eating, sleeping and the like. The WMD's could have been berried almost anywhere in Iraq. That would lengthen the timeto find them by a long shot, now, wouldn't it?

Re:bin laden..

[gnuLNX]

The day it falls? HA! I guess you will be alive to see it? being the believer in people that I am I do believe that the US will eventually be replaced perhaps be a more world oriented goverment...not the fucked up UN. However you can bet your ass that it won't be this century or the next or the next after that. You see this country has only been around a few hundred years and there is a reason why it is the super power that it is.

It has nothing to do with us being perfect, it has nothing to do with our money ( remeber there was no money when this country started ), however it has everything to do with an ideal (one that we struggle to maintain everyday)...it is called freedom. Yeah sure you can say that we are loosing more and more of it everyday and that we are constantly fighting to save it...no one every said that freedom was free.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, Americans can be dumb sometimes, but I don't believe 70% think Saddam is directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

I personally don't know whether he's involved at all, but I assume the purpose of the invasion into Iraq isn't to punish anybody for being involved in 9/11. The purpose is to rearrange things so that there aren't so many dark corners for terrorist organizations to hide in. (Plus, Saddam was a sadistic asshole who needed to be removed from power anyway, and this was a good occasion to do it.)

Re:bin laden..

[nyseal]

America never has any friends.....unless it's financial. I say kiss my ass. You're right on one front though, America should get out. Get out of the international scheme, get out of the finance scheme and definately get out of the military scheme. I sure hope the other countries of the world can get by without American support but if they can't, fuck 'em. Where's OUR support? We helped and gave our democratic injection to no avail.....so die. Live your lives under oppresion and death. So be it. If America's help isn't worthy of your praise then don't take it.

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

And if you've been paying any attention, you'd see that Bush is trying to get other such despots out of power

Gee, he must be using some sort of weird reverse psychology too complicated for my simple little brain then. I don't quite see how giving $100M to the dictator of Uzbekistan (again, like Saddam, he uses torture, rape, and murder to keep power) will somehow magically get him out of power. He's personal friends with the dictator of Saudi Arabia, guess that's more of his super special reverse psychology at work, huh? And naturally the millions being sent to the dictator of Colombia will get him out of office. Of course, the support for the military regime of Indonesia is a good idea, after all, they've only raped and tortured two Americans lately, so they're ok.

Try again, this time with a grounding in reality instead of propaganda. The Bush government has no interest in supporting democracy worldwide, and it actively provides support to dictatorships just as nasty as Saddam Hussain's Iraq ever was.

Don't misunderstand me, I agree that Saddam need to be taken out of power, and I also agree that the UN isn't good at things like that. But its utter nonesense to pretend that the Bush government is interested in human rights.

Re:bin laden..

[Basehart]

You should be watching The Reward Channel.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be better if you hadn't put Saddam in the power in the first place. It would help if
you hadn't help overthrow the democracy in Iran.
It would help if America did what it claims to do, instead of lying its ass off and only managing to fool it's less than bright citizens.

Now, how about getting rid of those Indonesian and Uzbekian dictators you currently help stay in power? Isn't everyone equally worthy of freedom?

What say you, Americans? Can we get help here in Indonesia, please? Stop supporting Suharto!

Re:bin laden..

[letxa2000]

Point of fact here is that Bush mkI ordered the troops into Somalia, not Clinton.

Point of fact, I didn't blame Clinton. I just said that's what the military has been doing for a decade.

Re:bin laden..

[DNS-and-BIND]

May have been paid? It was paid...jeez, here's the link. The other one was Mir Amal Kasi, and I can't find a link to that, but it's there. Why hasn't the media said anything about it? There's lots of stuff they don't report, as it doesn't fit their agenda. Open your eyes.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure "volunteer" in this context meant voluntarily enlisted. They were not drafted.

Does that mean they volunteered to go to Irag? Of course not (thought some may have enlisted For that purpose, but that is beyond the discussion).

The military does not dictate foreign policy, they enforce it. Does that mean that every armed serviceman who disagrees with that foreign policy is free to go home? (If they want to face dihonorable discharge or desertion charges, maybe). A somewhat cliched response from the point of the armed services would be "We're here to preserve democracy, not practice it."

The simple fact is that everyone has their own viewpoint of what is a warranted military intervention and those that don't. There have been a huge amount of consequances with our involvement in World War One, World War Two, and Korea. Was the use of the military the right thing at that time? Many was agree that our involvement was mandated in World War Two, since we were attacked on our own soil. Well, much of what happened in World War Two was BECAUSE of our involvement in World War One.

Re:bin laden..

[letxa2000]

I'm a liberal, and I fail to see how I lose out.

Of course we all win. What I mean by "liberals" is actually those Democratic candidates that were hoping to use the war in Iraq and the economy against Bush. Most likely neither of those will be things they can use against Bush by the time the elections come around, so they're going to have to get creative. :)

But I agree, things are better for all of us--even liberals, except for those that want to be president.

Re:bin laden..

[DNS-and-BIND]

here's the link

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iraqis are grateful. If you can't see this then you are truly blind.

Yup. So grateful that they've been killing American solders at a rate of roughly 1 per day

Go read the coverage over at Aljazeera. No, the reaction in the Middle East has not been 100% positive, but overall there was definitely a positive reaction. Quoting from Aljazeera:

In the Iraqi capital, celebratory gunfire rang out, radios played festive music, drivers honked their horns and passengers on buses and trucks chanted "They got Saddam, they got Saddam!"

Yes, there is definitely an element that resents the US occupation and wants us out NOW. But there is also an element that believes they are better off now. I doubt any Iraqi loves having the American army there, but many of them like it better than having Saddam still in charge.

And to answer your other point, I don't think the US went in there for purely altruistic reasons. We went in there primarily to (hopefully) increase our own security. But, I do think deposing a cruel dictator was a secondary purpose and did figure into the decision. It's just that it's not the only thing that figures into it.

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

Virtually no Americans (Canadians maybe?) believe Hussein planned the 9/11 attack. We are not stupid.

Man I love it when I can be right this easily... The link is to USA Today, hardly my fave newssource, but its as good as any. see, read this Not stupid, just mislead by the Bush government.

As for the Bush government *saying* that Saddam was involved in 9/11, no, no one associated with the Bush government ever actually said it. But they sure did imply it. Here's links to the implications. Remember, when in doubt try the facts, they're much better than your faith in the Bush government, if a bit less comfortable to begin with.

• The old tell the lie loud, issue a quiet retraction ploy
  
• more on the whole thing here complete with quotes from members of the Bush government. The quotes start about halfway down the page.
  

There, isn't reality better than fantasy?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

No you dumb f*ck. Rights are *never* given.
They can only be taken.

So you come take them back, if you dare.

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

We went in there primarily to (hopefully) increase our own security.

You know, I really do think that GWB believes that. He doesn't read newspapers (link to the first story on this I could find on Google here) so it really would be easy for him to be mislead by his advisors (several of whom have wanted a war with Iraq for more than a decade).

I can't see how this war has done diddily for increasing US security. It took attention (read: money) away from Afghanistan, so now the Taliban is making a comeback. It caused huge rifts between the US and its allies, which will make international police work harder. It caused a lot of effort to be taken off finding Osama. It's caused a lot of Arabs to have personal reason to hate the US and given Al-Quda and other similar outfits a huge pool to recruit from.

I really do wish I could see how the Iraqi war improved our security. I don't really want to believe that we've wasted that much money, and all those lives just because it gives Rumsfeld and Cheney a war they've wanted since the mid 90's.

Again, don't misundertand me, the fact that Saddam is out of power is a good thing. Likewise I have no doubt that most Iraqis are very glad he's out of power. Its the other issues (and the long term in Iraq) that worry me.

Re:bin laden..

[Guppy06]

"Gee, he must be using some sort of weird reverse psychology too complicated for my simple little brain then. I don't quite see how giving $100M to the dictator of Uzbekistan (again, like Saddam, he uses torture, rape, and murder to keep power) will somehow magically get him out of power."

And what are you suggesting? That this was done because Bush is happy with the way things are in Uzbekistan, or any other reason than "It shares a common border with Afghanistan?" You're forgetting the litmus test of what the American public will swallow, and Congress (the people in charge of spending) know that most voters don't care about what happens to Uzbekis so long as there are fewer people shooting at American soldiers in Afghanistan.

"He's personal friends with the dictator of Saudi Arabia,"

A relationship he is seriously straining by "asking" the Saudis to democratize, not to mention the disagreement on the whole Iraq thing...

"And naturally the millions being sent to the dictator of Colombia will get him out of office."

For being a dictator, President Uribe must be doing a horrible job since he only got 53% of the vote in '02. Maybe he should have paid more attention to Hussein's last election.

"Of course, the support for the military regime of Indonesia is a good idea,"

Let's see, do we reward Indonesia for their steps towards democracy and cooling off about the whole East Timor thing, or do we chide them for not doing things faster and be accused of using a double standard on the world's most populous Muslim nation (inciting more Muslim extremist unrest in the process)?

"The Bush government has no interest in supporting democracy worldwide"

Since you have everything figured out so well, what was he interested in (if not something so obviously tied to the most important issue on next year's election)? If you say "oil," please explain why we ousted Hussein instead of Hugo Chavez, since we import far more oil from Venezuela than from a country literally on the other side of the world.

Re:bin laden..

[The Snowman]

The fact of the matter is the majority of the people who are in the military are from your lower income bracket. Talk to them without the threat of an dishonorable discharge and most of them will admit to you that they joined primarily because they needed the money (a la Jessica Lynch for college).

I joined because I was a poor college dropout (could not afford another semester even with financial aid). I was too poor to move out of my mom's house, not educated enough to get a better paying job, and too poor to pay for an education.

Now I have quite a bit of a B.S. under my belt and, while still poor as dirt, I was able to junk my old 1986 Ford POS and get a new(er) one. I admit I was from the lower-middle class, and my primary motivation was college, which, in turn, would bring a good job making more money.

Of course, I joined before 9/11, when our security went down the toilet along with civil liberties. There is a whole new perspective now. At this point I probably won't reenlist for philisophical and moral reasons. My opinion is just too far from the "company line" in the Air Force.

Getting Saddam out of power is a noble cause, but I don't think we did it the right way. We got to the finish line, yes, but in the process we alienated our allies and wasted an assload of money. The war was politically motivated and Bush gave us lies as a pretense to go to war. All he had to do was say that a decade of sanctions aren't working, he is a madman who is murdering his own people, and he needs to go. We already knew that, but it is a valid justification. This WMD bullshit is just that -- bullshit.

Anyway, I am happy he is out of power and in custody. I wish the Iraqis the best, and I hope their country gets back in shape soon. Islamic fundamentalist terrorists aside, I do respect the arabs immensly and know they are very capable of living in a peaceful democracy.

Re:bin laden..

[fucksl4shd0t]

Open a history book that goes back more than three years.

Make it 70 years, so we can be sure to cover our American oppression and dominance and manipulation in the Middle East as completely as possible.

Re:bin laden..

[shaitand]

ok sorry buddy, but all BS US propoganda aside (yes that my own nations BS I'm talking about) I've never seen any legitimate evidence of Saddam really being a bad guy at all.

Let's see, he had a 90+% popularity rating among the people of Iraq. The US propoganda claims this is because the people were afraid to speak out. No legitimate evidence of this was ever presented of course. The fact the US government could pick any ruler loved by his people and say the exact same thing is ignored by everyone.

Of course the popularity rating was REALLY because he was trying to win back iraq's native territory (kuwait). This of course pissed us off, we have alot of money in kuwait.

Supposedly he used chemical weapons on us when WE ATTACKED HIM. Of course he didn't have much time, since we completely neutralized the entire iraq threat with one Seal team that took out their communications center and the rest was a cleanup crew (shhh, that's classified we can't have people knowing that desert storm was a joke.) We lost 100 troops, of course Saddam didn't kill them, nope, WE KILLED THEM with a cruise missle fired from a ship we had illegally parked in Saudi waters (the full truth of this is also classified).

Now of course we've been in iraq for months, last I checked we'd found ZERO WMD, as if having any would be that bad. Last I checked we have most of the remaining WMD left in the world. What hypocracy. After all this time we finally managed to spend millions of dollars, months of time, thousands of troops to figure out Saddam went to HIS HOME TOWN and hung out in someone's back yard.

Now as for Osama, maybe he's guilty or maybe not, one day we were declaring that we thought it was him but needed proof, the next day we heard press releases claiming the white house had proof but wouldn't disclose it. After that they annihiliated Osama's homeland, afterward they moved on to iraq. Wait a min, whatever happened to DISCLOSING the slightest evidence that Osama was EVER behind anything??? We just up and bought it hook line and sinker.

The towers was a very sad event, but terrorist activities like it occur constantly. You don't exactly see a response of turning the sands of the middle east to glass with little or no evidence. All as a way to get the people worked up while slipping legislation through that turns this nation into even more of a police state. Has nobody noticed that these countries are about as much of a sure thing conquest as we could come up with? What's next, treating conquest of Ethiopia as a serious military endevour?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I see.

IMO, the "legality of war" is mainly a political determination. Since the law is written by and for those with power anyway, I find it a less then interesting discussion. If Saddam had won the war (and thus power), Bush would be tried as a war criminal...

In reality Iraqis and Americans are still dying (independent of complex and often one-sided contructs like The Law). Maybe those who live (e.g. our leaders, families of those who died, etc.) can sleep better (or at all!) remembering those who have died but other than that, the legality of the war doesn't matter one wit.

Re:bin laden..

[Transcendent]

Others simply have no other way to make ends meet.

Go flip burgers for 30 hours a week.

This war was never about liberating the poor iraqi people, or WMD, or terrorism, or any of the other explanations the government has tried to use in the past.

So what was it for? Oil? Ok...

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

What about a government that allows the sale of radioactive milk to its citizens? What about a government that conducts mind control experiments on its citizens without their consent?

Uh oh... a conspiracy theorist... let's all listen to what he has to say!

Re:bin laden..

[shaitand]

If you want someone to blame, I wouldn't suggest blaming the guy who was vastly loved by his people and went to take back a part of their homeland which they lost some time ago (kuwait).

Those who really deserve the blame are the ones who felt the oil in that portion of the homeland was too valuable and would give saddam too much leverage at the bargaining table. And so invaded kuwait which Saddam had legitimately conquered.

Re:bin laden..

[shaitand]

In the gulf "war" we lost about 100 troops, and WE killed them all with one of our own missles. If our troops are dying at the hands of the iraqie people armed with pitchforks you can bet there are alot of pitchforks.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey fucknut, check the parenting on the post before you make an ass out of yourself.

Re:bin laden..

[Thing 1]

The bottom 40% of the population in the US controls about 1% of the money, yet they *pay* about 2% of the taxes. By comparison, the top 1% controls about 36% of the money, and they pay about 36% of the taxes. Dollar for dollar this means that the upper 1% pay half as much in taxes as the bottom 40%.

Maybe I'm picking nits, but isn't taxation based on the amount of money you earn, rather than the amount of money you control?

And yes, if you earn more than you spend then the amount of money you control tends to grow, year after year. So "the rich" are better off in that respect, as few of them live paycheck-to-paycheck like the rest of us.

I'm somewhat surprised that we got Sadaam before we got Osama. Sadaam had more loyal supporters, but I heard that his wife gave him up hoping to get the $25 million.

Perhaps I'm cynical, but a bullet costs a lot less than $25 million. Taking bets on her surviving the next week?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

What he said was Saddam Hussein supports terrorists, including Al Qaeda. That is a fact.

Since when has that been a fact? He has not supported them in the past... and I think that although he probably does now, I do not see how that can count. The US government on the other hand helped to create, train and fund Al Qaeda so I think that the US is far more guilty of any link to 11/9 than Saddam Hussein.

As for WMD, how do you prove a negative? The sites where weapons had been destroyed were investigated but it is impossible to determine how much they had or how much was destroyed. No one, probably not even Saddam Hussein knows how much they had. Even a country like the US is unable to account for its stocks so why would a tin pot dictator have accurate records? If the UN had been allowed to finish its job we may have found out more reliable information, not now, and without the horrendous loss of life.

Re:bin laden..

[CrowScape]

And you are correct. Legality is a political determination made solely to support the interests of those in power. It says nothing as to whether something is Right or Wrong, Just or Unjust, and you will notice that I made no arguement one way or the other on those topics. Seeing as how big a discussion something as mundane as legality caused, I'd shudder to think what a discussion based on Justice would yield.

Re:bin laden..

[Krondor]

US-forced UN sanctions during the last decade caused terrific damages to the Iraqi infrastructure, hospitals etc. - those millions I'm talking about!

There have been numerous studies to show that the idea of the santions was not harmful to Iraq society, but the way it was administered (not to mention corrupted) by the Iraqi government was where the real damage was done. It's very well documented that Saddam and his government manipulated the sanctions (especially oil for aid) to realize extreme profits at the suffering of the Iraqi people. It may not seem plausable at first, but it makes perfect sense. What is the fastest way to make the UN lift sanctions? Make it appear as though the sanctions are killing thousands if not millions of civilians. Do you really think the sanctions would have been that poorly designed to target people like that? It would have never passed the UN. It was in Iraq's previous government's best intereset to let the sanctions damage Iraqi society as much as possible.

I will concede that the UN and the US should have stepped in and drastically altered them to avoid the manipulations that were happening, but to say that it is the US that killed the people through sanctions, is like saying it was Einstein's fault that the people of Hiroshima died.

Re:bin laden..

[hendrix69]

One guys VS the chemical/biological/nuclear arsonal of one of the worlds most powerfull armies (I think Iraq ranked in the top 15 before 1991).

Top 15, true, but you have to remember that the gap between the top 3-4 and the rest of the armies was huge. The US and Soviet armies back then were an order of magnitude bigger then the rest of the larger militaries. Nowadays it is still true about the US army. So 'top 15' doesn't really say much.

Re:bin laden..

[spongman]

Well the only pratical difference between the socialists and the nazis (they're both authoritarian) was that the nazis allowed private ownership of industry. However, said private ownership was heavily regulated and taxes in general were high. I'd say socialist is a pretty good term, ironic given their anti-communist dogma.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

if you liberals had your way, youd have had him on welfare since the '80s with 5 committees to hand him the check

Re:bin laden..

[hendrix69]

But I thought Saddam and Osama were like.. you know.. an item.

No, that's Saddam and Satan! Don't you watch Southpark?? ya stupid git...

Re:bin laden..

[bash-2.02$]

right... which is strikingly similar to what parent said:

That is because you are a lying troll. The VERY FIRST comment modded 4+ is all "Yay team! Get Bin Ladden next". Sheesh.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Gulf War I ended.

According to the treaty that was signed, Iraq's leaders didn't live up to their obligations, and a decade later got invaded for it.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, it's a victory. I know of plenty of Muslims who are cheering because one more Bad Guy is gone. Still, Iraq isn't a lush rich democracy now that Saddam is in handcuffs, and we can still fault the US for bad pretenses, bad postwar handling, and bad choice of coalition members.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The political spectrum is really more of a circle - what is called right-wing if taken to an extreme will blend in with what is left-wing.

We are seeing this now with the alliances between the ultra right-wing muslim fascists (Wahabbis) and the ultra left-wing "anti-war" granola types.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I never said I had any examples. I am just saying it is wrong to say that there is zero support without proving it. It's not like Islamic extremists or others like them can't read /. You don't have to get any kind of security clearance to post.

It is better to say something like "It is unlikely anyone here isn't ..."

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iraq war broke International law. International law does not allow one to attack a sovereign nation. It only allows to act in self defence.

This is the reason why you saw all that pre-emptive defence bullshit come out of Bush's mouth before the war, and all the fake "45 minute nukes" stories.

Re:bin laden..

[chunkwhite86]

The purpose of a police officer is to uphold the rule of law. What we are seeing today in Iraq is the rule of power, not law. The Bush administration decided that it was above the rule of law.

Right. Just like the dozens of Iraqi police who have died in the police station bombings. Or Red Cross workers who died in the bombing of the Red Cross. Or the UN workers who died in the bombing of the UN building. You get the idea...

Perhaps we should withdraw the troops and rely on the "honor system", or perhaps we should tell those who kill Police officers, UN employees and Red Cross employees and volunteers to "go stand in the corner", or to "go to your room".

I'm sorry you have so much trouble with the fact that crazy violent Islamic militants can only be controlled with force. It's not that difficult of a concept...

It is those like you who try to silence dissent with threats who cast the shaddows here.

I'm merely pointing out the facts. Not that it does you any good - I have a feeling that you turn a blind eye or ear to any facts that don't fall in line with your extreme left agenda.

Re:bin laden..

[Thing 1]

I'll add one more thing: "Your husband, as someone willing to put more than Slashdot karma points on the line for what he believed in, grew a pair and served, which is more than I ever did."

I saw a bumper sticker last night while waiting for someone, and it stuck in my head: "For those who fought for freedom, it is a flavor the rest will never understand." I'm one of those behind a keyboard (I'm physically disabled and thus couldn't join up, much as I wanted to), so I'm in your position but completely understand.

"Hoo-yah," as a recent Jake 2.0 episode put it.

Re:bin laden..

[ckedge]

Very nice to see.

Did you read further down the page where he has a heated argument with a childhood friend about the occupation? The friend clearly thinks it's an "occupation" and thinks that all our Western incomes have "doubled" because we're stealing the Iraqi oil.

We have our share of whacko's over here, they're going to have an even larger share over there where they have NO trust of any government let alone foreign ones, and enough ignorance to allow almost any belief system to flourish.

Hopefully the moderates can keep their country on the road to progress and freedom.

Re:bin laden..

[StarTux]

"Iraq had nothing to do with 7-11 attack. Even Paul Wolfowitz (deputy secretary of defense) can't say otherwise."

Someone else has linked articles that say otherwise within this section.

"It's not know that Iraq had supported any terrorist attack in the world."

They did, answered by last section, go look for the articles as I did not save them.

"No massive destruction weapon was found yet in Iraq."

At least you said yet, this is very true :). Always a possibility that they will never be found, not only because he may not have had them (actualyl doubt this, Saddam and his type wouldn't have given them up that easy), but because they could be very well hidden or totally destroyed.

"Terrorism in Iraq started from null to today situation since President Bush anounced end of fights."

Terrorism or unrest?

Fact:

After Germany's surrender in WW2 quite a number of fiercly loyal Nazi's took up the cuase and started attacking/destroying things much the same way we see in Iraq. It took over 2-3 years to quell these and about another eight years before Germany (at least West Germany) became independant of allied control.

""Old Europe" countries foretold this situation will happen. USA reacted renaming french fries."

The French had belief they could control Saddam just as much as they thought they could control Hitler...

"Of course Old Europe also had important economical interests an Iraq, like USA."

Sad, but true to an extent. But cynically, why risk lives if your country won't get much out of it?

Re:bin laden..

[WindBourne]

Penicillin?
Gee where did that come from (which saved far more ppl than has Vaccine)?
The cure for Scurvey, which prevented ships from exploring too far? hummmm. Does the word Limey mean anything?
How about the disease that was transmitted via milk? How do we solve it? we "Pastuerize" stuff.

As to the Salk Vaccine, well, it was the first succesful vaccine based on an attenuated virus for Polio. Yes, but long before that the biggest scourge was Flu (still is), and SmallPox. A european noticed that Milkpox confirmed immunity and it was used as quite probably the first attuated vaccine (something like early 1800s; I do not remember which or by who). There is no doubt that the USA has done many great things. But then again we are doing these standing on the shoulder of others; Some great while others were monsters
Much of our modern Medicine was based on WWII experiments from Germany and Japan (as well as our own).
Our space program was based on the work of the germans (as was the Soviets) to figure out how to bomb the rest of the world.
Our chemistry comes from mostly Germany (pre WWII).

We would do well as a society to quit trying to take all credit and no blame. Let us take the credit that we deserve ( a great deal ), but let us also accept blame and likewise pass on credit and honour to those that also do good things.

Re:bin laden..

[sheldon]

Economic sanctions are a bad idea to begin with.

What the fuck did you think was going to happen as a result of the sanctions? Hussein would become a pauper and the people would live a wonderful life?

Sanctions only work against democratic countries. In which case you generally don't need sanctions.

Re:bin laden..

[fnj]

looks like you woke up a bit late to save them

BWAAA HAAAA HAAAAA !!!

I happen to agree we put up with WAY too much, and put off dealing with it for WAY too long (you get one brownie point for correctly discerning that the US is not perfect), but you know what? We would be blabbing about maybe doing something DECADES from now if we listened to the French, Germans, and Russians.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't anywhere near the same situation. The Iraqi government didn't have any significant change in '91. The Third Reich lost control of Germany.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't see how you feel we are taking all credit and no blame. What I object to is the "all blame, no credit" meme that is so overwhelmingly common among young people across this country and Europe. Read the posts here for countless examples.

While I'd say the U.S. has done the most for the world, you are right that the U.S. is based on an older European enlightenment, which has made many other contributions. Your example of the smallpox vaccine is a good example. Native peoples in Asia had noticed that people exposed to cow pox didn't get smallpox. This was folk knowledge for at least a thousand years. But nothing was done about it. The knowledge existed, but was never used for the greater good beyond the local village. The West, and especially the U.S. is able to take this knowledge and use it for the universal good.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but first you try explain to the family members of the 15,000 civiliants killed from the American invasion that the war was legal.

Re:bin laden..

[legoleg]

We basically created the burglar as a distration (among other reasons), let him burgle, and then caught to to procliam ourselves victorious.... he's a bad guy and all, but there were other priorities.

Re:bin laden..

[WhiplashII]

I found your comment on the cost of a bullet interesting, because it has been repeated so often. Interesting also because it shows a lack of understanding of the "real world," for lack of a better term.

A politician could get into trouble over a bullet. The money is already approved, and awarding it has no negative fiscal realities for anyone, possibly excepting the taxpayers.

Re:bin laden..

[JohnwheeleR]

i thought you would agree

Re:bin laden..

[glesga_kiss]

What he doubtless meant was that roughly 70% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussain was responsible for the attacks on September 11.

Hell, anyone wanna keep count of how many times Bush & Blair etc use the word "terror" while talking about Iraq? Any chance they get, they drop it in. "Saddams reign of terror" etc.

And no one has challenged them about it!!

Re:bin laden..

[glesga_kiss]

If you want to find someone to blame for the misery of the Iraqi people you'll find his picture on CNN/Foxnews/MSNBC as the guy we captured today!

So true! It's great that someone who has maimed and killed Iraqi's for the personal gain of his family & peers has finally been arrested.

Which prison are they keeping Bush in anyway?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were to die, it wouldn't be as large a deal, because people would still be able to carry on my heritage. If my culture is taken away, I might as well not even live because something was taken away from me that can NEVER be replaced.

Okay punk. Your culture or your life?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do you honestly expect that Saddam Hussein will be suddenly uncovered?"

Were you born 5 minutes ago? The caught him yesterday!

Re:bin laden..

[love2hateMS]

Did you just send me a link to NPR as proof of your assertions? Why not send me a link to Al Jazeera? I won't even consider ANYTHING out of that lying pile of pud as worth reading. They are so blatantly partisan I'm amazed they don't just declare themselves marxists and declare a revolution.

There is a difference between stating that Iraq has ties to Al Qaeda-- which it does-- and stating that they planned Sept 11.

Anyone can play with quotations and infer things from them. The fact is Bush said quite clearly in his State of the Union Speech that there were no links between 9/11 and Iraq.

Polls are completely useless. The answers can be manipulated simply by changing the wording of the questions.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the point is you don't enter a war on negative evidence. No evidence, no war. It's called the International Rule of Law and it's becoming trivial to ascertain who's Ameerican by their stance on the issue.

Go on now, attack more countries, your logic permits it. You'll call it preemptive, the rest of the world will call it imperialism. What's so frustrating, and in a way satisfying, is that the same criminals violating International law are furiously dismantling the underpinnings of your freedoms. Of course, the rest of us will be to blame for that too.

Enjoy your illusions before ugly reality intrudes.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as the Bush government stops giving money and military support to torturing, mass murdering, dictatorships, I'll start believing the "we did it because Saddam was a bad man" line. But let's be honest, getting rid of the vile Saddam Hussain was a side issue. The real issue was letting Halliburton and other corporations that gave millions in "campaign contributons" access to Iraq's oil.

Same old left wing conspiracy bullshit. You have nothing to back up that up apart from the word of a half dozen other clueless left wing activists who spout the exact same line but don't have a clue what the fuck they're talking about. The money for Iraqi oil is finally going to rebuild a free Iraq, not prop up and enrich the "torturing mass-murdering" refuse that our troops finally caught today. So what do you think our position should be on people like Casto, Chavez, Kim, Mugabe...or are those all personal friends of yours? Can we count on you to act as a human shield if we were to set our sights on those regimes? The left can scream all it wants to about Halliburton, but it seems to have glossed over the question of whether or not Halliburton profited from this "overcharging" or what this has to do with the Bush administration. The truth is the left thinks if they say "Cheney" and "Halliburton" in the same sentence enough times, they can create some sort of frenzy out of mid-air that will frighten him out of power. But I fear it will go the way of the CIA-leak "scandal" now. Pity. Guess you'll have to keep your America-hating delusions to yourself and stick to throwing bricks though Starbucks windows and SUV windshields like any common criminal.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush was only stating the obvious, that civilians will end up being killed in a war. No matter how hard you try, some will end up being killed. IT IS A FACT OF WAR!! It was NOT an INTENTIONAL TARGETING OF THEM!!!

PLEASE, how STUPID can a person be???!!??

BC

Re:bin laden..

[AP31R0N]

@ Let them die?! SADDAM LET THEM DIE! The sanctions were started because of saddam, the sanctions lasted as long as they did because of saddam. The sanctions will end because saddam is not in power. You anonymous COWARD, get your facts straight. Monday morning quarterback. Are you 12? Or where you just living in a cave for the past 12 years?

Re:bin laden..

[mpost4]

The Bible does not give the year that Christ was born. And he died (and rose) at the age of 33, this comes from, (the Bible states) he started his ministry at the age of 30, and continued it for 3 years, and ended in the Passion, Death, Resurection, and assention.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

To exactly what "international law" are you referring? It was legal according to the UN, unless you somehow misunderstand the phrase "by any means necessary".

Re:bin laden..

[mpost4]

Those who died in the service of their country are heros, be it the US or one of the colition contries, and deserver our respect.

Re:bin laden..

[winterdark40]

Sanctions have ended and Saddam will not return. That is wonderful. But for the record:

Saddam pocketed a bunch of the money

Of course the Iraqi government was creating cash revenue for itself. The oil-for-food (O.F.F.) program only provided commodities in exchange for oil; it didn't allow the government any access to cash. How well would the US government function without cash? Oil smuggling was the only thing that gave a salary to Iraqi teachers, public healthcare workers, and civil servants. Physicians in particular began receiving salary increases that were proportional to the crumbling of sanctions in 2000. Sure, the regime invested in social services partly to reduce popular discontent; it was self-serving. But that doesn't change the fact that sanctions, not just Saddam, violated Iraqi human rights and were in fact designed to. Bush Sr. thought of this as "Making life uncomfortable for the Iraqi people."

The UN sanctions were suppose to let food and medicine get to the people of Iraq

Actually no, they were supposed to appear to allow this on paper, but not in practice. For six years Iraq could sell no oil, which cut off 90 per cent of its foreign revenue at a time when Iraq imported two-thirds of its food. As the UN predicted (Bush Sr. ignored it), this led to massive malnutrition. In 1996 the O.F.F. program began, with a pointless cap on oil exports. Two years later the cap was removed, but the US and Britain tied up $5 billion of humanitarian supplies including many spare parts for the oil industry. The point wasn't to kill Iraqis; that was just an "acceptable" consequence of wrecking Iraqi oil production and undermining its global market influence. This should come as no surprise. Donald Rumsfeld certainly wasn't preaching human rights when he shook hands with Saddam, as Reagan was launching his campaign to support Iraq's unconventional weapons development.

No wonder UN humanitarian coordinator Denis Halliday said the O.F.F. program was "designed to fail". I heard this with my own ears when Halliday spoke in New York; similar things from his successor Hans von Sponeck when he spoke in Milwaukee; and more diplomatically from Sponeck's successor Tun Myat when he spoke in Baghdad.

the facts are pretty simple.

Not really, as I have shown. I'm glad this is behind us, but if the history books are honest, they will slaughter the leaders on both sides.

Re:bin laden..

[AC5398]

* the tremendous victory of the Iraqis and the Americans here.*

What tremendous victory? They found a dirty, shivering, old man cowering in a hole in the ground. It's damn satisfying to see the bastard caught, but it isn't a tremendous victory.

There is a faction or factions within Iraq who are bombing Iraqi and American targets, the latest a police station. The death count from that is astounding and it happened AFTER the arrest of Saddam.

And old Saddam did NOT look the guy who was in charge of them there factions, he looked like anything BUT the guy in charge while the old American doc was checking him out for head lice.

Hell, Saddam's safety has probably been one big headache for whomever is running the various factions and now they're rid of the jerk and have resources (?and bank accounts?) freed up.

Catching Saddam doesn't mean a damned thing. It won't stop the bombing, it won't help stabilize the lives of the Iraqis.

And I doubt it was Saddam's bunch of henchmen who are doing the bombing anymore; it might have been at first, but I'll bet you that scene has shifted and is realigning itself, particularly after every extremist, American-hating, Islamic nut joined the fray.

About the only thing hunting Saddam's buddies will get you anymore is a varying group of thugs and their suitcases stuffed with diminishing amounts of cash.

It's time for the US to get the hell out of Iraq, let the various terrorist factions organize and show themselves. Then the US can go back in and hit them hard and fast. The situation in Iraq is currently far too chaotic to organize a government out of; the US is only making a target of its troups by remaining.

Give the various councils in Iraq a month to organize themselves, get out, and go back in for round two in six or seven months. That's the tactic of the terrorist factions, that has to be the tactic the Americans adopt also.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

No liberals consider the Democrat party to be liberal... only conservatives believe that.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

If you take a moment to RTFA you will notice that most are caused by Iraqi thugs (and a few Osama types thrown into the mix)! WE DIDN'T KILL MOST OF THEM IN ANY WAY!!! And Geneva responsibility??!!? Our responsibility is to do our best to avoid these casualties, but no where does it require us to be perfect, you moron!

I swear, you people hate Bush so much that you would pin a medal on anyone who makes this war go south for us! Pathetic zealots!!

Re:bin laden..

[WindBourne]

I can't see how you feel we are taking all credit and no blame. What I object to is the "all blame, no credit" meme that is so overwhelmingly common among young people across this country and Europe. Read the posts here for countless examples.

First, kids have been doing that for eons. They fight the "establishment". In the 60's, it was fighting against 'nam which was basically Democrats. In the 70's, it was fairly ambivilent (with Nixon and Carter, it is easy to understand). In the 80's, kids were polarized just like today. There were hard-core Raygunites running around and screaming bloody murder about the other kids. From Papa Bush's time through Clinton's the kids did not care one way or another. Now we are back to extreme polarization. It will cease and desist either in 2 years or in about 6. Take your pick. Some of the ppl that you are upset with here have served, and are still rebeling against what they have seen and what they see happening.
Likewise, there are others here who have not served, but pretend to, and take hard core approaches to either view. So what? You can not force a belief in us down others throats, nor can you stop what ppl see in us.

Personally, I am amazed at our society. I have worked with W.E.E., V.E.E., , and Y. Pestis during the early 80s. While I hated what I did (and will despise Raygun till I die), I was also able to do things that few in this world will ever do. Likewise, I was opposed to what I did back then, but have since changed my mind to some of it( It is amazing how another country with 10x your population, or perhaps just getting older, can change your mind ). A number of the kids will grow up and change their mind. Now the real question is, is it due to maturing, or simply growing feeble minded? :)

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, why not just say it? You hate Bush and are incapable of objective opinion. We fund any government that fills our immediate needs, that is a fact of U.S. history. And it was all Clinton's fault.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to be rude, but you obviously don't understand the nature of no-bid contracting. You see, every 5 years the army holds a bid to see who will get go to provide no bid services for the coming period.

LOGCAP is the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program created by the United States Army. It is a program that uses a competitive bidding process to award a contract to a corporation to be on call to provide whatever services the Army might need ... right then.

Someone smart in the Army decided that a bid process in war time is a bad idea.

For those of you not in the US, a government bid process is a very lengthy affair, that's why it's a bad idea...

Halliburton won the competitive bidding process for LOGCAP in 1992. They then lost that bidding process five years later in 1997. In spite of the fact that Halliburton no longer held the LOGCAP contract, Bill Clinton went ahead and awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton to do some work in the Balkans supporting U.S. peacekeeping actions. Odd, isn't it. The same people who are screaming about Halliburton right now had absolutely nothing .. nada .. nunca .. not one thing to say about Halliburton when it was the Clinton Administration that was handing out contracts .. with no bidding, by the way. You might also be interested in knowing that Al Gore was quite a fan of Halliburton. Gore's reinventing government panel had some very complimentary things to say about Halliburton and the services it provides to the U.S. government.

That brings us to 2001. It's time for bidding on the LOGCAP contract again. Halliburton is right in there, and wins the bid. This means that at the time of the Iraq War Halliburton had the bid for providing logistical and other services to the U.S. government. They were the go-to company. So, along comes the U.S. Army with a fat contract for Halliburton to put out oil-well fires in Iraq and all hell breaks loose. To the left this is all the proof you needed to show that this whole war was about oil and enriching Bush pals.

Recap: Clinton awards no-bid contract to Halliburton at a time when Halliburton did not hold the LOGCAP contract. Bush awards contract to Halliburton at a time when Halliburton DID hold the LOGCAP contract.

Now, ask people if Clinton went into the Balkans to enrich Halliburton. They'll say no. Then ask them if Bush went to Iraq to enrich Halliburton. They'll say yes.

Insane...

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, right, and no conservative considers the Republica party to be conservative... only liberals believe that. Fact is, both parties are pretty much in the middle--liberals would like to see it further left and conservatives would like to see it further right.

It's a matter of perspective. But what's your point? Or did you even have one?

Re:bin laden..

[mqduck]

"Well for starters the Bolshevick faction was actually the minority faction, they just called themselves the majority."

Nope, you're quite wrong. They started out as the majority, then quickly became the minority, and finally ended up the majority again before the October Revolution.

It was precisely the Mensheviks that were against the masses, against a full socialist revolution, insisting that the country was not ready for it. The workers and peasants were demanding it, and therefore the Bolsheviks became the more popular once again. Claiming that the October Revolution was a coup of some communist "elites" is nothing but the imaginary historical revisionism of anti-communists.

Re:bin laden..

[God! Awful 2]

Bush can't declare war. That takes an act of Congress.

Unless congress pre-emptively gives Bush the power to declare war.

-a

Re:bin laden..

[ImpTech]

I don't like these soccer-hooligan and similar analogies. Soccer hooligans don't kill people carrying M-16 assault rifles, or Colt Carbines, or whatever they're using these days. I mean, how many street cops get killed on St. Patrick's Day?

To me it seems like you're *way* understating the significance of killing a US soldier. I mean, we invested tons of time and money into these people so they would kill and not be killed. Its hardly the equivalent of some dumbass getting drunk and getting beat up.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I want my rights back too. Please folks, we need an administration that will do away with that Patriot act bull..

Re:bin laden..

[choka]

Don't worry, more than 70% of the US population is convinced they're the same person anyway...

Here's the stunning conversation I overheard what some collegues from other departments in my company talked about today.
collegue A: bin laden is still on the loose!
collegue B: ya, now his son's being captured, his grand kids dead. catch the grand father and everything will end.
collegue C: what u talking about?
collegue B: bin laden is saddam's dad, don't you know?
collegue C: oh! that's it!

Re:bin laden..

[SpaceCadetTrav]

Making the decision to go to war is certainly easier if you don't have a family member in the military.

And it's better that way. I don't want my leaders making important decisions based on emotion.

Re:bin laden..

[Sage Gaspar]

In addition to being foolhardy for several other reasons, mandatory military service would create billions of dollars of funding necessary to process all of these people and then find something worthwhile to do. Are you going to compensate them as well? More money. And while they're doing this, they're not actively contributing to the economy in any way, shape or form.

Re:bin laden..

[Qrlx]

I agree with everything you say, and I like the way you say it, but you still sound like an apologist. Among the problems I have with the occupation of Iraq is that the way that Bush achieved buy-in, the WMD story, was a known, documented crock of shit.

"We're taking out one that's so bad he cannot be tolerated." Cough, cough. The reason Saddam Hussein was deposed has nothing to do with the way Saddam Hussein exercised power. Rather, it has everything to do with the way George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Project for the New American Century want to run the world.

If I were an Iraqi, I would be thankful that Saddam is gone, but I'd also be leery of my liberators, as the decision to remove Mr. Hussein was not made with my interests in mind whatsoever. Clearly, the puppet authority's strings, ("we're from the Government and we're here to help") terminate somewhere inside the Beltway.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

70 years? Then surely you mean European oppression and dominance of the Middle East, not American. Or at least you would if you knew what you were talking about.

Re:bin laden..

[Qrlx]

If you want to find someone to blame for the misery of the Iraqi people you'll find his picture on CNN/Foxnews/MSNBC as the guy we captured today!

See, this is where it gets really complicated. I suppose to the extent that Saddam Hussein could have went into exile or something, he was responsible for the suffering brought on by the sanctions. And I'm not trying to say that he isn't a bad person who'se clearly gone "old-school" on his people at times. For those atrocities he is to blame.

But for the sanctions, that doesn't really hold up. The whole point of sanctions is to exert pressure on a country by telling them that we aren't gonna play with them any more until they change their ways. The best example I can think of it working is South Africa, where the Apartheid government peacefully said bye-bye. But sanctions don't always work; witness Cuba and Iraq.

The hard truth of sanctions is that by ostracizing a nation you will lower the economic status of that nation. This will put stress on the existing political structure, with the intent that the political structure will acquiesce, conform to the demands of the community.

So is Saddam's fault that he didn't abdicate power? Kuwait was, in point of fact, drilling sideways into Iraq and tapping her oil. He was in the right to defend his natural resources, though he clearly underestimated the impact his invasion would have.

I think what happened with Iraq was: We wanted to show the rest of the world why you don't piss off America. Your people will have lives of shit for a decade if you fuck with us. Then we'll come over there, blow some shit up, and tell your shellshocked ass to pick up the fucking pieces because we need your oil. We liberated you, now it's time to get to work.

How can you know that Saddam's departure wouldn't make things worse for Iraq? For example, his sons could have started a civil war against each other for power. An islamist might sieze control. This latter option may yet happen, though we don't have to worry too much about a formal military coup. Come to think of it that may be why we disbanded the military. But back to the point.

I don't think it's fair to blame Saddam for the suffering caused by the sanctions. To me that sounds akin to you blindsiding me at an intersection, then you blaming the accident on me since I don't have car insurance and therefore shouldn't have been on the road in the first place. If you think that Saddam alone has caused suffering in Iraq you're looking past a few really important truths.

Here's another thing that I've never understood. This idea that our troops would be met with flowers. Hell now that we've got Saddam... strike that... Hell now that we've given Saddam to the Iraqi people, or maybe to an International War Crimes Tribunal in Baghdad, we might actually get a smile. But we bombed Iraq several times a week from the end of the Gulf War until the recent occupation. That's twelve years of U.S. and British fighters dropping bombs on your country, virtually uncontested. Were someone to drop bombs on my country for a decade, I would not welcome them into my house.

Anybody who doesn't understand why the U.S. is not loved is a fool. That last's not directed at you stevew but it makes for a damn fine rant.

Re:bin laden..

[Qrlx]

This is obviously a major victory. And not just for America and the Iraqi people, but for the promotion of this new form of modern warfare.

I'm not trying to troll, I am wondering what this new form of warfare is.

I mean, we captured the guy hiding in a ditch after sweating the locals for almost a year. What's new about that?

BEGIN TROLL MODE>
EXEC HYPERBOLE>
Or did you think it was some great new form of warfare when the Nazis came for Anne Frank?
END TROLL MODE>

Whew, had to get that out. There's lots of emotion on this fucking thread. We needed another Nazi post too.

Re:bin laden..

[WIAKywbfatw]

Uh, that's surely wrong.

America didn't formally declare war with anyone at the start of World War II because America sat it out until it was forceably drawn into the war, first by Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour then by Hitler's declaration of war on America. So, both in the case of the war in the Pacific and the war in Europe, the US was an unwilling entrant.

To pretend that the US was an active participant in WWII from the start is ridiculous. WWII started on 3rd September 1939 and the attack on Pearl Harbour took place on 7th December 1941. Germany and its ally Italy simultaneously declared war on the US on 11th December 1941.

Please, before you quote history make sure your history is accurate.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the Fox-bashing will stop when they stop being a conservative propaganda machine.

I think you're missing the point of view for very many people that have bored of the common (more so with Europeans than even liberals from the U.S.) straw-man of the Fox News Channel being the source of someone's beliefs or knowledge. Fox News is clearly biased. So is NPR. Any rational person will see the biases of both of these media outlets. It's not even remotely unique for the media to be biased, and it never has been.

However the repeated references to Fox News is obnoxious and off-topic. When someone posts a tirade about the evil jews in Israel, it would be fairly obnoxious and off-topic for another party to take the opportunity to bring up NPR's clearly biased reporting of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It would be pretty obnoxious if you had to read this every single day for a myriad of subjects that some netizen happens to disagree with someone else about.

I mean really, I could ascribe the rest of your ignorant comments and ubsubstantiated accusations to CNN, the BBC, or even FNC if I really felt particularly obnoxious.

Re:bin laden..

[rjung2k]

How can Saddam Hussein have ties to al Qaeda when the two are mortal enemies? Or have you forgotten that Osama Bin Laden (yeah, that guy) actually volunteered to have his al Qaeda flunkies go and wage war against Iraq during the first Gulf War?

Saying Saddam and al Qaeda "have ties" only proves you are a clueless tool.

Re:bin laden..

[haxor.dk]

"I don't agree when someone who fights for freedom lies to the whole world about their motivation."

What is there to do ? Even if a war would free the world of cancer, aids and alcohol-free beer, there would still be a public outcry, especially from the libbies and USA-haters.

Fuck the motivation. Look at the results. Judge the action against Saddam from the *results* - namely, freedom and better living standards for 26 million people.

Re:bin laden..

[Flower]

Ok, that's it. I've clicked 4 replies and ditched them because there wasn't anything to say but this is complete bullshit. Bush Sr. didn't finish the job because the UN wouldn't come along. The Middle East states did not want a Democracy in place, Europe didn't want to risk the possible casualties of a ground assault and neither did the American public. So everything got tidied up and signed off as project completed.

Oh you are right. Things aren't black and white but if you're going to postualte that getting Saddam out during the first Gulf War was Bush's fault you are just wrong. Those people died because the World pussied out on them. Unlike what can be argued this time around, the first Gulf War did have a coalition behind it and it fell apart once it became clear that finishing Saddam wouldn't be antispetic and pretty.

Re:bin laden..

[Edy52285]

We diddnt get Saddam Hussein,.. we got santa clause. Just in time for the holidays too.

Re:bin laden..

[beguyld]

The aid money we give to Uzbekistan goes to the people, doesn't it?

You'd hope so wouldn't you? Often it does not, or has bad consequences. I strongly recommend the recent book "Adventure Capitalist" by Jim Rogers. The website about his recent trip is here.

He took a 3 year trip, driving around the world to see how it REALLY is. One of the things he noted was that the international aid almost NEVER actually got to the people that were supposed to get it. Someone always gets in the middle and ends up SELLING the goods. Where food actually gets through, it often just creates a whole generation that does not know how to farm their own land, even though it is now perfectly capable of supporting them. Not sure if it specifically applies to Uzbekistan, but aid alone very often does more harm than good, if done as a policy rather than just a temporary measure.

But that is just a couple of points. The book is highly recommended for insight on the reality of what is going on in many parts of the world. (The reality of former USSR is really eye-opening too. Like most military equipment is getting sold off like crazy, and the country basically run by organized crime.)

BTW, insightful post.

Re:bin laden..

[Talence]

No, I'm not saying it's all his fault - I was giving some counter-view to the other post. I don't agree with the simple view of good guys vs. bad guys, when the good guys (not just the US) have shaken the hands of the bad guys more than once.

Re:bin laden..

[mark2003]

Typical Americam bollocks - the US supported the guy through the 80s when he committed some of his worst attrocities.

Then during the 90s US companies were active in Iraq and trying to work with Saddam - I have friends working in the oil industry who were working for US companies and had colleagues sent to Iraq. There was no big French or UN conspiracy to make money out the oppressed Iraqis whilst the wonderful, selfless Americans did everything they could to help. America had been as guilty as any other country over the last decade in Iraq and were probably more culpable before that.

Re:bin laden..

[mark2003]

Slight problem with your argument - Iraq is not in the US and is therefore not subject to US law.

By the same logic all any country has to do is pass an invasion in their internal parliament and it is legal.

This is why we have INTERNATIONAL law, much as the US likes to ignore it.

Re:bin laden..

[BasilBrush]

Did you not read the parent, or do you not understand irony? Which is it?

Re:bin laden..

[gfxguy]

You're kidding!! Listen up: it was UN sanctions, not U.S., and the Iraqi people wouldn't have suffered so much if the UN had enforced those sactions 12 years ago.

Now let's look at the "facts" you didn't mention:

Iraq invaded Kuwait. Much of the free world joined forces to expell them. A cease fire was signed. That cease fire had conditions that Iraq NEVER met. For over a decade, regardless of who was in office, we've had conflict with Iraq. We've destroyed Iraqi military equipment (and people) who violated the northern no-fly zone (one example of Iraq violating the cease fire), and we've sat back and watched Iraq block inspections and make a mockery of the inspectors (against the cease fire). All the while the UN passed resolution after resolution but never backed them up.

If anything, coalition forces FREED IRAQ FROM HUSSEIN AND THE UN SANCTIONS.

Re:bin laden..

[gfxguy]

I read your response with a great deal of satisfaction of finding someone who was willing to write about this with a level head.

Perhaps it is our mess, which is what makes our actions especially important.

I'd like to point out to all the people bitching about our previous aid to people like Hussein that your arguments will be valid when you can prove that two wrongs make a right.

Re:bin laden..

[gfxguy]

The war was about the Iraqi regime's non-compliance with UN resolutions relating to WMD. The resolutions required that the inspectors verify evidence that the WMDs were destroyed.

Read that last sentence carefully - it was not the weapons inspectors job to play hide and go seek with WMDs, it was their job to inspect evidence that they had been destroyed. Iraq refused to allow them to do this, even though defiance of UN resolutions violated the cease-fire agreement Saddam's representatives signed. In a very real sense, the first war never really ended, it was suspended with a cease fire agreement that the losers continually violated.

While it would be nice to find a smoking gun, it was Iraqs non-compliance with the UN resolutions that caused the Hussein regime's demise.

Re:bin laden..

[gfxguy]

The weapons inspections were supposed to verify evidence, presented by the Iraqis, that the WMDs that we all knew he had were destroyed. It was not Iraqs job to hand over the WMDs, it was their job - by agreeing to the cease fire in the first gulf war, and through countless UN resolutions, to destroy the weapons and show proof of their destruction.

It was not the weapons inspectors jobs to play hide and go seek for WMDs.

Yes, I know Saddam is evil. Yes I know he murdered too many people to count. Still doesn't given anyone else the right to just invade and depose him.

It doesn't? Then when do we have the "right" to intervene? I guess if you see some guy being murdered across the street, you feel you have no "right" to intervene? People actually have this attitute when "blaming" the coalition from getting rid of the Iraqi regime? And then complain about OUR sense of morals. Now I know there's something wrong with the world (I suppose I already knew that, though).

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the US did f it up when we supported Saddam, but I'll blame all this on the British. Next time you feel like colonizing the world based on hertage, come over here so we can beat your brit ass with a clue stick.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Jezus man, get a clue! If it wasn't for the US, Saddam would never have gotten this powerful.

And btw, the same goes for Bin Laden.

Re:bin laden..

[Yanray]

How do you figure that? Noone has rewritten most of the history of Imperial Europe? England, France, Germany, Italy (have I mentioned your home nation yet?) all would have war/humanitarian crimes of the most dispicable nature to absolve themselves of if this were to be rewritten with the fall of the "Empire." However the US had inquiry's into it's soilders behavior in the Phillipeanes within 8 years of the initial invasion and human rights abuses. We did not at the time get the black eye we likely deserved for the mutilation and murder of thousands, however we have aired out our dirty laundry. Mostly because US politicians since have learned that Hollywood will if they don't. The lesson to this story, Don't bitch about the stench of our dirty laundry when yours is upwind.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, technically, national socialism does have a lot of things in common with socialism. The fact that everyone works for the state and the state provides the people with what they need was clearly present in nazi germany. The problem was that is was combined with the idea of racial superiority, so the above was only valid for members of the Arien race.
Hitler borrowed heavely from the socialists in his rhetoric and combined this with some aspects of Nietsche (most of which he clearly misunderstood).

Re:bin laden..

[NickRuisi]

The only law that the US shall uphold are those passed by the congress and signed by the president - so says the constitution of the US.
I keep hearing this "international law" argument. When it comes down to it, our government must only honor the laws and treaties that congress passes (and in the case of laws) the ones that the president signs.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

no way!!!!

Re:bin laden..

[f0rt0r]

Oh, and now they are implying I should vote for GW Bush? No thanks.

Re:bin laden..

[JavaLord]

What he doubtless meant was that roughly 70% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussain was responsible for the attacks on September 11. The frightening thing is that this figure does seem to be accurate.

Give me a link to one study that says that, and where they actually found the 70% of the US citizens from. I'll bet it was a very small group of people, from a very poor town in the US. Anyone who has had a college level course in statistics knows you can make a poll say anything you want to if you control the way questions are asked and who participates in it.

Re:bin laden..

[chefren]

If you say "oil," please explain why we ousted Hussein instead of Hugo Chavez, since we import far more oil from Venezuela than from a country literally on the other side of the world.

Because Iraq *has* more oil than Venezuela and you would want to import more of it? The sanctions has pervented Iraq from selling much oil to anyone, so 5% is actually a pretty high number. And to have an arabian state outside of OPEC would be a boon to the western world and especially the US.

Re:bin laden..

[sdcharle]

Thanks for jumping on that. Either he is that stupid or is just a fan of Ali G. For the moderators who modded him up, though, it's easier to figure out: they are just f-ing stupid. Nothing new there.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all:
RTFConstitution: ...all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land"...
The US has passed a treaty to join the UN and breaking that treaty is thus illegal.
Second:
In any case the war was illegal under international law, which was the main point, regardless of whether you think the US should or shouldn't respect its constitution or international law.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

However you can bet your ass that it won't be this century or the next or the next after that. You see this country has only been around a few hundred years and there is a reason why it is the super power that it is.

It has nothing to do with us being perfect, it has nothing to do with our money

It has something to do with being isolated and not having to fight the big wars on your own soil. It has something to do with being opportunistic while pretending to be a knight in white armor. It has something to to with luck.

And while I may not live to see you fall, I have absolutely no doubt that you will fall eventually. I don't think there have ever been more people alive who hate you than today. And you know it doesn't take an Army larger than yours to beat you. It takes only a few missiles with the right warheads. And who knows who invents the next super weapon. Could as well be some smart kid at an Arab university. But I know that your programming will not allow you to consider that.

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

You are wrong!

Nazi Germany had little to do with socialism, other than the rhetoric. Germany was NOT run by the state. It was run by private businesses. Look it up. Germany was very capitalistic. Most of the industries were run by wealthy industrialists, and private entrepreneurs. In fact, the Jews, Gypsies, communists, homosexuals, etc were all forced to work as slaves for PRIVATE companies. Without capitalism, Germany would never had gone where it did (it's hard to ramp up socialism/communism/etc to a decent level in a short amount of time (eg. USSR, China, etc); capitalism, on the other hand, can be ramped up quickly)

You are also wrong with Nietche. Don't bring him into this. He had nothing to do with Nazism. Yes, his philosophy IS centered on fascism (the concept of super-class and so forth) but Nazis did not really use his philosophies. The only thing in common between Nietche and the Nazis is that the Nazis distributed his works to boost soldier morale but that's about it. That is to say, his philosophy was used for propaganda purposes but it did not impact the ideology. The ideology came out of a bunch of other stuff.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

If the economic system practiced allows capitalistic entities, it is not socialism. You CANNOT have private entities, especially wealthy people, under socialism. Economics is one half of socialism and if it differs from the ideology you cannot claim it is socialism. This is just like how you cannot really call say Canada socialist. Canada simply has socialist ideals but its core economic system is capitalism. If capitalism collapses (for example), Canada will collapse. Hence it isn't socialist. In contrast, if Canada were socialist, the collapse of capitalism will have no impact.

What the Nazis practiced can best be thought of as facism (politics) on top of capitalism (economics).

Having said all that, SOME people use a vague defintion of socialism which has nothing to do with the left-wing ideology followed by socialists (just like how some people use a vague definition of democracy which has nothing to do with true democracy). On top of that, the actions of the 2nd International (which is the "official" socialist body) is confusing at times (especially with respect to "free" trade).

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

What he said was Saddam Hussein supports terrorists, including Al Qaeda. That is a fact.

Where's the proof? From your butt?

..refused to demonstrate he had destroyed WMD's.

Tell me, how do you destroy non-existent WMDs? If they exist, why hasn't the puppet government in iraq found it yet? Not all are as stupid as you are.

Re:bin laden..

[love2hateMS]

Nice insult.

Al Qaeda might claim to be enemies with Hussein, but the reality is they have had numerous contacts and been funded and trained by Iraq for years.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Once the intelligence from Iraq starts pouring out and you will eat your words.

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

Give me a link to one study that says that, and where they actually found the 70% of the US citizens from. I'll bet it was a very small group of people, from a very poor town in the US. Anyone who has had a college level course in statistics knows you can make a poll say anything you want to if you control the way questions are asked and who participates in it.

Ahh, the old "I don't like the facts so I'll deny them" approach, it'd be nice to see a *new* argument against reality once and a while. While, to a certain degree, you are correct in saying that polls can be manipulated that doesn't mean that any poll which shows results you don't like is wrong. In this particular case the poll came from the Washington Post, conducted nationwide. See for yourself here. The question wasn't some weird trick question, and it wasn't conducted in hicksville. The simple fact is that the distortions and innuendos from the Bush government have convinced a large number of Americans that Saddam was personally behind the attack on the World Trade Center.

The tactics used by the Bush government to encourage this belief ran from the "Lie loud, retract quiet" brand (in which a government official would say outright that Saddam was involved in 9/11, then later retract the statement on a footnote on page 47), to the simple associative method (in which a government official would begin by talking about Saddam, segue into 9/11, and then swirve back to Saddam, never actually *saying* that they were connected, but giving the impression that they were). The government knew that the average American wouldn't support a war in Iraq based on the "Well, Cheney and Rumsfeld think it would be fun" argument, so they deliberately set out to associate Saddam with 9/11. It worked too. Never underestimate Karl Rove, or the ability of Joe Average to be mislead.

Re:bin laden..

[Directrix1]

New form of warfare meaning precision bombings, using a citizen neutral attitude, and attributing the actions of the country to the heads of the country, and not as much to the hordes of underlings. In other words we fought a war were one of our goals was to keep uninvolved casualties to a bare minimum.

Capturing Saddam really had nothing to with the warfare (that was just good investigative work), but it was a marker for the end of the major portion of fighting. Thereby, it now permits generalized claims to the effectiveness of the war to be stated.

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

If you really think the parties/countries/etc represent what they call themselves, I guess the Democratic Republic of Korea must be a democracy huh?

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I'd like to point out to all the people bitching about our previous aid to people like Hussein that your arguments will be valid when you can prove that two wrongs make a right.

lol Trying to prove 'two wrongs=one right' is kind of hard isn't it? In any case, I'll try. I'll propose a simple thing. Something you are probably confident in.

I assume that you view the invasion of Iraq as a good thing. I also assume that you view the invasion of Syria and Iran (next on the list as put forth by senior US officials) as good things.

If you think the war--and more importantly the pre-emptive war for peace philsophy--was the right thing, you will see the benefits of it. Right? So, if you are right, Iraq will be a nice and dandy democratic country in 2 years. But, I claim that Iraq--and the whole world--will be worse off. I also claim that Iraq will not be a democracy-like country in 2 years. The country will be run by an autocratic regime! I also claim that there will be a civil war in Iraq within 16 months (just about the time US troops "withdraw").

I'm pretty sure you disagree with everything I said. So, the answer to your "proof" is, 'wait and see'. You don't need to wait long. Just wait 2 years and we'll see who is right. You'll get your proof all right. Iraq would be in the midst of a civil war. Other countries (such as Russia) will use the Bush doctrine to invade countries. And you will be proven wrong.

You are basically living in Plato's cave, detached from political reality. Don't feel bad. The vast majority of others are the same. The way politics is, you CANNOT correct mistakes. Politicians always try but they never can. The best one can do is to admit mistake and move on--but politicians never do. Unfortunately, the price is not paid by these warmongers and war profiteers; it is paid by the lives of the innocent and the naive. Iraq is being sold piece-by-piece (except for the oil industry) to the highest bidder (who is likely not an Iraqi). The Iraqis will never gain any benefit from this--they will always be the puppet of the empire and foreign corporations. Between 7,000 and 10,000 Iraqis have died in this bogus "war". More than 500 coalition soldiers have died (mostly American) with more than 2500 casulties. These are the prices for being wrong. Thousands of Iraqis will grow up in poverty orphaned without any parents. Thousands of American soldiers will live without any legs or arms. These will suffer long after Bush has retired to his palace, and you are proven "wrong".

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

The UN did NOT sanction the war. Whether Iraq complied or not is irrelevant. It is not sufficient to start a war. There are hundreads of countries breaking resolutions, including some serious human rights ones. But it doesn't give you, or me, any right to invade these countries.

You, and Bush, interpret non-compliance as giving sufficient power to invade. This is not true. What USA is doing is literally "extra-judicial". It is taking stuff into its own hands.

You better leave the UN out of this. Trying to hide behind it won't help since there was no authorization for war.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[gfxguy]

No, I'm not going to drawn into "I'm right, just wait and see" argument. I never said anything about preemption or war for peace.

The reality is that I felt the war was the right thing to do for one reason: because the first gulf war never ended. There was a cease-fire reached based on compliance with U.N. resolutions. We've been fighting ever since - there hasn't been a year that's gone by when there weren't shots and missiles fired. Iraqi radars in the norther no-fly zone were particularly pesky targets.

The weapons inspectors job was to verify evidence that the WMDs were destroyed. Iraq not only never provided such evidence (as they agreed to do to stop the fighting), they made it difficult for the inspectors to seek the weapons (which they should never have had to do anyway - it wasn't their job).

That Hussein was particularly bad about human rights violations, and the FACT that Iraq had links to terrorists (even if not specifically Al Qaeda, which it seems they may actually have had all along anyway), is simply icing on the cake. We're ending something that should have been ended 12 years ago.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I see media brainwashing doesn't work on you! (In case you couldn't tell, Marge, I was being sarcastic).

Hussein is a nice trophy, but nowhere near the threat bin Laden is for attacks on non-middle-eastern countries. Iraq was no threat to the U.S., but a thorn to Bush'n'buddies' oil industry.

Bin Laden's power is in a distributed network with no "home" to be able to counter-attack as a deterrent.

Sure, a lot of Iraqis suffered badly because of an unelected dictator, but that happens in very many countries around the world. Why does the U.S. claim to do these things on humanitarian grounds, but only pick and chose which "rapists" to catch when it directly interests them?

Also, thanks to posters who keep trying to fight the U.S. propaganda machine and remind people, simply for the sake of truth, that Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11.

I just hope this trophy victory is long enough in advance of the next U.S. election that it won't affect public sympathies for other unelected tyrants who shall remain nameless.

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

You cannot justify anything you said. You are SPECULATING on everything. For instance, how do you know the Iraqis wanted an invasion? Did someone hold a poll before the invasion? Or is this just some propaganda from the US government?

Just to see how idiotic your view is... I can probably find 10,000 Americans who are in favour of overthrowing the government. All anarchists are against the government, fascists don't like the US govt, some "Southerners" don't like the federal government, some liberatarian types would support collapse of the goverment as well. Now, are you saying that this gives ME the right to invade your country because these people don't have the means of overthrowing the government?

Invading other countries under some bogus reason like "war on terrorism", "drugs", "freedom", "democracy", etc are not only immoral but it accomplishes nothing. I believe it was you who quoted Benjamin Franklin. I find it ironic that you quote a Founding Father without any understanding of what any of them said. Do you support Washington and Jefferson's views of non-intervention?

BTW, you will proven wrong (I hope you admit you are wrong at that time) when Iraq is ruled by an autocrat similar to the Shah in Iran (during the 70's). The Iraqis will get their freedom all right. While I'm at it, I'm also not sure what you are doing to do with the looming civil war over "Kurdistan". I guess the tens of thousands that may die in the civil war will make this war look "righteous" :(

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[gfxguy]

They authorized the first gulf war, which in a very real sense never ended - it never came to a conclusion.

We've had troops STATIONED IN IRAQ for over 12 years. Why should I leave the U.N. out of it when it was mostly the U.S. trying to enforce U.N. regulations for all those years - our planes, our people. We brought an end to what should have ended then.

You, and Bush, [yes, he and I are the only ones] interpret non-compliance as giving sufficient power to invade. This is not true.

By whose standards is it not true?

What USA is doing is literally "extra-judicial". It is taking stuff into its own hands.

The only difference of opinion we have about that last statement is "so what?" We been involved in Iraq for over a decade. If the U.N. is not going to do something to put an end to the nonsense, somebody else ought to. Just because the U.N. don't agree doesn't mean it was wrong, and for the most part the U.N. disagreed because it couldn't do anything else - the U.N. is impotent and pointless.

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

If you think the first "war" never ended, which is a bizarre way of looking at things, I guess I don't have much to say. I'm not even sure why the US Congress or President even took a vote.

Iraq not only never provided such evidence (as they agreed to do to stop the fighting), they made it difficult for the inspectors to seek the weapons (which they should never have had to do anyway - it wasn't their job).

These reasons are not sufficient to start a war. If you think they are good enough to start a war, that's your view I guess.

That Hussein was particularly bad about human rights violations, and the FACT that Iraq had links to terrorists (even if not specifically Al Qaeda, which it seems they may actually have had all along anyway), is simply icing on the cake.

That is a dumb way to reason war. I'm not even sure you believe what you wrong. You are on thin ice here. So, if Saddam Hussein was very humanitarian by donating a few billions to the poor, and was healping "human rights", it is less of a reason? Do you actually believe the converse of what you stated? If Hitler never invaded other countries, do you think no one should have invaded Germany, because we all know that Hitler helped the German people tremendously (created jobs, raised standard of living, improved human rights--as long as you were an Aryan, etc)?

Don't revert to ludicrous reasoning. If you think the war was because the first one never ended, just stay with that. Or if you think UN resolution non-compliance is the real reason, stick with that. Don't bring up all these other "icings on the cake" because you will just lose.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[hellraizr]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooook enough is enough, the ignorance must stop! Saddam not a bad guy!? man put down the crack pipe, remember after the 1st gulf war when the shii'te muslims tried to rise up against the government? remember that? remember the horrific massacre that ensued? hussein killed 10s of thousands of iraqi's (his own people!) squashing that coup.

Oh and what about when he dropped mustard gas on that kurdish city (more iraqi's), killed 10s of thousands there too. ALL HIS OWN PEOPLE! we did this as much for the iraqi's as we did for our own worries.

and as far as WMD's, sure we found none, cause he had years to get rid of them. I was assured by someone on the up-n-up (family) in the navy that we were goin to war with iraq > 9 months before it happened. if he knew that, saddam knew that (and most anyone with 1/2 a brain knew it too!). we found tons of mobile bio labs and plenty of evidence to support that he had WMD's at one time. he had ample time to rid himself of anything incriminating.

for real people, saddam hussein is just as bad as osama, if not worse. osama just didn't have the resources to wreak havoc like hussein. check your history books, or just turn on the damn tv, discovery times channel has crap on hussein on all the time.

Re:bin laden..

[gfxguy]

Actually, I think it is you who are grasping at straws... I completely described why I believe the war was justified. If you disagree, you disagree, but it IS a bonus (icing on the cake) that the man we removed from power was guilty of human rights violations.

Overall, on average, more Iraqis would have died in the past six months if we HADN'T invaded. How is that NOT icing on the cake?

Frankly, I DO think that gross human rights violations are enough, and I DO believe we should proceed to dispose of other dictators known to be guilty of mass homicide and torture.

If Hitler never invaded other countries, but still mass executed Jews, it would still have been reason to invade, yes. That's my point. The main reason for going to war with Hussein's Iraq was that he was not complying with a decade of U.N. resolutions, but if he had been complying then I still believe deposing a sadistic dictator guilty of gross human rights violations is still A Good Thing.

So you think this was an illegal war. That's fine. I disagree with you, and ask by whose laws was it illegal... but even if you disagree with everything else, answer this:

True or false: Deposing a sadistic dictator guilty of gross human rights violations is a good thing.

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I'm somewhat surprised that we got Sadaam before we got Osama. Sadaam had more loyal supporters...

That's just completely wrong. Saddam Hussein has VERY LITTLE support from anyone. He can't even leave the country because no one else supports him. Usama bin Laden, on the other hand, has greater support. UBL can leave and go to practically any country. Don't forget that Saddam Hussein was a dictator. Dictators generally have very little support from anyone. For instance, the North Korean leader, who is nothing more than a dictator, will have little support if he is on the run. In contrast, the Chinese leaders, who are totalitarians but not exactly dictators in the general use of the word, can flee to tons of countries. (Disclaimer: I am not claiming China or North Korea should be invaded. I'm just using them as examples).

I heard that his wife gave him up hoping to get the $25 million.

Saddam Hussein's wife probably has hudreads of millions, if not billions. $25M is nothing to her. Also, the US govt generally doesn't pay its rewards (except isn some special cases). This is what intelligence experts say. Saddam Hussein and Usama bin Laden might be exceptions since they are at the top of the list but countries don't generally pay bounties. This is one reason why no one gives evidence. In contrast, police forces ALWAYS pay bounties.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

If you disagree, you disagree, but it IS a bonus (icing on the cake) that the man we removed from power was guilty of human rights violations.

I have big problems with your "icing on the cake" reasoning. I'll just leave it at that. I think you severely weaken your argument with those.

So you think this was an illegal war. That's fine. I disagree with you, and ask by whose laws was it illegal... but even if you disagree with everything else, answer this:

My problem is not so much with it's illegality. I can't really say it is an illegal war. Instead, it is an IMMORAL war, and is against international norms. I agree with you that there is no such thing as a law when it comes to international issues. The UN is trying to establish a world court (which USA doesn't support) but other than that, there is very little law here. Canada could invade Greenland tomorrow and it would NOT be illegal. If anything, the UN will pass a resolution condemning it but that's about it. There are no laws. That's why imperialists rule. That's why USSR invaded all the time and no one said anything--all these were LEGAL invasions :(. That's why USA invades all the time! None of my argument is rooted in law. If anything, I hate modern legal systems which is controlled by elites and has little to do with justice. My view is simply based on morality and suffering.

True or false: Deposing a sadistic dictator guilty of gross human rights violations is a good thing.

You know... if the world was as simple as you imagine, things would be a lot easier. The answer to your question is TRUE. But the world isn't so simple. The real question should be:

'Is it worth deposing a human rights abusing dictator if it meant that you will kill almost 10,000 civilians, destabilize and impoverish* the country for decades, probably cause other countries to invade others with the same reasoning, end up with a civil war or a theocracy, and lose 500 of your own troops?'

(* I'm assuming that USA is not going to hand out $87billion every year to Iraq. And that Iraqi oil is still being hampered by sabateurs. )

You answer is YES; mine is NO. I will never have the blood of the innocent on me. It may be ok with you. But I value life too much to get involved in these "humanitarian interventions" which have very little to do with humanitarianism!

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

USA DID try overthrowing the Venezuelan government! Who do you think was behind it? Where is the leader of the then-temporary government? You might want to look in Miami...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[JavaLord]

Ahh, the old "I don't like the facts so I'll deny them" approach, it'd be nice to see a *new* argument against reality once and a while.

Reality is calling 1000 people in a phone survey and saying that they represent the whole American populations opinion? Cmon.

The question wasn't some weird trick question, and it wasn't conducted in hicksville.

But the poll asks something different from what you said, you said in your original post...

what he doubtless meant was that roughly 70% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussain was responsible for the attacks on September 11. The frightening thing is that this figure does seem to be accurate.

Now what the poll says is...

How likely is it that Saddam Hussein: was personally involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks?

Very likely 32%
Somewhat likely 37%
Not very likely 15%
Not at all likely 12%
DK/No opinion 3%

Saying he was responsible for them (your wording) is different from saying that was he somewhat likely to have been invoved in the attacks. Saying you think something is somewhat likely does not mean the same thing as saying " I believe".

Somewhat involved could mean, as little as could he have allowed terrorists to train in Iraq or funded them? Could he have been where the terrorists got their anthrax from?

The government knew that the average American wouldn't support a war in Iraq based on the "Well, Cheney and Rumsfeld think it would be fun" argument

C'mon you don't really believe this do you? Give me a break. Do you think they went to war because they "thought it would be fun" or because they thought Sadaam was a threat and getting rid of him could bring stability to a part of the world that needs it? The argument that America went to war because Rumsfeld thought it would "be fun" is utter trash and deviod of any independent thinking or basis in fact.

Never underestimate Karl Rove, or the ability of Joe Average to be mislead.

And never underestimate the tinfoil hat wearing leftists from being mislead and trying to spin everything into "America is Evil"

Re:bin laden..

[gfxguy]

'Is it worth deposing a human rights abusing dictator if it meant that you will kill almost 10,000 civilians, destabilize and impoverish* the country for decades, probably cause other countries to invade others with the same reasoning, end up with a civil war or a theocracy, and lose 500 of your own troops?'

I think we may be getting somewhere with this, although you wrongly assume my answer is "YES", because when given this context the answer is clearly "NO". The difference is that I don't see it in this context. Since the "end of major combat", fewer civilians have been killed as a result of insurgency than would have been killed by Saddam's regime (on average).

My view of Iraq in the future is simply not as gloomy as yours. Since we won't know for many years, it's pointless to argue, but I envision an Iraq where the money from oil revenues pays for schools, roads, hospitals, and other social services, so that people don't have to pay taxes or have any other financial burden of the like.

I envision free press (which already exists now), and a place where people can be as secure in their persons as people are here in the U.S. Part of my vision is already come to pass - there is freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom to dissent - freedoms they didn't have before. Keep providing those freedoms and there's no telling what they can accomplish.

Sure, it could still go either way, but that's why, while we want to pull out and leave Iraq to it's own, we want to stay long enough to make sure your vision doesn't come to pass. If we pull out too soon, it's because we stupidly bowed to world pressure - the same pressure that would still have the citizens of Iraq living under Saddam's boot heal.

But again, since neither of us can see into the future, I am going to hope we don't repeat the mistakes of the past, and that this is a new beginning for the region instead of an end to Iraq.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Clinton let them die in the millions. Actually, your numbers are off, but he kept the sanctions on and looked the other way when certain countries enriched themselves by smuggling aluminium tubes instead of the food and medicine they claimed. Bush said, "Enough!" and stopped the killing and dying.

Re:bin laden..

[Valdrax]

Woah, woah, woah, woah!

Okay, I didn't support the war on Iraq for many reasons, but to claim that Saddam's not a bad guy is just simply ludicrous revisionist history.
Put down the agitprop and step away from the soapbox.

Saddam Hussein's Baathist Party has done several horrible things that have been well-documented. His regime has a history of torture, oppression, and genocide. The Kurds, the Marsh Arabs, and the Shiites have all suffered greatly at his regime's hands for helping us in the Gulf War and for standing up for their own rights. My mother works with an Iraqi Kurd who fled with her husband to America after her husbands brothers were tortured and killed and had their bodies returned to them in mutilated condition because the two of them were reporters trying to expose the abuses of the regime to the international community. Whole towns of Kurds were killed with chemical weapons for their aid of the UN forces in the Gulf War.

Then you have the draining of Iraq's wetlands as punishment to the Marsh Arabs. An entire ecosystem and economic infrastructure has been utterly destroyed, leaving many of the Marsh Arabs without a means of sustenance and without a home. This is in addition to the usual panorama of torture, kidnapping, and execution that faced many dissidents in Iraq.

Oh, and in case all of this doesn't convince you, how about the senseless, retaliatory destruction of the economic lifeblood of Kuwait that poisoned thousands? You know, the blackening of the skies which was visible from space? Then, there's the man's sweetheart sons who reveal how good of a man he was as a father. How about the horrible life story of a man who was forced to act as a body double for Uday?

I don't think that all necessarily justified us getting involved when we have made a policy of ignoring or supporting many other brutal regimes -- especially when close friends of certain of our administration stand to profit mightily -- but saying that there's no evidence that Saddam's a bad guy is farsical. As to his popularity, Saddam didn't just get 90%+ of the vote. He got 100% of the vote on a ballot where he was the ONLY candidate listed. No candidate gets that kind of support in any healthy democracy, and we are right to question anyone who does.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Soviet Union had little to do with socialism, other than the rhetoric. But then, socialism is nothing but rhetoric. It's a "philosophy", if something so ignorantly simple-minded can be call that, or "propaganda" if you prefer a more loaded term. The term propaganda is loaded, of course, because it was used by another group using socialist rhetoric.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong.

The 2nd International (whatever it is) is no longer the "official" socialist body. We at the 33rd Congregational Baptist Liberterrainainian are the new "official" socialist body, and our compatriats at the Chiqetaw combined Brownies & Little League governing council are it's head. The 2nd International is still an official part of the socialist body, but is subsumed to the role of it's feet, of iron mixed with clay. Be well, comrades!

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Your morals are based on "international norms", is this correct? These "international norms" are held by a minority of people who are in power in a minority of countries (like France) and are out of power in most others (like the USA) and refuse to openly state their idea of "norms" in countries where democracy determines who is in power.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

By never having the blood of the guilty on your hands, you *do* have the blood of the innocent on your hands. Ask Pilate.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Socialism != Commuinism, Idiot... try reading Marx for a change, commuinism is not what he had envisioned, but then again NAZI's were't either. (Sorry, Couldn't Help Myself, and yes NAZI's are National Socialists)

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom (for Iraq.) Security (for the USA.) Peace (for the rest of the World.) There are more (including cheap oil.)

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

in the US, at least, we believe that some truths are self evident, and that some rights are unalienable (that means that they can't be taken away by the UN or any other wealthy media corporation.)

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iraqis get their freedom all right. It is up to them what they do with it. The Founding Fathers had help from other countries in their war of independence too.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate on both sides is wrong. However, we have to remember who "fired" the first shot, meaning 9/11. Plus, I can hate anyone I want, this is a free country. The difference, which eludes everyone, is that I can't act upon the hate. I don't have to like anyone, there is no law in the USA or any other country that says I have to love or even like everyone. I can be happy hating anyone that I want and the thought police can't break in my door and bring me to sensitivity training camp.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

Jews don't kill their woman for walking out in public without a husband or son. Here is something interesting though, during the time of the witch trials, there were rumors that witches (non-christian) would put babies blood in with their cereal. Now the muslims are saying the same thing about the jews. Neither was\is correct.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iraqi governing council challenges it, they said it wasn't as much of a rain of terror as it was a rain of mustard gas. Just because we sell someone a gun doesn't mean we are responsible if they kill someone with it. Same with mustard gas. Of course you are a liberal, so you only care if we kill someone, if someone else is killing his own people, you don't care.

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

USSR never got to socialism but their first few steps WERE towards communism. So it is accurate to call them Communist (with a capital C). Nazi Germany, on the other hand, had nothing to do with it. If you understood these systems, you would see that this is obvious.

So, the way I look at it, the only countries that can be called Communist are: Cuba, USSR, China, and Vietnam. Countries such as North Korea, Iraq, Syria, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Laos, Cambodia, and Libya cannot be called Communist.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Who the fuck is Pilate? I mean that... never heard of him... BTW, it's better if you quote some guy and present YOUR views. Quoting others will simply make you a slave to their ideals. If you are content with that, that's your choice... I could probably quote 10 famous people who said that slavery is great. Does that mean anything?

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[shaitand]

"just turn on the damn tv, discovery times channel has crap on hussein on all the time."

yes there is alot of propoganda on the US media sources, they are after all heavily government controled.

"Oh and what about when he dropped mustard gas on that kurdish city (more iraqi's), killed 10s of thousands there too. ALL HIS OWN PEOPLE!"

My response to this can be summarized with 3 letters. ATF. The ATF made clear with flame throwing tanks what OUR country is willing to do TO OUR OWN PEOPLE if they so much as smell like going beyond regulated in 2000 various ways but "free" speech to actual action.

Every government is crooked. Ours actually rivals and possibly surpasses China on this front. Do you have any evidence he was more crooked or vicious than any other? Of course not. And I'll repeat again, I'll start listening to WMD BS when we stop having more than the rest of world combined.

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

My morals are NOT based on international norms. I don't know who you perceive to be the international entity. The UN? That's nothing more than a collection of views ranging from totalitarianism (China), to sexism (Kuwait), to imperialism (USA), to military dictatorship (Pakistan), to... you get the point.

I definitely do not subscribe any international entity. However, my point is that countries should follow international norms. I don't think you derive morality from it. However, you DO derive standards and order from it. For instance, the notion of country borders and things like control of oceans are iffy. However, for the sake of simplicity, people follow international norms. Similarly, things like human rights are best followed based on international norms. This doesn't mean you HAVE to follow it but it is the simplest path to take. If you have some alternative to dumping international norms, let me hear it. We already know what Bush has proposed. How about you?

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[shaitand]

"Whole towns of Kurds were killed with chemical weapons [phrusa.org] for their aid of the UN forces in the Gulf War."

Yeah, we have a term and laws for that hear too, it's called Treason. There is only one punishment for it under US law, death.

"Saddam didn't just get 90%+ of the vote."
I was talking about his popularity rating, not the voting booth. Saddam whether you believe him good, bad, or not neccesarily any worse than the US government, was EXTREMELY popular among his own people because he was reclaiming ancient land the lose of which had been a thorn to his people a very very long time. Killing and torturing traitors is a long time pastime in most nations these days.

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

--VERY LONG--
I hope you take the time to read this because I spent some time on it :)

Since the "end of major combat", fewer civilians have been killed as a result of insurgency than would have been killed by Saddam's regime (on average).

Speculation can lead to your demise. Let's see. Approximately 1500 have died since the "end of major operations" in Baghdad ALONE. That's all in half a year (approximately). Who knows how many have died in other areas. Let's say an average of 3000 in one year (that's just one city too, although the biggest city). What was Saddam's biggest atrocity? Probably his chemical attack against Kurds in Halabja. Supposedly this killed 5,000. Now, are you telling me that Saddam was killing more than 3000 per year before the war? Do you have any proof other than the US government (propaganda) documents?

As a side note, Saddam killed A LOT during the Iran-Iraq war. I'm not counting these people because it is hard to say what was going on at that time. It's not clear how many of the deaths at that time were human rights abuses, and how many were war casulties. Also, the US government backed Saddam Hussein at that time (remember this famous photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam?)

I envision an Iraq where the money from oil revenues pays for schools, roads, hospitals, and other social services, so that people don't have to pay taxes or have any other financial burden of the like.

Is USA going to be profitting from this? Or is this supposed to be a neutral thing left to the Iraqis to decide? How much do you want to bet that American oil companies will control all the oil coming out of Iraq in 10 years?

I envision free press (which already exists now), and a place where people can be as secure in their persons as people are here in the U.S. Part of my vision is already come to pass - there is freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom to dissent - freedoms they didn't have before.

There sure is a lot of free press in Iraq right now ;| Just recently the IGC banned Al-Jazeera and a bunch of other media. That's free media to you? A while ago the same thing happened. I can't find a link to the newsj--sorry about that (sucks how you have to pay for newspaper archives). But read the beginning of this article. This article is from Justin Raimondo who is on the far right so I don't necessarily agree with it or him (I'm on the far left) but it illustrates my point. You only have to read the beginning part.

The problem is that you are either a neoconservative who is in favour of imperialism (unlikely), or that you are a naive "liberal" (likely). You ACTUALLY think what Bush said in front of the National Endowment for Democracy will happen/is true. Sad to say, it won't and it never has. You just CANNOT bring democracy and freedom to a country with a gun. Gunpoint democracy is doomed to fail. The last person to try that was probably Lenin (and his invasion of Poland) but it never got anywhere. Name ONE country that USA has meddled with since WWII, that ended up democratic or free. The answer is absolutely ZERO! There are lots of examples (El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, Colombia, Iraq (before), Iran, Indonesia, Philliphines, and so on) but it never worked.

Democracy and Freedom has to come from WITHIN the people (if you are a liberal you should know this already). Foreign forces can never impose it on others. It's just like say women's rights or equality or something. Contrary to what conservatives think, you just cannot bring equality to women in the Middle East (for example) by forcing the people to accept it. It's too bad the conservatives don't understand liberalism (whi

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

You are not giving them their freedom! You are forcing YOUR views onto them.

The American revolutionaries got help but it was THEM that was driving the revolution. It wasn't some foreign force that, all of a sudden, decided a "regime change" was good for the Americans. I'll guarantee you that if Mexico/Spain invaded USA to free them at that time, the Founding Fathers would not have supported that. In fact, if France invaded USA in order to "free" the Americans, I doubt anyone would have supported it too...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:bin laden..

[Frag Rind]

I have no doubt that the average guy in Iraq is quite pleased, even jubulant, that Saddam is dead.

I am not sure whether this was a typo, or a metaphor referring to his regime, but I wanted to point out that Saddam isn't dead, he is in the custody of US intelligence officers.

Re:bin laden..

[Archie Steel]

When someone posts a tirade about the evil jews in Israel, it would be fairly obnoxious and off-topic for another party to take the opportunity to bring up NPR's clearly biased reporting of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Now that's kind of off-topic...but you know, one can criticize (and criticize quite severely) the way that Israel is dealing with palestinians without going into Jew-bashing. A pretty good portion of the Jewish popupation in Israel is actually opposoed to their govt's handling of the situation. See Gush Shalom's site for an example.

Re:bin laden..

[Valdrax]

Yeah, we have a term and laws for that hear too, it's called Treason. There is only one punishment for it under US law, death.

Ah, yes. I suppose that any disloyalty to the government and any attempt to replace it with something better should be met with death. Maybe we should've put the men who wrote that into law to the gallows for having rebelled against their government. Then again, I suppose you're saying that the law of any local government justifies any actions it takes against its populace as long as it acts within its own frame of law. Genocide, torture, and rape for political dissent and rebellion is all okay as long as that government says it is, right?

I was talking about his popularity rating, not the voting booth. Saddam [...] was EXTREMELY popular among his own people because he was reclaiming ancient land the lose of which had been a thorn to his people a very very long time.

Oh, so was Romania's Ceausescu to all outside observers until a few days before his deposition when a critical flashpoint event made his people finally snap. A man who was loudly and repeatedly praised everywhere he went was in the end executed by his own people after a quick day-and-a-half search for him. (Shades of Mussolini anyone?)

Successful dictators build cults of personality that make their people worship them no matter how awful they are to their populace. Stalin did it. Kim and his son did it. Franco did it, Hilter did it, and Saddam tried to do it too. There's a difference in how much the people actually believe in their leader in Iraq vs. these other countries. In in North Korea, it seems to be universal by all visitors' accounts. Saddam failed to engender love in his people, only fear of reprisal. In Iraq, support for him doesn't seem to be universal at all given just how many people sided with outside forces (like the aforementioned Kurds, Marsh Arabs, and Shiites) and given how many people are currently cheering his arrest there (though some feelings are mixed about the arrest).

Yes, the people mostly seem to have support the taking of Kuwait at the time from what we know from the outside, but it's really hard to gauge what the popular sentiment really was at the time based on the abrupt flipping of support now that repression isn't forcing people to pretend to love him and since Iraq's economy has severely soured in the wake of a decade of sanctions stemming from that action. If you can find me some supporting evidence that they liked it, I'd appreciate it, but I doubt that you can.

Killing and torturing traitors is a long time pastime in most nations these days.

Oh, well then -- I guess that means it's quite all right, then. Saddam's not a bad guy because other people use torture too. Well, what DO you consider a bad guy to be if you don't consider Saddam and his sons to be bad guys for torturing their people? Don't tell me that you're one of these types who actually believes that there is no such thing as right and wrong. If you didn't you wouldn't be protesting the war on Iraq so loudly, so tell us what it would take to be an evil person.

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

Reality is calling 1000 people in a phone survey and saying that they represent the whole American populations opinion? Cmon.

I take it that you haven't studied statistics much. The fact is that if you take a random sampling from a large body you are usually quite accurate. Take a bowl of 15,000 M&Ms and I'll guarantee you that if you get a random sample of 150 you can be accurate to within a few percent of the composition of the total number of M&Ms. Obviously the sample was not completely ranom, it automatically selected for people with telephones, for example. OTOH such sampling methods have been proven to be accurate to within 5%, usually to within 3%. Here's a link to the subject of statistical sampling: isn't Google fun? On to other topics...

Do you think they went to war because they "thought it would be fun" or because they thought Sadaam was a threat and getting rid of him could bring stability to a part of the world that needs it?

Ahh, the perils of using "humorous exageration" when debating. No, I don't think that they seriously, literally, went to war for fun. However I don't think there is any doubt that they seriously thought that Hussain was a threat to the US or to "stability in that part of the world". A certian group of government insiders, including Cheney and Rumsfeld, have been trying to get the US to conquer Iraq for more than a decade now. Every single time any act of terror happened their immediate response was to urge war on Iraq, regardless of the source of the terror. Immediately after the Oklahoma City bombing this group was demanding an immediate attack on Iraq; then it turned out that Tim McVeigh was responsible and they shut up for a while. Since they have been incessantly demanding this war, with no apparent reason, for some time now I think its only sensable to look for ulterior motives. Oil and getting to put military bases in Iraq seem like the most likely explinations. Freeing the oppressed Iraqi people is obviously not on their list of priorities because if it was they'd have been working to shut off US support for dictators. Seems like an easy way to work against dictators: stop paying them.

tinfoil hat wearing leftists from being mislead and trying to spin everything into "America is Evil"

I quit wearing my tinfoil hat last week, it clashed with my communist party membership badge :)

More seriously, why is it that people like you manage to spin "criticism of the government" into "hating America". It really pisses me off, I happen to love my country, and I happen to think that its downright revolting that "my" government supports dictators. Which is more patriotic, trying to fix the problems of your government, or pretending that the problems don't exist and calling everyone who disagrees a traitor?

This isn't a Bush government issue, its a US government issue. For the past 50 years the US government has had a policy of supporting dictators, it is anti-American, and immoral, but the government has been doing it. Recall, please, that Saddam was getting massive US backing during a time when the government knew damn well that he was using chemical weapons on the Kurds. One of the most darkly amusing things about the propaganda leading up to this war was the way Rumsfeld would say, horror tinting his voice, that Hussain had "gassed his own people". This picture of Rumsfeld giving a big grin while shaking Hussains hand came from a time when Rumsfeld *KNEW* that Hussain was using chemical weapons on the Kurds and chose to ignore it because it was government policy to support that particular dictator. The American people don't support dictators, which is why so many people (possibly including you) tend to blame the messanger (like me) when I point out that the go

Re:bin laden..

[Guppy06]

"Because Iraq *has* more oil than Venezuela and you would want to import more of it?"

You're ignoring the cost of shipping oil from the Persian Gulf over to here. That's why, even with our (relatively) friendly relations with Saudi Arabia, the three countries we buy the most of our non-domestic oil from are Canada, Mexico and Venezuela.

And if we were so keen on buying oil from Iraq, we could have bought far more oil under the so-called "Oil For Food" program than we did, much like the French did.

"The sanctions has pervented Iraq from selling much oil to anyone,"

But we didn't even try buying what they were allowed to sell.

Only where "Western world" means "Western Europe." Oil is a global commodity, which means it has the same price no matter where you get it. And when one barrel of oil costs as much to produce in Iraq as it does off the shores of Louisiana, the only real difference in price comes in the price of moving said barrel of oil from point A to point B. The countries who are most interested in Arab oil are those that are only a short trip through the Suez to it.

"And to have an arabian state outside of OPEC would be a boon to the western world and especially the US."

If the US wants to deal with a country with massive oil reserves and no OPEC membership, we can deal with Russia. Russia potentially has more oil than even Iraq and mere mention of this potential has OPEC very concerned about their behavior in the global oil market. And Russia is far closer to the US geographically than even Venezuela.

Re:bin laden..

[gaijin99]

I am not sure whether this was a typo, or a metaphor referring to his regime, but I wanted to point out that Saddam isn't dead, he is in the custody of US intelligence officers.

Typo. I just screwed up, no biggie.

Re:bin laden..

[DNS-and-BIND]

Actually, to follow up, the $25 million reward will not be paid, because the informant did not volunteer the information. Kind of an important distinction.

Re:bin laden..

[jonadab]

> Osama bin Laden killed 3000 people in the US.
>
> Saddam Hussein killed none.

You can't really be enough of an imbecile to believe that killing people in
the US is the only measure of a threat, can you? Hussein had been building
a war machine in Iraq for two decades. He was an opportunistic tyrant, looking
for chances to consolidate power. Some time back, if you recall, he made an
attempt at a small neighboring nation. If he hadn't been driven back then,
he would have taken a second neighbor and a third by this time. If he hadn't
been watched carefully since, he'd have made a second attempt at Kuwait and
probably taken it. The man was a serious threat to the political stability
(such as it is) of the middle east -- a dangerous and heavily-contested region
politically, as much a powder keg as any acreage on the globe, just as likely
as the balkans to be the start of a world war.

bin Laden was a threat to the peace of mind of people in the US, and perhaps
the lives of a few. Hussein was a threat to humanity.

That is, of course, not what he'll be tried for. Which is fine; it doesn't
need to be. As far as any danger to the world goes, we could let him stand
trial at the Hague, probably get off easy, and live out his life comfortably
in Europe; as long as he doesn't return to power in the middle east, the
threat is cared for. What we _can't_ do is put him before a US court and
string him up in the fashion he deserves; that would be very policitally bad
for the US, and I think Bush knows better. So what we'll probably do is try
him in Baghdad for crimes against the Iraqi people. I'm not sure the outcome
matters very much, as long as he never comes to power again.

The hard thing is going to be building Iraq up to the point where the next
person won't be just as bad or worse. We really need to do approximately
what we did in Japan, after WWII, but I don't know if the Bush administration
will have enough years in power (even _with_ another four, which is not a
thing to take for granted) to make it happen, particularly the way they seem
to have been dawdling about it. I would have thought that by now they ought
to have districts drawn in a fashion that guarantees enough representatives to
at least four major factions that none of them can get jack diddly squat
pushed through without support from the other factions, set up an
infrastructure for a provisional government, and set a date for the first
election. I mean, sure, if you're going to make a first-world nation out of
Iraq, you're going to need to install power and phone lines and all that jazz,
yeah, but that stuff takes a while; getting a provisional government set up
would earn some nice political capital and maybe buy some time to make the
rest of it happen.

Then again, depending on how the Hussein trial is conducted, that might buy
some political capital and some time too. Still, in Bush's position, I would
sure have been a lot quicker about drawing up districts for representation and
stuff, the beginnings of a provisional government. It's not like it couldn't
be done at the same time as other stuff. Also key is that if you can get a
provisional government going, US and UN forces can be used to make sure it
stays in power; that doesn't cost nearly as much politically as just running
the country directly, like we are basically doing now.

Re:bin laden..

[jonadab]

> the U.N. is impotent and pointless

The UN is only impotent when it can't agree. Such as in this case. We had
several major nations backing us (not least Brittain), and that was enough to
prevent the UN from stopping us from doing what we determined we needed to do.

If the UN (excluding the US of course) ever _agrees_ that the US has to get
out of Iraq, then for political reasons we'll pretty much have to do that.
All the major world powers feel this political pressure. The nations that
don't feel it are podunk third-world nations like Iraq -- those are the
nations that defy UN sanctions, and yes, somebody (like the US for example)
has to step in and do something militarily in those cases. But the larger
nations are held in check by the political pressure that the UN does weild.

Re:bin laden..

[gfxguy]

I always take the time to read non-AC responses to my posts. It doesn't matter if we ever agree, I like hearing opposing viewpoints when presented in a civil way.

So, let's skip through it... 1500 have died since mid-April. That's 8 months. That's 2250/year, on average.

...Estimates of the total number of persons killed in eight military offensives against the Kurds at that time vary between 50,000 and 100,000, but may be as high as 180,000.

In 2001, Amnesty International emphasized that the Iraqi Administration had the world's worst record regarding persons who had disappeared and remain unaccounted for. There were more than 16,000 documented cases of such disappearances conveyed to the United Nations in 1994 and 1995 alone.

Ok, granted that's from the U.S. state department, but they are getting information from Amnesty international (for the second part).

And from here:

...BBC correspondent Barbara Plett says the remains of up to 3,000 people had been found so far, and the total uncovered could be as many as 15,000. ...

Human rights groups believe that up to 200,000 people may be buried in sites across the country.

And another...


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi and U.S. rights investigators said on Saturday they suspected Iraq had up to 260 mass graves containing the bodies of at least 300,000 people murdered by the former regime of Saddam Hussein.


I also read the beginning of the article you posted... but even in the U.S. there are restrictions on free speech that encourages violence against others. You can't stand on a street corner rallying people to beat police officers. The press that was invaded in Iraq was doing just that - it wasn't simple dissent. Also, since Al-Jazeera is not an Iraqi news outlet, those rules don't apply....

The new law bans incitement of violence against American troops or against any religious, ethnic, or gender group, and prohibits any publication that promotes a return of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party.

Frankly, I'm not seeing the problem with that. It's interesting how much that article leaves out about publications denouncing the interim government and the U.S. presence...

The problem is that you are either a neoconservative who is in favour of imperialism (unlikely), or that you are a naive "liberal" (likely).

Guessed wrong... I am a conservative, to be sure, but I don't necessarily believe in imperialism as much as i believe in free will. For example, I disagree with socialism as a general rule, but there are examples where socialism might be a good thing - like in Iraq, where all the citizens should benefit from the oil revenue (I believe Qatar has a similar situation). There are examples where it works. I do believe any nation can be democratic if it wants to... but it doesn't necessarily have to be based on U.S. representative democracies.

Name ONE country that USA has meddled with since WWII, that ended up democratic or free.

But see, now you're placing restrictions on what I can use as an example. The fact is that it can be done - just because it hasn't been done in over fifty years doesn't mean it's still not possible. The difference with Japan, though, is that they were not allowed anything but a token military. We took care of them for decades so that a bloody military coup couldn't happen, and so that they couldn't aggress against anyone else. All the while they were free to do what they wanted within that context.

Frankly, I personally believe we should do the same in Iraq. Not only that, but we got some nicely located military bases out of it. Sadly, that's what will

Re:bin laden..

[shaitand]

"suppose you're saying that the law of any local government justifies any actions it takes against its populace as long as it acts within its own frame of law. Genocide, torture, and rape for political dissent and rebellion is all okay as long as that government says it is, right?"

No I'm saying there isn't a single government in power today (INCLUDING THE US) that wouldn't, and in fact hasn't done all of the above for the same and/or lesser reasons. That makes the US claiming it's form of government is in any superior to the one iraq had on the basis of crimes our own government is equally guilty of hypocracy of the worst kind.

"If you can find me some supporting evidence that they liked it, I'd appreciate it, but I doubt that you can."

Finding supporting evidence isn't the difficult part at all. Finding supporting evidence you won't brush aside claiming it was because the people were afraid to say otherwise is. Of course the US could spout the EXACT SAME propoganda about any ruler and have it pass. It works better in a middle eastern country where there are bitterly warring religous factions who will of course oppose any ruler, works like a charm, pick any ruler and the opposing factions will be against him.

"Well, what DO you consider a bad guy to be if you don't consider Saddam and his sons to be bad guys for torturing their people? Don't tell me that you're one of these types who actually believes that there is no such thing as right and wrong. If you didn't you wouldn't be protesting the war on Iraq so loudly, so tell us what it would take to be an evil person."

The only WRONG thing that comes to mind at the moment is ignoring logical objective conclusions on an emotional basis or imagined sense or right and wrong. I belive there are correct and incorrect actions, the terms right and wrong fits as well, but I don't believe they are defined by moral or emotional means or inherient 6th senses. I believe they are defined by an analysis of goals, outcomes, and data. I don't believe in EVIL people. If I were to take my pick, one of my criteria would be that his behavior would have to rank him the bottom 10% of human actions if each individual on earth were put in his position, with his upbringing and background. Since EVERY ruling body on the face of this earth throughout the history of mankind has acted in similar fashion, I'd say it's a fair bet he doesn't qualify that criteria.

The moral and/or religious definitions of evil go against human nature. Evolution did not program our nature with the intent of making accepting it a bad thing. I honestly fail to comprehend why people believe a supreme being who defines what is right and wrong would create mankind with an inherient nature that was wrong by his definition.

The war on iraq is one thing, it's been and being waged for rather obvious reasons. Foothold in the middle east, tightening of our grip worldwide and sending a clear message that we are the global rulers, OIL, an excuse to establish another puppet government and thus conquer more territory without making it seem like we are vicious conquerors, and of course spending ridiculous resources equivelent to using a crane to swat a fly (such spending boosts the economony, with real dollars and percieved dollars that turn into real dollars in the stock market).

No, the war is all fine and dandy and arguably needed to save our economy. Pretending the war is about saving people we've been murdering and starving for 10yrs is a slight on the intelligence of anyone with an IQ of triple digits, basically anyone who has an excuse for not being culled from the human species.

Re: bin laden..

[Black Parrot]

> Now, on to Kuwait. In 1990, Hussein in person flew to the White House, and asked G. H. W. Bush's permission to invade. And George said to go for it, it was none of his business what Iraq did to protect itself from oil thieves.

Please get your facts straight. The conversation was held in the region, between an Iraqi official and a US ambassador. The ambassador gave a non-commital response that was interpreted as a go-ahead by someone in Iraq (probably, IMO, by Saddam hearing what he wanted to hear).

Re: bin laden..

[Black Parrot]

> Thus the war was illegal but declaring or not declaring it has nothing to do with that.

A close reading of the US Constitution suggests that it's illegal because only the Congress has the power to declare war. Of course, we ignore it out of convenience, by definining various types of military intervention that aren't "war", and by fighting wars without any declaration at all. But substituting a congressional resolution for an up-and-down congressional vote on a declaration of war was a gross violation of the procedures laid out by the US Constitution.

It is, of course, somewhat naive to suppose that countries will actually declare wars before invading, in a world filled with ICBMs and other nasty stuff. But even that pragmatic concern was not an issue here, since everyone knew damn well that there was going to be an invasion weeks before it happened. IMO the members of the US Congress should be censured for delegating their constitutional perogatives to the President.

Re: bin laden..

[Black Parrot]

> > if tomorrow the US decided to spend 100 billion dollers to rebult all of iraq

> Ahem. The US is already spending $87 billion rebuilding Iraq,

Actually, the $87,000,000,000 is the second installment, after an earlier one of $79,000,000,000. Though those include the military costs and probably a bit of pork, so it can't all be counted as being for rebuilding Iraq. IIRC something like $20,000,000,000 was being kicked around as the share of this installment to be used for rebuilding, prompting the debate over whether it should be treated as a loan.

> and current estimates indicate that it will cost at least tripple that overall.

You can bet that the Administration debated long and hard how much was the minimum amount they could ask for without having to go back for more before the elections. Expect the next installment to come in Novermber or December 2004. It would be a political disaster if they went back for more during the run-up to the election.

Re: bin laden..

[Black Parrot]

> A brutal dictator has been taken down as the result of a relatively mild war. This is obviously a major victory.

Only if you qualify that with "if all else were equal". In fact, the USA has gone from having a record high standing in the world's good will to having a record low. We'll be paying for this war for generations in terms of the world's goodwill, soured international relations, and probably increased terrorist activity as well.

Re: bin laden..

[Black Parrot]

> If they have a problem with that then they shouldn't have signed up with the military in the first place.

Unless of course you thought you were signing up to defend your country rather than to make the world safe for Haliburton.

Re: bin laden..

[Black Parrot]

> More international help would doubtless be tremendously helpful. Unfortunately, the Bush government managed to waste all the goodwill the US had worldwide by starting this war the way he did... The general attitude among other nations seems to be: "He started this war on his own, why should I help now?" I can't say I really blame them for having that attitude, it'd be nice if the other major powers would just forget about all the insults, etc, that the Bush government has smacked them with, but that isn't going to happen.

The problem isn't just past insults, it's the Bush Administration's determination to have everything our way in post-war Iraq.

If we had actually invaded Iraq for any of the stated reasons, there would be absolutely no reason not to turn its governance over to the UN. The fact that we are not willing to do so is all the evidence the world needs for the fact that we are not actually there for the stated reasons.

Re:bin laden..

[Richard M. Nixon]

No, it wasn't about WMD, nor can you back up your claim that it ever was supposed to be all about WMD. It's about this.

Actually, the son of my good friend and buddy George HW Bush recently said explicitly that there are no links between Saddam and 911 or al Qaeda.

I just wish he would make up his mind. This is not what he was implying in January. And there was lots of talk about WMD, but he's changed his mind on that too. Now he is going for the humanitarian angle, but lets face it, Saddam was a monster created by the politicians that followed me.

Just goes to show what a poor President the young lad is. You can't be a good President if you don't know how to lie. I was a pretty good lier, but I guess you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Well, it is sad. We spent a lot of money training and arming that Saddam. He was vicious I'll tell you that. But even with billions of dollars of support he couldn't best Iran. I guess it wasn't that easy, after all, we were arming Iran at the same time, but we gave the best arms and training to Saddam.

Then he had to go and invade Kuwait. Our ambassador told him we didn't care if he used force in a border dispute, but he took the whole country. Even that wouldn't have been a big deal, but Kuwait is a colony of the UK so we just couldn't let him get away with that.

Yes, it is sad when we have to put down one of our own terrorist agents. Still, there's plenty more where that came from.

Re: bin laden..

[Black Parrot]

> There is enough evidence to support the view that most of the attacks in Iraq are not ex-sadaam loyalists, but are new Al Qaeda who will be happy to keep doing what they have been doing all along.

More likely, IMO, are that the suicide attacks are being carried out by members of al Q or some other Islamic fundamentalist terrorist group, but the guerilla attacks are being carried out by Saddam/Ba'ath loyalists and other ordinary resistance/insurgence types.

And there are probably many factions on both sides of that fence, with an "enemy of my enemy" truce that will keep them from fighting each other (very much) until their common enemy has withdrawn.

Re: bin laden..

[Black Parrot]

> The Bush government never actually *said* that Hussain was behind 9/11, but various officials, press announcements, State of the Union Addresses, etc, implied it rather strongly. Since our "liberal" media wouldn't dream of correcting the Bush government's insinuations the image of Saddam as the 9/11 mastermind stuck in the public's mind.

What's sad is that the Bush Administration has admitted that there is no connection, but still turns around and tries to push that button at every opportunity. As recently as his speech in England, as a matter of fact.

The irony of this approach is that it is a very clintonesque "technically, I didn't lie" approach to mendacity.

Re:bin laden..

[Thing 1]

A politician could get into trouble over a bullet. The money is already approved, and awarding it has no negative fiscal realities for anyone, possibly excepting the taxpayers.

True. But, I'm a US taxpayer, and I'd much rather pay .000000001c for a bullet than $25 for my share of the reward.

And it sends a message to the tattletales: cut it the fuck out.

Saying "The money is already approved" is somewhat repulsive to me. "The money" for mohair subsidies is already approved as well. That doesn't make it any more palatable.

Re: bin laden..

[Black Parrot]

> This is like being angry that we let a burglar go to catch a rapist. Osama is not anywhere nearly the problem Saddam is. Open a history book that goes back more than three years.

The reason Americans don't want to do that is because it uncovers the embarrassing fact that he committed most of his crimes while he was our puppet in the region.

A notable exception is the killing of 300,000 Shiites after the Gulf War, but even there we don't come out smelling of roses: we deliberately stirred them into rebellion in hopes of getting a regime change for free, and when it didn't work out we left them to die at his hands. I.e., we used them, and discarded them when they were no longer convenient.

If the USA puts him on trial for past crimes, you can bet they won't be showing the pictures of Rumsfeld shaking his hand.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as "international law."

What? How can that be?

It's true. There is no such thing as "international law." See, it goes like this: law has to come from somewhere. In order for laws to be accepted as legitimate, they have to arise from the will of the people. In the United States, our federal laws arise from the Constitution, an act of the will of our founders, and from the democratic processes that sustain our government. (We elect representatives to the House of Representatives and the Senate, and those representatives populate the executive and judicial branches as well as making the laws.)

A law in the United States Code is accepted by citizens of the United States as binding only because that law was passed by our elected representatives through the codified processes for doing so, and because that law does not violate the rules established by the Constitution.

There is no mechanism--none whatsoever--for laws in an supernational domain to be passed and executed legitimately. There is no representative body that operates in the supernational domain. The United Nations is a ministerial body; it's populated by ambassadors who are appointed by governments, not by elected representatives. Therefore the United Nations lacks the power, both legalistically and morally, to legislate. It can't do it. So there's no international law. Period.

What we do have, on the other hand, is a network of treaties that obligate our various governments to each other. One of those treaties is the United Nations Charter which defines how the UN Security Council works. You might be interested to know that Chapters VI and VII of the UN Charter define two different classes of Security Council actions: actions related to the pacific settlement of disputes, and actions related to breaches of the peace. Chapter VI resolutions (the pacific ones) are unenforceable: no member state has the authority under the UN Charter to enforce any Chapter VI resolution. Chapter VII resolutions, on the other hand, are not unenforceable. All member states are compelled to enforce Chapter VII resolutions. They don't have an option.

So, here's how it boils down: there's no such thing as international law, because no body exists at that level with the authority to make laws. What we do have are treaties between nations, and according to the relevant treaties, the United States was required to take whatever steps were required to disarm Iraq, up to and including invasion and occupation.

Funny how these things work, huh?

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how that disproves the parent post, you crackhead.

Re: bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

If we had actually invaded Iraq for any of the stated reasons, there would be absolutely no reason not to turn its governance over to the UN.

Er, except that the U.N. is a bumbling bureaucracy that cut and ran when it's office in Baghdad got bombed? The U.N. would turn Iraq into the definition of "quagmire".

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Approximately 250,000 people died during the Saddam Hussein atrocities. The vast majority of these were in the 80's, when USA, France, and others were ACTIVELY supporting Iraq. If you, as USA, was going to invade Iraq, or if you supported the war, you cannot use that. USA supported these crimes! They even provided the political support for Iraq to use chemical weapons. It will be totally hypocritical of USA to use that as a pretext for war. If USA truly believed in it, it will be satisfied if some other country, or some Iraqis, invade USA to get the war criminals in USA who facilitated the mass murder.

If you are going to cite atrocities, you really have no moral ground unless you leave out stuff that your side supported.

Also, stop quoting the State department PLEASE! You are discrediting yourself by referencing propaganda. If you went with the US government view, Iraq without a doubt has WMD. I certainly hope that you don't quote Powell's proof he presented at the UN, or President Bush's "proof". I mean, the US govt still maintains that they did NOT help Usama bin Laden. But if you look at independent sources, you'll get something else. Relying on government propaganda is just lame.

More people will die now than before. The number that was quoted was only for Baghdad. The number of people Saddam Hussein killed in the last several years is small comapred to the innocent deaths that are occurring now (unless you attribute the UN sanctions death to him, which I'm not doing).

In any case, this isn't about deaths. I value life. I'm not going to get into a debate over numbers of deaths. That just cheapens lives. All I'll say is that your numbers are way off.

I also read the beginning of the article you posted... but even in the U.S. there are restrictions on free speech that encourages violence against others. You can't stand on a street corner rallying people to beat police officers. The press that was invaded in Iraq was doing just that - it wasn't simple dissent. Also, since Al-Jazeera is not an Iraqi news outlet, those rules don't apply....

What the IGC (Iraqi Governing Council, aka US proxy) is doing is totally against freedoms. It would not be permitted in at least 50% of the countries in the world--and it is nowhere near the freedoms guaranteed in USA. This is so bad that it doesn't even compare to corrupt countries like India or South Africa where press freedoms aren't as great. USA is making Iraq into its "assets", just like it has done to all Middle Eastern and Latin American countries over the decades. I don't even think you know is going on. I mean, if the most anti-Saddam newspaper is all of a sudden shut down because it is anti-IGC, how is that freedom?

You say that USA restricts freedoms. You sound you live in Canada (Canada restricts freedoms; not USA...I'm from Canada BTW :) ). You CAN stand on a street corner and preach violence. Fascists do it all the time (ever looked at the KKK or Aryan Nation?) I don't know where you get this idea that speech (and hate speech) is restricted. Not in USA! Even in countries like Canada (where there are more restrictions), you can publish quite a bit.

As far as Al-Jazeera is concerned, the first to suppression of media is to ban FOREIGN media. The local ones are easily controlled but the foreign ones are independent. You need to look no further than Zimbabwe.

I am a conservative, to be sure, but I don't necessarily believe in imperialism as much as i believe in free will.

You don't sound like a conservative to me...but more on this later... Free will? I guess if forcing someone to follow your views, or forcing some people to be a proxy state is your idea free will. USA is bringing free will to the Middle East all right... just like how Britain was educating the savages in India, Africa, and the Middle East.

The fact is that it can be done - just because it hasn't been done in over fifty years doesn't mean it's still no

Re:bin laden..

[gfxguy]

You really don't sound like a conservative to me. If you are, you must be a moderate close to the center, possible center-right. Some of your views are very leftish (especially the nationalization of state resources in Iraq). You said so yourself that you support some elements of socialism.

I'd say that's a pretty good assesment, although I think I'm a lot more right than you think. Socialism is definately a giant NO in a place like the United States, for example, but I believe there are situations where it makes some sense.

AAACCHH! I'm in the middle of that stupid test (political compass). Many questions are just too black and white.

What's good for the most successful corporations is always, ultimately, good for all of us.

Aaargg! So if I admit that it's not ALWAYS the case, then I'm a lefty.

In criminal justice, punishment should be more important than rehabilitation.

Depends on the crime...

Ok, Ok, I can bitch about the test - it's just a test. I'm going to go finish it, although I don't believe the results will reflect how I truly feel.

Ok, couldn't let this one go!

Sex outside of marriage is usually immoral.

USUALLY? USUALLY?!?! Ay Caramba!

Ok.. just barely authoritarian left. I really disagree, in that I think there were too many leading questions. If I judged myself, I'd probably be more barely libertarian right. But now I'll take the libertarian test...

Libertarian... slightly to the left of the center of the libertarian box. I'd say that's because of what you mentioned... simplistic and also way too short to be very useful.

But let's get back to the subject matter...

I will cite atrocities that we may have helped commit. We did not give supplies to Iraq so that they could murder their own people, we gave them to help their fight with Iran. That was wrong, I freely admit, it was the "enemy of my enemy" logic, which I disagree with (for the most part anyway). But I again say that, in order for us to be dissallowed from using that argument, you'd have to prove that two wrongs make a right. If anything, we can at least say we're trying to atone for our own past atrocities.

However: It will be totally hypocritical of USA to use that as a pretext for war.

I never did use it as a pretext for war. I was saying, regardless of what we did 15 years ago, right now I truly believe we are making things better for Iraqi citizens. And even though I make that claim, I don't pretend that that was a pretext for war either. Never said it, never implied it.

By always expecting something better, you become slave to others.

I couldn't disagree more. Your lottery example not-withstanding, without hope you have nothing. If life sucks, and you have no hope of improving your condition, what's the point? People pull themselves out of the gutter all the time.

Now, when I voted for Nadar, I was selecting someone who I thought really cared about people. Neither Bush nor Gore passed that test at the time, but I do believe now that both probably do care about people, I just didn't see it that way at the time. I hated Clinton, even though I supported some of his policy. I'm ultimately glad that Bush won. Again, I wish we had a run-off system, but even though I consider myself libertarian, I don't really support everything libertarians support. I AM more of a centrist, but I believe in the constitution of the U.S. When I was younger, I used to firmly believe in the separation of church and state, now I believe that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

Alright, I'm rambling now.

Re:bin laden..

[Anonymous Coward]

(I'm posting AC because either someone kind but unable to read or someone clever at making me look like a hypocrite bought me a subscription to Slashdot -- see my sig in previous posts -- and I just don't want to let this discussion die yet.)

No I'm saying there isn't a single government in power today (INCLUDING THE US) that wouldn't, and in fact hasn't done all of the above for the same and/or lesser reasons. That makes the US claiming it's form of government is in any superior to the one iraq had on the basis of crimes our own government is equally guilty of hypocracy of the worst kind.

Hrm... I would disagree. You seem to be opposed to the concept of absolute right and wrong, yet you seem to see governments in very black and white terms. There are shades of grey in governance, and while no government will ever be lily-white, I think we can still claim ethical and moral superiority over Baathist Iraq. (Not that this justifies the war, mind you.)

The US government has not within modern times sanctioned the torture and maiming of its prisoners. Any time US law enforcement agents that have been caught do so has caused a huge uproar from both the public and the officials above them. US politicans cannot get away with gathering up young women and forcing them to have sex like Uday Hussein is multiply reported to have done. We have not had to worry about being taken out of our homes, killed, and sent back in pieces for openly expressing our anger at our President like many of us do here on Slashdot.

Oh, don't get me wrong. We aren't the perfect, shining, happy people who never do wrong that some people claim we are. We aren't even as good of a people as we used to be pre-9/11, and I really dislike large elements of our current government, but I'm deeply offended by your wild exaggeration that we are no better than the Baathists. We can indeed claim superiority by the fact that we have committed far less atrocities than Hussein's government (even when you count all the shady business that the CIA has been involved in abroad).

Finding supporting evidence isn't the difficult part at all. Finding supporting evidence you won't brush aside claiming it was because the people were afraid to say otherwise is.

That's exactly the problem. In a non-open society like Iraq where people are afraid to speak their minds (like they are doing now), it's hard to tell what everyone actually thought. It wouldn't surprise me if there was genuine support for the invasion of Kuwait considering the origins of the country and Iraq's somewhat legitimate claim on it, but who can tell how popular the move was? Certainly not us from our comfortable chairs here in America where all we heard was through the media from a society without free speech.

It works better in a middle eastern country where there are bitterly warring religous factions who will of course oppose any ruler, works like a charm, pick any ruler and the opposing factions will be against him.

You're contradicting yourself on the earlier claim of him legitimately having 90%+ support considering the size of the Kurds, the Marsh Arabs, and the Shi'a.

The only WRONG thing that comes to mind at the moment is ignoring logical objective conclusions on an emotional basis or imagined sense or right and wrong. I belive there are correct and incorrect actions, the terms right and wrong fits as well, but I don't believe they are defined by moral or emotional means or inherient 6th senses. I believe they are defined by an analysis of goals, outcomes, and data. I don't believe in EVIL people.

So, in effect, you're an "ends justify the means" kind of guy. Okay, how do you determine what goals and outcomes are right or wrong? How do you determine whether or not an end justifies torture, or do you just not see torture itself as anything especially wrong to have to justify? Do you believe that people have rights which should not be violated, or is that concept seen as p

Re:bin laden..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Based on what the authors of that test say, I think the test evoked the right emotions in you. Your reaction to that sex question is funny but that's what it's supposed to evoke. I think people who are in favour of loyal marriage would have the same reaction as you.

You weren't doing the test properly--at least I don't think so. You were CONSCIOUSLY trying to place yourself somewhere on the econopolitical spectrum. You shouldn't be doing that. You should have just answered the question without thinking about where you would end up. It should be just based on your feelings and thoughts. Perhaps you wanted to project a particular image of yourself to me so you weren't comfortable with the test. It's just a test and it is not perfect, although I find it accurate based on a few friends I know of.

Anyway, it seems you are close to the center. Since BOTH tests placed you a little to the left, you may not be a conservative at all (although you are nowhere near left or far-left and hence cannot be called a leftist).

Socialism is definately a giant NO in a place like the United States, for example, but I believe there are situations where it makes some sense.

That's weird. How can you say socialism is not appropriate in some places yet is ok in other places? Why do you say that? I haven't seen too many people place restrictions on socialism. Usually people are either for it or totally against it. Perhaps the fact that you are close to the center is the reason why you put a clause on socialism (instead of outright acceptance or rejection).

We did not give supplies to Iraq so that they could murder their own people, we gave them to help their fight with Iran. That was wrong, I freely admit, it was the "enemy of my enemy" logic, which I disagree with (for the most part anyway).

It's just too bad that people who follow the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' philosophy never realize that it leads to allying with the devil. You say it was wrong but USA is still on the same path. How come you (meaning USA) is allied with Ahmed Chalibi and his buddies? How do you know he isn't the next devil that you allied with? He is known for accounting irregularities (codeword for he stole money from the US govt). Already, as I pointed out, he is severely restricting media in Iraq. It wouldn't surprise me if Iraq ended up with just the state media in 1 year!

But I again say that, in order for us to be dissallowed from using that argument, you'd have to prove that two wrongs don't[-ed] make a right. If anything, we can at least say we're trying to atone for our own past atrocities.

See that's the problem... You are just using that as an EXCUSE. You CANNOT correct those mistakes. You killed 10,000 (likely to increase) in order to take out Saddam. You (will) destabilize Iraq.

It's just too bad that you don't see what the neoconservatives are up to. It's too bad that you believe every lie coming out of George Bush. It's too bad that you rely solely on the corporate-controlled yes-men in the media.

There is NO WAY you can correct the deaths of innocents! Following your ideology, who is USA going to invade to correct past mistakes? Egypt perhaps? Or maybe Saudi Arabia? Or Kuwait? We all know how horrilbe the regime in Kuwait is so are you saying USA should invade Kuwait next, killing tens of thousands in the process?

Pardon my strong language here... You are basically a "sinner" who hasn't come to terms with his "sin". You sort of realize what USA did was wrong but you haven't come to terms with it. You still hope that you can avoid confronting you past "sins" by somehow correcting them.

I never did use it as a pretext for war. I was saying, regardless of what we did 15 years ago, right now I truly believe we are making things better for Iraqi citizens. And even though I make that claim, I don't pretend that that was a pretext for war either. Never said it, never implied it.

What WAS

Re:bin laden..

[prockcore]

You forget that the 1991 war was never ended.

You forget that 1991 was a *conflict* not a war.

Although since I'm posting this 2 days later, no one is going to read that :)

Re:bin laden..

[crabpeople]

the ends dont justify the means.

they dont have any weapons. how were they goign against the inspections if they didnt have weapons? we now kill countries because they dont let foreigners polk around in their depths?

plain old american hipocrasy

oh and when you create disorder you create terrorists so have a nice relaxing rest of your life.

Re:bin laden..

[NanoGator]

"Iraq had nothing to do with 7-11 attack. Even Paul Wolfowitz (deputy secretary of defense) can't say otherwise."

The Gov't has made it clear they do not feel Iraq was involved with 9-11. Iraq, however, would have been a good place for Al Qeada to flee to post 9-11.

"No massive destruction weapon was found yet in Iraq."

Nothing definitive here. Hussein knows WMD are a no-no, and finding them would mean a global smackdown. Hiding them would have been his highest priority. Even if they never existed, it's well established he'd love to have them. (*cough* Kuwait *cough*)

"AFTER USA invaded Iraq Bin Laden supposedly made some speechs urging iraquies to fight against coalition forces."

Not sure how this supports your argument. Bin Laden had targets show up in range of people motivated to listen to him. Surprise he wants them to attack.

"Terrorism in Iraq started from null to today situation since President Bush anounced end of fights."

Again, not sure how this supports your point. You could say the same for Afghanistan.

"Old Europe" countries foretold this situation will happen. USA reacted renaming french fries."

'Old Europe' refused to deal with a situation they sat on for too long. They responded instead by being critical of our government. Oh yeah, "freedom fries" was a playful reply. Freedom of expression.

"Of course Old Europe also had important economical interests an Iraq, like USA."

Okay.. maybe I'm just not understanding where you're coming from? Forgive me, I'm on heavy cold medicine, but it sounds like you're stating these reasons why the war shouldn't have happened. Am I misunderstanding you? If not, then can you explain the above point? The way I read it, this is a reason for 'Old Europe' to be snarky at us over the war, to the point of overriding the need to remove a nasty guy from power.

Re:bin laden..

[strike2867]

Free enough that if I walk down the steet, I won't be shot/beaten/stabbed as an infidel or enemy of society. Sure, people can call me what ever they want and say what they want to say, but that's their right in a free country.

Watch Bowling for Columbine. It blurrs the facts a bit. The truth is that out of 100,000 3.76 die every year in America due to some kind of murder. This is higher than just about every country in the world. For example in Japan its .02(imagine that). Or .76 in Canada right above us. You keep walking down that street.

who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was he controlling his guerilla army from his 'spider hole'? I doubt it, these guys operate in their individual cells independant of central control.

The 'capture' of sadam will mean no difference to the state iraq and the rest of the world is in.

Re:who cares?

[USAPatriot]

I'm sure the families of the scores of thousands of people that Saddam has murdered, tortured, and raped care about him being captured. The people celebrating in the streets seem to be caring.

One of the last century's worst thugs is now in custody, and the "insightful" comment around here is "who cares"? Get some sense of history.

Re:who cares?

[shaka999]

It may not make a direct impact but it surely will have an impact on moral. If it serves to demoralize the guerilla's then its a big win.

Re:who cares?

[Qeantk]

They got GW? j/k... j/k

Re:who cares?

[mandalayx]

Was he controlling his guerilla army from his 'spider hole'? I doubt it, these guys operate in their individual cells independant of central control.

The US military seems to think so (see below). And regardless of your opinion on Bush, I'd have to think that a lot of Americans believe the "we've done something great, go us (and me, implicitly), but be vigilant for more" line that's sure to come.

From MSNBC:
From hiding, U.S. commanders have said Saddam played some role in the anti-U.S. resistance that has killed hundreds of soldiers and civilians in Iraq.

In the latest attack, a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car outside a police station Sunday morning west of Baghdad, killing at least 17 people and wounding 33 more, the U.S. military said.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt that many Iraqis are happy about Saddam being captured, but please be a little more sceptic about what you see on TV. Remember the staged destruction of the Saddam statue? Even without explicitly arranging things to transport a certain message, cameras lie by choosing angles and avoiding others. Yeah, I know IHBT.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'capture' of sadam will mean no difference to the state iraq and the rest of the world is in.

A huge effect this will have is that Iraqis no longer will have to 'hedge their bets', that is not doing anything that might come back to haunt them if Saddam were to come back to power.

Re:who cares?

[Zapdos]

Yes. with his name. He was a ghost leader. His name was used to keep these groups working. Promises of large sums of cash from Sadam also helped.

Capture him and the fear of his name will go away.
Capture him and he can not pay a penny.

Re:who cares?

[squarooticus]

Who is modding this stuff up to "insightful"?

If you aren't Arab (and in this case, Arab isn't equivalent to Muslim), you probably don't understand the honor structure of those people. In this case, while Saddam remained free and was able to demonstrate his strength by surviving and directing attacks against coalition forces, his former Ba'ath party supporters were willing to fight for him.

With him captured, you can expect to see the vast majority of the domestic Iraqi resistance disappear.

The foreign (i.e., Syrian and Iranian) destabilization efforts will continue until a effective domestic police force exists.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure we got the guy that murdered and tortured his people, but shouldn't we care more about the guy who destroyed everything good about his country? Saddam and Osama might have done horrible things to people, but only Bush and Ashcroft have been waging a terrorist war on OUR basic human rights. Oh fuck, looks like we captured him but he won. Shit.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'am also sure that there are many more "worst thug's" in this century.The difference is..oh...oil...militar control over the zone...or whatever you could imagine not being freedom or justice.
Just look for someone still believing that this war was done in the name of freedom, and you will find an idiot.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

insightful my ass...good job mods....gah

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US military seems to think so

Then again, the US military seems to be best at shooting their own soldiers.

Re:who cares?

[Fulkkari]

Was he controlling his guerilla army from his 'spider hole'?

I doubt that too, but Saddam Hussein was the "inspirational" source to his loyalists. Now that he is captured some of them might give up once their leader has been defeated. As the news I heard suggests that Saddam himself is willing to co-operate, his loyalits morale propably will take a serious hit.

Not only that, the people in Iraq are as tired of these guerillas as the US, and want to get rid of them. It will take some time for them to stop terrorist attacks in this grade, but I don't think they are going to do that forever. Why would they continue if their own people doesn't support them?

Re:who cares?

[Avihson]

Not only will the Ba'athists be less inclined to fight, but the "Lion of Tikrit" was found hiding in a hole in the ground, and submitted to the disgrace of a televised medical exam.

This is a great shame for the fearless leader to be found hiding. The Iraqi are no longer afraid of his return to power. One of the Iraqi reporters at the press conference pointedly asked if the ban on capital punishment could be lifted in this case, Paul Bremmer and his Iraqi counterpart in the conditional government had to remain noncommittal.

Re:who cares?

[prisonernumber7]

(*) Disclaimer: I'm no prophet, so please take my post with a grain of salt.

The international press (for example the press in my country, Austria) is assuming the opposite to happen. And I share their view. Central Europe believes these assaults to happen because the Iraquis would prefer the US to move out of their country.

With Saddam Hussain being put on display in a humiliative fashion - him playing the role of a broken man whose two sons have been killed by the very forces that now have control of his life - this might anger those who lead these assaults even more.

The situation down there is not a beautiful one; the rest of the world blames the many problems on the Bush administration. We are sincerely hoping that you will vote their asses out of office next time and elect somebody with a finer understanding of the world into what's easily the world's most important political function. The rest of the world needs a different US. You might not care, tho - but I for one hope you do.

Re:who cares?

[the_2nd_coming]

his spider hole was in the home town of Akmed Kareya, the man thought to be directing the attacks, so up until the last few weeks as we tightened our search forcing saddam into deep hidding as he was, Saddam was probably involved in the planning of these attacks with Kareya.

Re:who cares?

[Pavan_Gupta]

Your first question needs to be asked again --

If you've been watching the news and White House propoganda of late, you'll know that the major forces that have organized behind attacks against coalition forces have been those forces that arrived from out of the country. It's not some disbanded Ba'ath party members that suicide bombing the country side, but it's crazed militants from around the middle east.

The capture of saddam will probably provide some superficial relief, and will likely setup a nice facade to help ease reelection tensions, but more than that -- it's a relatively mute point. Nothing can come of it besides some happiness that hundreds of billions of dollars can go to capturing someone that was already deposed.

And moreover, the questions begs to be asked: where the hell is Osama? The man needs a DIALYSIS MACHINE! That's not some simple tool, or small for that matter. I'm angry that we've invested so much time in other countries, but Bush wants us to forget the real criminal behind 9/11.

Well, you be satisifed with this capture of Saddam. I'll be angry that we paid 25 million USD for a figure head, and a good ol' fashioned taste of Nazi propoganda. Where's Osama?!

Re:who cares?

[gustgr]

the thousands of families that Mr. Bush fucked up here in brazil and in the rest of the '3rd world' that have been tortured, raped, and being starved would be very happy when someone shot his fscking head...

the only worth president you've ever got was Kennedy but your GOOD people killed him ... congratulations asshole.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you aren't Arab...

And the parent isn 't.

Ironic.

Re:who cares?

[nyseal]

I respectfully disagree. Saddam was a symbol of defiance to the terrorists of Iraq (and the world, for that matter) that despite an invasion the coalition could not find him and hold him accountable for his actions. As long as people like Saddam and bin Laden are at large they are a monument that people can perform terrorist acts without threat of repercussion. The Iraqi people are well aware of this and could not sleep at night knowing that as long as he was out there, they had a problem.

Re:who cares?

[twiddlingbits]

There is some question about Osama's health, but there have also been reports that he has had a transplant in Pakistan. Osama can hide in the mountains where it is darn hard to find him, OR he can dress up and appear in public in any number of countries, live a lavish lifestyle and no one will know (or he used to, the money is tight now). He is a man who spent years putting together a world-wide network of beleivers based on religion. Saddam's "network" was based on fear, a huge difference. As soon as the fear is gone due to the non-existance of relatiation, the attacks from Iraqi's should go down. However, the terrorists sent in from other places who want a "Jihad" will continue to be a problem until Iraq's borders are secure.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

>submitted to the disgrace of a televised medical exam
OT but does anyone know if it's legal, unlike the taliban Saddam had a well defined chain of command, and if he was in uniform when caught he has pow status?

Re:who cares?

[the_2nd_coming]

saddam was a figure head? how do you figure that?

Re:who cares?

[the_2nd_coming]

so are you saying that they are lying to the world that they captured saddam?

there is a bit of a diffrence between psudo-staging the take down of saddam's statue (though there were a lot of people around trying to do so before the troops helped them), and out and out lying about the capture of a genocidal maniac

Re:who cares?

[kir]

Staged... that's "Funny", not "Insightful". Who's modding today? Howard Dean?

Re:who cares?

[Atryn]

What's important is not whether or not Saddam was controlling the cells from his spider hole... What is important is whether the cells thought he was controlling them.

A recent news story heard on NPR (I believe it was a Times reporter that had gotten in with a cell attacking US forces?) had Saddam loyalists flatly stating that, although the cells operated independently and did not know of other cells actions, they got their orders from a military structure that they believe was controlled by SH.

The hope would be, that with SH exposed and captured (and clearly not in command) that these cells will see they are being controlled by a military structure NOT under SH. In a perfect world, they would thus turn against that leadership...

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that in WW2 the rate of friendly fire casulities for the US was 17% of total, whereas for Britain it was only 7% and Germany at 6%?

Re:who cares?

[illuminata]

That goes both ways. It all depends on what the views of the people in control of the source are. Liberals show the liberal angle, conservatives show the conservative angle, so on and so forth.

Be careful to not imply that it's only the conservatives that do this.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I do. In fact, I believe it's even higher. What America lacks in quality, they make up in quantity.

Re:who cares?

[Richard_at_work]

Its interesting to note that with all the effort that went into trying to put Saddam into a hole in the ground during the war, he hid in one voluntarily.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

i am voting for GWB in 04 just to spite liberal pigs just like you...

Thanks! I always assumed GWB was elected by hateful morons, and now I have proof.

Re:who cares?

[Guuge]

There's another side to this coin. Many Iraqis sided with the US because they feared Saddam's power. With Saddam out of the picture (physically) we can expect to see a greater push from the rival tribes to end the US occupation.

Re:who cares?

[eugene ts wong]

What happened with this staging of the taking down of the statue? I never heard about it. Was the statue not taken down?

Re:who cares?

[gnuLNX]

Well perhaps next time there is a wolrd dictator we can just stand back and let them take their due course....perhaps through a fine country like Autria. Funny thing is then the Austrian people will bitch and moan because we were not helping them. Seems this country can do no right be the rest of the world. Sure we have our fair share of short comings, but to argue that Saddam should have been allowed to rule is insane. How would you feel if he was in power in your country? Sure Iraq will be miserable place for a long time to come, but don't be short sited. Thing about future generations of Iraqs that will enjoy the same freedom as you and I, or do you believe that only certain people in certain select countries should have such freedoms?

Perhaps instead of all this collective wolrd bitching we could start working together to iron out the wrinkles of all societies...our's included.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, not on the terrorists or extremist Muslims? Unlike the Old World powers (who seemed to prefer to simply profit from Saddam), the U.S. had the will to take on a nasty dictator who was openly supporting terrorism. That little detail seems to escape all the detractors...

You watch too much Fox News pal.

NO ONE SUPPORTS SADDAM HUSSEIN! But you straw-man slayers cannot understand the nuances of the worlds objections... YOU CANNOT UNILATERALLY ATTACK FOREIGN NATIONS! UNDER ANY GODDAMNED IMAGINED (real or otherwise) REASONS!

First Afghanistan, then Iraq... you Yankess are going to start WWIII! Dont be so fucking stupid.

Re:who cares?

[the_2nd_coming]

there are people that say that the US did a theater act with it. they say that they took their Iraqis that they took over witht hem from the US and got them to act like there was a lot of people in the square.

mostly they say it is fake because the troops helped take the statue down.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

(20%+ of any population is always going to fall for the "big lie")

And you appear to be in the 20% of the US population that fell for the big lie of the Republican party.

I shudder to think where we'd be today if Gore had won in 2000.

Riiight. All our men would be wearing beards and our women burkhas.

God knows we had 8 years of horror and economic disaster last time we had a Democrat in office. Oh no, wait, that was just 40 million taxpayer dollars spent investigating a blowjob and a shady land deal...

Why don't you go into detail about how the country would be hypothetically different if Gore had been elected? I'd like to read that...

---

I do commend you on your taste in pistols, though...

Re:who cares?

[sigxcpu]

I agree.
(Note however that Iranians are not Arabs, in fact they hate them)
One thing to consider is that this will force Iran's hand.
Up until now they were having their war done for them by Saddam's men.
Iran can't allow the US to bring democracy to millions of Shi'ite Muslims. That will destabilize their regime very fast.
They will have to resist the us more openly.
And Iran will have nukes in a year...

Re:who cares?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

I'm surprised. I didn't know twelve year olds could vote in the US.

Re:who cares?

[tstoneman]

The rest of the world needs a different US. You might not care, tho - but I for one hope you do.

The rest of the world might want a different U.S., but the President acts strictly for the interests of his own country. I, for one, think Bush has done an amazingly good job with foreign policy. Not one citizen has died from foreign terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11...that is a tremendous track record for the Bush administration. I shudder to think where we'd be today if Gore had won in 2000.

Good point about how the President should be looking out for the best interests of his own country.

However, your point of U.S. citizens not dying from terrorism is extremely weak.

No US citizens have died from foreign terrorism on U.S. soil EVER... until GWB. So, that means, according to your logic, since George Washington, it was a tremendous track record for every single president of the US to avoid this... except for Bush because he was the only president to ever allow U.S. citizens to die from a foreign terrorist act on U.S. soil.

Re:who cares?

[The_Unforgiven]

From what I remember, they had people bussed in, there were photoshopped images in the news, etc. Statue came down, but was made to look like a huge celebration, and it was a much more modest thing.

I could be wrong, though, maybe someone has links.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off. We at least are taking action on this Cancerious version of Islam that is spreading (there is a good breed, but it is small and not expanding that much).

Re:who cares?

[infolib]

The international press (for example the press in my country, Austria) is assuming the opposite to happen.

Not so in Denmark. Everybody sees it as a good thing. Attack will probably not cease, but be a bit dampened. One expert warned though that Islamists might actually increase their attacks that will now not be seen as "pro-Saddam"

For comparison: Denmark (press included) was rather lukewarm on the whole Iraq war. Without knowing I'd suspect the austrian press of being very strongly anti-war like the german. (Am I right?)

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

- US said Iraqi people were so enthused about fall of Iraq that they massed in a sqare and took down a statue
- News crews filmed the event, and it looked like a mass of people taking down a statue
- In reality, the US had a small group of allied soldiers trucked in, and supplied a vehicle to pull the statue down
- The news crews failed to show the size of the crowd, the US army vehicle, or say what was actually going on

Re:who cares?

[pirhana]

Telling that fight against invading american forces would decline because of this is pure BULLSHIT ! Becuase Iraquis were not fighting out of loyality to saddam. Almost none of them ever liked saddam (even though they had to tollerate him for a long time out of fear). The people who are fighting against the US forces are not saddam loyalists as propogated by US media. They are ordinary people who doesnt want their country to be ruled by a foreign force and loot their oil and wealth by a foreign power. If at all this is going to have any effect on the resistance to american forces, its going to be positive. Becuase saddam was an absolutely bad element in the fight against the occupying forces. Now that they got rid off him, they can be more motivated and more united in their struggle. If there was something which divide Iraqis it was Saddam. Now thats also gone. What we can expect is more unified and popular struggle against the occupying forces.

Re:who cares?

[madssj]

Who, Howard Dean? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! His tenure would be an unmitigated disaster for U.S. prestige and interests worldwide.

One could wonder, would there have been an 9/11 if the Bush administration ware not elected?

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of people have been killed by terrorists on US soil, now that terrorism includes bank robbers, kidnappers, school kids caught with butter knives in their cars, and anyone involed in peaceful demonstrations.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

We at least are taking action on this Cancerious version of Islam that is spreading (there is a good breed, but it is small and not expanding that much).

I assume that "small and not expanding" version must be the hundreds of millions of muslims who aren't terrorists...

Re:who cares?

[Tony Hoyle]

There were leaked photographs from a different angle that clearly showed:

(1) That there can't have been more than 50 people there.
(2) There were clearly more press than Iraquis.
(3) The troops had blocked off the surrounding streets which were deserted - presumably to stop anyone not part of the 'demonstration' from taking part.

Re:who cares?

[FatherOfONe]

Let's see a post from Anonymous Coward....

Blah blah blah.... We hate anything American does.

The U.S. cann't attack any nation.... blah blah blah.... Well pal we did, and the world is now a much safer place for it. We gave up British, American and Italian lives for this (sorry if I missed any other country), and this is a huge day.

You watch too much BBC and CNN. Remember there is a GOOD reason the Iraqie Bob hugged the CNN reporter.... and that the BBC was thrown off of a British ship.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

mostly they say it is fake because the troops helped take the statue down.

It's a little more than just "helping" when the monument was surrounded by a few US Tanks and tons of personnel. And you know they must have patted down every single Iraqi for weapons; they wouldn't let the troops into that circle of Iraqis without knowing everyone of them to be unarmed. Indeed, a lot of time and effort was put into creating that plastic bit of "history".

Re:who cares?

[Pentagram]

Photo from a different angle.

Re:who cares?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Please. Every time the US was "saving" some country from an evil dictator, they ended up:
a) replacing him with a US-friendly evil dictator(guess who trained Osama and get the Taliban in place?) b) getting their asses kicked and make movies about some random American soldier easily winning a battle in that war, but never showing the fact they lost that war horribly.

And before you start bitching about WW2: The US got involved because Mister Fuhrer sunk a few US ships too many.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the idiot's defense, he did say "foreign terrorists". He was, of course, still wrong because of the first WTC bombing if nothing else...

There's also the matter that the term "terrorist" is massaged as necessary to fit political needs, but we needn't go there...

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course the one they tried to take down with explosives and managed to just blow the crotch out of... that's been swept under the rug. Can't have comedy in your propaganda.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apart from the relatively small numbers of personnel "recruited" in the colonies, Germany and Britain hardly used any niggers in their armed forces.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of us in the United States also blame many problems on the Bush Administration.

Re:who cares?

[retrovince]

How about this headline: "The rest of the world watches idly as hundreds of thousands of Saddam's political enemies are slaughtered." We had a different U.S.A. under Clinton. It was an administration that allowed terror to flourish because "consequences" meant absolutely nothing. Please don't tell me how we should focus on changing your perception of the United States. If you think George Bush is the enemy then the perception problem is entirely yours.

Re:who cares?

[Fishstick]

> it surely will have an impact on moral[e]

in the long run, probably - although I really doubt that all of the attacks are motivated by a desire to see Saddam restored. There's plenty of other reasons to hate the Americans.

I kind of expect a short-term upswing in attacks, motivated by vengance/retributiuon/whatever.

Also, I think there will be a short/long-term effect on "coalition" forces. Certainly there will be an immediate boost in morale for the average guy patrolling the streets ("YES!!! About fucking time - now let's lock this shit-hole down and get the fuck out of here.")

As the months drag on and noting really changes for the grunt patrolling the street, his morale would plummet ("Christ, can we just get the fuck out of this god-forsaken toilet of a country!?")

I hope that isn't what happens, but it seems inevitable.

Re:who cares?

[stevew]

I care also - and think that today is GLORIOUS. It illustrates a few simple points. When this President says he is going to do something - it seems to happen. There is no equivocation, no needed parsing of what he said. He has the follow-through that all of more recent leaders have lacked.

Also as the poster said - the US President is responsible for the well-being of US citizens FIRST. That is what Mr. Bush cares about.

He challenged the UN to put up or shut up - well -they did neither. He simply did what he said he was going to do (again..)

Lastly - from my reading it seems the average Iraqi is neither a sheep or a fool. There are obviously those who are most influenced by their religious leaders, but don't forget - under So-Damned - it was a secular country. Most Iraqis like what modern life brings (as oppossed to the 12th century style of life available most recently in Afghanistan.. whoops there goes W keeping his word again?) I also think that those who were still afraid that some how So-Damned might come back are finally free of their fear. The few pictures I saw on the media today had alot of dancing in the streets. This is even a bigger day for the average Iraqi.

Summary: US 1 - Bad Guys 1 - but the game aint over yet.

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

NO ONE SUPPORTS SADDAM HUSSEIN! But you straw-man slayers cannot understand the nuances of the worlds objections... YOU CANNOT UNILATERALLY ATTACK FOREIGN NATIONS! UNDER ANY GODDAMNED IMAGINED (real or otherwise) REASONS!

Yeah, I'm sure you objected in just the same way when Clinton attacked Bosnia without U.N. approval...NOT!

The U.N. clearly reneged on it's responsibilities in this case. Saddam could have avoided the war if he had just come clean on his WMD, which the U.N. knew existed from previous inspections. Big miscalculation on Saddam's part - I'm quite happy it worked out this way despite the cost.

France in particular should be extremely ashamed of it's role. Good old Iraq Jack Chirac also miscalculated in a big way. ;-)

Re:who cares?

[Ilgaz]

You actually believe those attacks were run by Saddam? Let me say no.

Also, if you call me Saddam loyalist, no... Poor turkish truck drivers die one by one in Iraq, I feel sorry for them.

I am turk and I say, attacks are done by Al Queda network, not Saddam.

Re:who cares?

[aborchers]

The U.S. cann't attack any nation.... blah blah blah.... Well pal we did, and the world is now a much safer place for it.

Interesting assertion, but I'm not sure it's a defensible one.

In the short term, it is evident from a cursory scan of the news that the world is currently not safer, but is considerably more dangerous. We may be seeing the dying fury of a cornered animal, or we may be seeing the birth of a long-lived war of international insurgency (an oxymoron?)

I concede that the world may well be on its way to becoming a safer place, but that remains to be seen. There are a lot of long-term consequences of this policy that have to be worked out.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany DID recruit some Muslims to the Waffen-SS, however.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

My father is an auditor for the Dept. of Defense INspector GEneral. THose "eight years of economic goodness" were lies. They came from Billy-boy underfunding medicaire and other portions of the government to create a "false surplus" and make himself look good. He withheld monies that were tagged for programs that needed them, all for the sake of fooling people into believing the government was doing something good for the economy.

I really dislike these people who think Billy-boy was the next best thing since sliced bread; in fact he was a lier and manipulator, who proceeded to make us look like weakminded fools on the world stage.

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

God knows we had 8 years of horror and economic disaster last time we had a Democrat in office.

I suppose you don't remember that the .com bubble had burst and the stock market crashed before the 2000 Presidential elections...

I also suppose you don't think the 9/11 attacks would have had a horrific effect on the U.S. economy if Gore had been in power...?

Now, who were you saying is in the 20% in this country again...?

ROFL.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, for all the lip service that Fox gives to "Fair and Balanced", liberal journalists are the ones that go out of their way to present both sides of the story, sometimes at the expense of the liberal side of it, so that it is balanced.

Conservatives, on the otherhand, usually have a make-no-apologies conservative reporting style and only present their side of view. Then, for the liberal side, they bring in the most off-the-wall idiot to debate with.

You are watching Fox...

Re:who cares?

[FredBaxter]

Well, the interesting question, at least politically, is now this: what happens if the Ba'athists and other rebels do not cease fighting, but instead US and Iraqi casualities continues and possibly rise? I'm not convinced that capturing Saddam will make all Iraqis happy with the US occupation, regardless of our best intentions, especially not those already attacking the US military. I'll be very interested to see how it shakes out, especially in regards to next November.

Re:who cares?

[retrovince]

One word: MORON.

We are engaged in a war against terrorism, and that means the entire network. Saddam was a big fish in the pond. Not any more. You undoubtedly will repeat the same sentiment if Osama (assuming he's still breathing) were ever found. If you equate the Bush administration to Hitler's Nazi party then your grasp of reality and history is skewed irreparably.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that "to argue that Saddam should have been allowed to rule is insane". I don't think it is insane -- it's simpler the lesser of two evils. To explain ..

Western powers look at Saddam's government and say it's horrible and must be removed. Other governments look at the US governemt and say it's horrible and must be removed. If one of us acts on our thoughts, the other will react, and the result is a world of perpetual war. Moreover it will be a war that neither side can win.

Letting Saddam rule is simpler the lesser of two evils, the greater evil being a worldwide perpetual state of war.

Re:who cares?

[dipipanone]

i am voting for GWB in 04 just to spite liberal pigs just like you...

Heh. Sure. Because if it wasn't for liberal pigs like him, you'd otherwise have voted for a Democrat?

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

One could wonder, would there have been an 9/11 if the Bush administration ware not elected?

According to reports, the attack had been planned for years. Al Qaida (however they're spelling it this week) hates America for supporting Israel - and Clinton did as much of that as anyone.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was also fairly cynical about Clinton. My point was that it is very easy to point to the symptoms and infer cause where it is not necessarily present. Clinton was lucky. GWB, so far, was not. Let's see in a few years how much smoke and mirrors there were in all those tax cuts and the just-passed medicare bill.

Re:who cares?

[Artifakt]

Cells ARE a way of maintaining central control without most members knowing how to get to that controller. "individual cells independant of central control" is as big an oxymoron as "Microsoft Works".

Re:who cares?

[unborn]

And WHAT was so good about Kennedy? Just because he was shot and mourned so much doesn't mean he was so good. He is a legend because he died while trying to be a hero.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

20%+ of any population is always going to fall for the "big lie"

And you provide the perfect illustration of this fact. Well done.

Not one citizen has died from foreign terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11

Remind us, how many died during the previous hundred years? The truth is, US citizens are more at risk from domestic Christian terrorists than they are from any foreign terrorists. When do you suppose Dubya will declare war on the Christian right?

Re:who cares?

[TheLinuxSRC]

People love to point fingers at the Bush administration (and while I agree that some areas of this whole mess could have been handled differently), these same people quickly forget what the status quo prior to the war in Iraq was. Several *million* Iraqis died at the hands of Saddam Hussein. On that point alone, he needed to be removed from power. Genocide is not an option; ever.

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

(sorry if I missed any other country)

Don't forget Poland. I'm sure I'll enjoy vacationing there more than I would have France... =)

(I would guess the food will be better in Italy though...)

Re:who cares?

[Trent05]

Luckily we are there instead of some country that wants to take over and loot their oil. I must ask you why we are mainly being attacked in the region known as the Suni Triangle, why are we not engaged in other regions of the country? If these were everyday citizens, why would they lay their life on the line to fight us when the Iraqi leadership will be taking over in 6 months? Iraq consists of 30 million + people, why are their only bands of guerillas fighting us? Surely with those numbers, we'd be in a non-stop firefight if your average Iraqi had us in their sights.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quid pro quo:

I see you're as good at changing the subject and dodging the question as the President you so admire.

You outline for me, as I asked, the disastrous state of affairs we'd be in if Gore had been elected (sic), and then I will respond to any of your further claims.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Captain History, The US got into the war because of Pearl Harbor and therefore declared war on JAPAN. Germany and Italy, being the other two Axis powers, then declared war on the United States.

As for Mr. Fuhrer sinking too many ships, he was going after those ships because they contained arms and other aid for Europe while they were fighting the war without the US formally involved.

Re:who cares?

[unborn]

The only difference being is that Saddam WAS a US-supported Evil Dictator.

Re:who cares?

[aled]

US got involved because Japan -not Germany- sunked a few ships. Before that US didn't care too much.

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

I see you're as good at changing the subject and dodging the question as the President you so admire.

I thought he was an incompetent idiot? Can't have it both ways pal... :-)

You outline for me, as I asked, the disastrous state of affairs we'd be in if Gore had been elected (sic), and then I will respond to any of your further claims.

I see I need to spell things out for you a little more:

1. The economy would have already been in trouble for either elected President.
2. 9/11 would have caused a further economic disaster for either President.
3. Gore's foreign policy would have been much weaker than Bush's, and likely we would have had several more domestic attacks, truly crippling the economy and sending us into a depression (not recession). You know, deflation.
4. Gore wouldn't have attacked Afghanistan or Iraq, thus leaving those terrorist-friendly states to train thousands of more terrorists and manufacure even nastier weapons, exacerbating the problem further.

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the general picture...

However, that is all speculation, whereas I'd prefer to stick to the facts at hand. Care to discuss those now? ;-)

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've been watching the news and White House propoganda of late, you'll know that the major forces that have organized behind attacks against coalition forces have been those forces that arrived from out of the country.

Wait a minute...If memory serves me correctly, a few weeks ago coalition forces foiled an attack against our soldiers. I believe about 40+ men were killed in that attack. What did the coalition find them wearing? Uniforms of the former Iraqi army divisions that were loyal to Saddam. I think you should go rethink your statement.

Re:who cares?

[UpnAtom]

Are these the only photos? My phone has a better resolution than that.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just hand SH over to the Kurds. They haven't banned anything.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've been watching the news and White House propoganda of late, you'll know that the major forces that have organized behind attacks against coalition forces have been those forces that arrived from out of the country.

That's completely untrue, in two totally separate ways. First, it's untrue simply because its false: the resistance has been conducted almost entirely by members of the Fedayeen Saddam, uniformed and organized paramilitary groups that were organized by Odai Hussein in 1995 and led by Qusay Hussein up to the time of his death. Second, it's untrue because the news has implied no such thing. So you're wrong two ways.

it's a relatively mute point

The word is "moot," and you are an illiterate buffoon.

And moreover, the questions begs to be asked: where the hell is Osama?

Christ, the question has been asked and answered repeatedly for two years now: he was killed in the Battle of the Tora Bora Mountains in November, 2001. How do we know this? Because he went in to Tora Bora with more than a thousand al Qaeda and Taliban fighters fleeing the fall of Khandahar, then lots of B-52's out of Diego Garcia went into Tora Bora, then nobody came out of Tora Bora. Clear as day. Why don't you get it?

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am happy the asshole is captured, but this will have no effect on the fighting in Iraq. No one thought Saddam was behind all of the attacks. Also, how we treat Saddam will likely influence terrorists the world over and likely invigorate their efforts...

Oh joyous day, another reason for terrorist to suicide bomb innocents...

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I scarily agree with much of what you said, but why do people keep saying no one has died from "foreign terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11"? I hear it everywhere, was it on Fox or something?

The Beltway Sniper was a Jamaican Muslim.
04Jul02 El Al Counter shooting at LAX. Shooter was Egyptian.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/07/05/la.air port.shooti ng/

Re:who cares?

[Darby]

One of the last century's worst thugs is now in custody, and the "insightful" comment around here is "who cares"? Get some sense of history.

Wow, amazing how the ignorant scumbags constantly twist people's statements around to make them sound evil.

Anybody in America who gives a shit about Saddam being captured when *THE PERSON WHO BLEW UP OUR BUILDINGS IS BEING IGNORED IN THE INTEREST OF HAVING A WAR FOR WHICH WE HAVE NEVER BEEN GIVEN A REASON WHICH HASN'T BEEN PROVEN TO BE A LIE*.
is not really paying attention, now are they?

Get some sense of history yourself.
OBL blew up our buildings.
Saddam wasn't involved, had no WMD, and was no threat to us.
Saddam was a thug, but with the blessing of the US government under the father of the current president along with most of the current administration.

Re:who cares?

[RevMike]

And before you start bitching about WW2: The US got involved because Mister Fuhrer sunk a few US ships too many.

Another poster already pointed out that Japan, not Germany, did the ship sinking.

Perhaps you'd better brush up on your history. While Pearl Harbor was the start of the US's overt involvement in hostilities, care to estimate how many American pilots entered into the RAF and RCAF with the tacit permission of the US government? What about all those Americans fighting the Japanese in China as part of the American Expeditionary Group aka The Flying Tigers. What about the US Navy actively hunting German U-Boats in the North Atlantic? What about the military hardware that was supplied to Britain, the Soviet Union, and their allies? What about the economic blockades of Axis countries?

The US was involved with WWII well before Pearl Harbor. As just a start, try reading Roosevelt's Secret War by Joseph Persico. Please come back and offer your opinions when you actually have some knowledge behind them.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not too hard. Google for "Saddam statue toppling fake".
Somehow it seems not to have made much of an impact in the big media. I wonder why :-(

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

(sorry if I missed any other country)

Whoops, I also missed Spain in my first response - and they lost some brave souls just the other day. None of us should ever forget the sacrifices made in the name of our way of life.

I hear Spain is a very pleasant tourist destination. It will definitely be on my next European travel itinerary. :-)

Re:who cares?

[pirhana]

>> Luckily we are there instead of some country that wants to take over and loot their oil

By "we" if you mean Halliburton et al., then I would agree with you

>> I must ask you why we are mainly being attacked in the region known as the Suni Triangle, why are we not engaged in other regions of the country?

Partially true. Even though, some of the high profile attacks were in these "sunni-triangle" , other areas too are regulary seeing fight.

>> If these were everyday citizens, why would they lay their life on the line to fight us when the Iraqi leadership will be taking over in 6 months?

Yah, like Afghan is having "their own" government now, right? They are motivated by factors like Nationality, Islam , anti-americanism etc. All these feelings are running very strong in entire middle east and Iraq in particular.

>> why are their only bands of guerillas fighting us?

But haven't you noticed the people from little kids to old ladies celebrating every attack on US and other occupying soldiers ? Not everyone who supports a movement (or feeling) take arms ! But the attack on occupying force is SUPPORTED by MOST of the Iraquis.

Re:who cares?

[Darby]

The U.N. clearly reneged on it's responsibilities in this case. Saddam could have avoided the war if he had just come clean on his WMD,

*All* available evidence indicates that he did come clean.
Care to provide contrary facts?
You might also want to indicate why Bush lied to the American people about his "evidence" before you have the audacity to claim that he's doing a good job.

Your position is completely indefensible

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

The Beltway Sniper was a Jamaican Muslim.

I thought he was a U.S. citizen, so you have a point. I'm pretty sure the powers that be wouldn't want anyone to get similar ideas as a straight terrorist tactic.

Were those attacks politically motivated? I thought money was the goal, though perhaps that doesn't rule out terrorism regardless...

04Jul02 El Al Counter shooting at LAX. Shooter was Egyptian.

That one doesn't invalidate my point, since those who died weren't citizens... Nasty business though.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Demoralize the guerillas? Forget it. You seem to assume that they are Saddam followers, like the US military and the Bush admin want us to believe.
Trust me, most are either al-Qaeda (literally or by ideology) or independent nationalists. The suicide bombers are all al-Qaeda.
If anything, the violence is going to get worse. It's actually a lucky thing Saddam got caught well before the US predidential elections, so there is time for the electorate to see that this won't change a thing and won't save Bush's ass.

Re:who cares?

[Darby]

According to reports, the attack had been planned for years. Al Qaida (however they're spelling it this week) hates America for supporting Israel - and Clinton did as much of that as anyone.

Certainly, but would there have been such a drastic failure in counter terrorism if Bush hadn't been elected?
Be sure to address the fact that Bush fought tooth and nail to prevent any investigation. Also, when it was forced down his throat by a lawsuit brought by the family of the victims he tried to appoint Henry Kissinger to head it.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, people keep talking about "U.S. citizens dying from FOREIGN terrorism on U.S. soil."

It never happened before GWB...
It hasn't happened since 9/11...

Terrorists from Mexico, Texas, Indian nations, and the Confederacy snuck across the border, did really unpleasant stuff to men women and children, and burned down their villages. Even Canada and the U.K. did similar stuff, remember "46'40" or fight" and the War of 1812.

A balloon firebomb launched from Japan kills Elsie Mitchell, a teacher and five children on a picnic in Lakeview, OR on 05May45.
http://www.humanitas-international.org/s howcase/ch ronography/timebase/1945tbse.htm

And a lot of refugees in Miami have been killed by Cuban Intel throughout the years.

The Beltway Sniper was a Jamaican Muslim.

The 04Jul02 LAX El Al counter shooter was an Egyptian.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/07/05/la.air port.shooti ng/

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

>I shudder to think where we'd be today if Gore had won in 2000.
You'd be sending spare parts to his nonexistant WMD so that they don't accidently get launched from lack of maintanance.

Re:who cares?

[love2hateMS]

Evidence? They have TRUCKLOADS of documents detaling his weapons research programs. Just because they haven't found a swimming pool of chemicals doesn't mean Saddam didn't have weapons or weapons programs. He could make biological weapons in a one room condo-- and produce enough to kill thousands. Hussein showed no compunction about killing the thousands he killed. Do you think he wouldn't gladly give biological weapons to a terrorist group that promised to use it on the western world? You're NUTS.

My god. They have found so many documents detailing his weapons programs they say it will take at least a year to go through them!

Your position is indefensible, as is your understanding of the incredible threat posed by Saddam Hussein and the other terrorist nations.

Re:who cares?

[Darby]

Sure we have our fair share of short comings, but to argue that Saddam should have been allowed to rule is insane. How would you feel if he was in power in your country?

Well, if Bush had made that argument you would have a point.
Since he chose to lie about "WMDs" and "imminent threats" as justification instead, you don't

Whether or not it ends up being a good thing is irrelevant to the fact that the US president lied to start a war.
No free people can respect the citizens of a so called country who would allow such an atrocity.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

>YOU CANNOT UNILATERALLY ATTACK FOREIGN NATIONS, [yada yada yada]
All attacks have to mulilateral?

Re:who cares?

[mskfisher]

Here's a followup link to that photo:

http://oxblog.blogspot.com/2003_04_06_oxblog_archi ve.html#92482221

Re:who cares?

[nyseal]

I, for one, will vote to re-elect Bush. He's been the only prez so far with a pair of truly big balls.

Re:who cares?

[nyseal]

Sure we can.

Re:who cares?

[qui_tollis]

Terrorosts from Indian nations??? You have some fucked up idea of history. Talking of U.S. citizens having suffered terrorism at the hands of Indian nations is as sensible as listing terrorist acts performed by Jews in Germany before WWII. Another analogy would be terrorist acts by the French resistance against the occupiers. Have you noticed that there aren't many native americans these days, any idea why?

Go away and read Bury my heart at wounded knee, or in fact, stop watching CNN and just read any book.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the 'staging' being referred to by the GP was not of the actual capture of Saddam, but rather of the Iraqi reaction to it.

Re:who cares?

[the_2nd_coming]

perhaps the leaked photos from a different angle were fake? or taken at such an angle that they made it seem that there were very few people there.

why would you accept out of hand photos just because they contradict something?

skepticism goes both way,

Re:who cares?

[renehollan]

No US citizens have died from foreign terrorism on U.S. soil EVER... until GWB

I beg to differ.

Six Americans died in the U.S.A. during WWII when a Japanese balloon laden with explosives exploded when the unfortunate people found it -- Japan had been sending such balloons for a while, with the intent that their contents explode above or on top of American locations. With the exception of this one, they had no successes and abandoned the program.

Now, you could argue that this was not terrorism since Japan had formally declared war on the U.S.A., but the balloons, hitting random targets, were intended to frighten and demoralize the American citizenry, and show how far reaching Japan's offensive could get. I'd call that state-supported terrorism.

Frankly the term terrorism is rather silly: all war is terrifying and demoralizing the enemy via fear and uncertainty is a common tactic. The only difference between war and terrorism is that the former is initiated by a recognized state and the latter isn't. With state supported terrorism, even that line is becoming blured.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

How come this was never published? Several thousand US weapons inspectors wearing their soals out in Iraq these past months would love to know :-)

Re:who cares?

[nyseal]

yup

Re:who cares?

[Guppy06]

"With Saddam Hussain being put on display in a humiliative fashion - him playing the role of a broken man whose two sons have been killed by the very forces that now have control of his life - this might anger those who lead these assaults even more."

While I believe this will have no effect on those who are more anti-American than pro-Sadam, I can't see how this won't weaken the pro-Sadam folks. You're being a little too Western in your thinking here.

As I see it, there are two kinds of Sadam supporters:

• Sunis who miss being in power These people aren't quite so commited to the man as they are to themselves, and for them Sadam represented their last big hope for coming back to power again if they can just wait out the occupation until the coalition gives up and goes home. Now, short of another big Suni name coming to prominence, there's not much hope for them, and at this time the coalition forces may be their best friends considering how the Sunis are in a minority in a country full of people that hated the Baathist regime...
• Sadam fanatics You would think that these people would be the ones to fly to the aid of a poor, disheveled old Sadam, but I think you're missing why they're fanatics to begin with. They weren't followers of Sadam the man, but more Sadam the image. They followed the commands of the fearless, invincible leader who had shown he was able to stand up to the evil Americans, defiantly laughing in the face of danger. In other words, these are people who believed that what our favorite Minister of Information was saying to be true. The fact that Sadam was captured without a fight is going to be a serious bit of disillusionment for themse fanatics. Unless they are able to convince themselves that this isn't the real Sadam, in their eyes it would have been better if he had gone down with guns blazing like his sons.

Yes, there is still the problem of foreign terrorists coming from outside the country to do their thing, but even these people will be hampered because they still relied on the underground infrastructure set up by the two groups of domestic insurgents. It will be harder to find a friendly populace to help them (especially if terrorist attacks in Iraq continue to kill more Iraqis than colition forces) and they will then be more likely to stand out.

Re:who cares?

[antiMStroll]

Would Americans stop fighting an invasion if Bush was captured? Why believe Iraqis are any different?

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only those who inhabit the bodies of those 18 and over. A surprising number.

Re:who cares?

[Wavicle]

SQ1.gif Shows people in the square beneath the (intact) statue of Saddam, but no tanks in the center itself. You cannot draw many inferences from this. Those could be plants and journalists. Could be Iraqi Saddam-haters. You just don't know.

SQ2.gif Shows a tank and several people in the square beneath the pedestal where the saddam statue once stood. The statue is no longer there. SQ2 was taken well after SQ1 as you can see from the amount of sunshine falling onto nearby buildings (like the mosque-looking building next to the square). In SQ1 there is no direct sunshine on any building. Tanks and humvees are visible surrounding the square..

SQ3.gif backs up in time to after the tank had arrived, but before anybody managed to climb to the top of the statue's pedestal. The resolution is too bad to tell who is a journalist, who is an Iraqi wanting to topple the statue, and who is just someone out to see the spectacle. Certainly some of the people seem to be standing as if they were journalists (honestly I can only find one who I am fairly certain is a photojournalist).

SQ4.gif shows a closeup of the statue with an American flag draped over Saddam's head and some Iraqi bystanders on the sidewalk across the street from the square.

I don't think these pictures tell a story different from what was broadcast around the world. I don't agree with information clearing house's interpretation of the facts. I see a group of Iraqi's who want to vandalize a statue which symbolized their oppression. The only possible media spin is crowd size. From these pictures the crowd looks to be in the 100-200 range. I think most people looking at the pictures would arrive at that number which is why the "they are clearly mostly journalists" argument comes up -- to downplay how many Iraqis might be there. However these pictures do not support that argument, the quality is simply inadequate to make such an inference.

I need better evidence to convince me that this was a staged scene.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to 1984.

Or didn't they have an ongoing war that would never end? Because I seriously doubt that ANYONE can eradicate terrorism in the world, without destroying the freedom that makes democratic nations so great (in theory, anyway).

Re:who cares?

[anthony_dipierro]

I think this definately helps us get out of Iraq sooner. To leave while Saddam was still alive would have been extremely dangerous. We're still not at the point where we can leave, but we're one big step closer.

Re:who cares?

[HBI]

No US citizens have died from foreign terrorism on U.S. soil EVER... until GWB.

You are wrong.

Only utter lack of diligence of study, or gross bias can explain your omission. I suspect the latter.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, didn't just a FEW people die the FIRST time the WTC was bombed, or did you forget about that?

*ahem*

Re:who cares?

[Trent05]

You make good points, though I do not agree with you 100%.

Afghanistan is a tough one. The US is basically supporting their government, though I don't see a lot of support from elsewhere. I don't see other countries/corporations making huge investments to what I've seen is a land-locked country with very few natural resources. If US did leave, fears that the country would return to what it was would be very justified. I'm not sure what policy would be best for the long term in Afgahnistan, but I do believe what we are doing is pretty decent, all things considered. Hell, we should've helped them out 14 years ago.

Re:who cares?

[RickHunter]

The coalition didn't find them wearing anything. In fact, they didn't find them at all. The bodies mysteriously disappeared, and there's some doubt (including an account by a combat commander who was at the scene) that there were 40+ attackers period. By his account, it was more likely to be 12-18 snipers sitting in alleyways and on rooftops. The other reported dead/wounded were from when paniced American armor commanders opened fire on civillian structures and crowds.

In-battle casualty counts are always inaccurate. And since that's all there IS in this case...

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

he was a cheerleader you know

Re:who cares?

[r84x]

Wow, you're right, who cares about a few people, I mean, I'm sure they didn't have families or anything either. You know, I think you're right. From now on, people should only be convicted of murder if they kill more than 10 people. Everyone else didn't really do much, right? They only killed a few, which doesn't matter.

So go ahead and hide behind your AC, you insensitive moron.

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

How come this was never published?

It was, in the '92/'93 U.N. weapons inspectors reports. You know, the ones where it discussed Iraq having thousands of liters of anthrax solution. The same reports Tony Blair discussed in Britain before the war.

The left (much as I hate that term, and as much to the 'left' as I am in certain respects) is in serious denial about this issue, and that denial is going to cost them dearly over the next few years.

Re:who cares?

[nyseal]

No, thank you! Now I'll vote for GWB BECAUSE I'm a hateful moron! It's alway amazing to me how people can generalize when it suits them most. Now I have proof.

Re:who cares?

[Loadmaster]

The truth is this. The Iraqis were trying to pull down the statue and they asked the US servicemen to help. The person who told my crew this (six people so it wasn't a publicity stunt) is very trustworthy. I won't even go into the videos of interrogation techniques used by the regime.

Re:who cares?

[nyseal]

A guy with a gun surprised that a 12 year old can vote? Shit, isn't that a law wherever it is you come from?

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

Oh "prisonernumber7", where are you? I was really looking forward to your reply... :-)

Perhaps some sane moderators could re-evaluate the parent post's status as "-1 Flamebait", while the grandparent is rated "+5 Insightful"...?

TIA! =)

Re:who cares?

[goodviking]

And moreover, the questions begs to be asked: where the hell is Osama? The man needs a DIALYSIS MACHINE!

Dunno, ask these guys.

Re:who cares?

[WolfFang]

It is easy to have big balls when surrounded by people who will tell you the rosy side of the story without having to read the real news. It is easy when you can send the children of America to fight, but never attend their funarals when they die. Bush is nothing more than a chicken hawk, had he truly big balls he wouldn't have gone awol from the cushy national guard position for a whole year. It is easy for him to stuff his pants with brass balls now, since his real ones have long since been removed by his own actions.

Re:who cares?

[dankdirk77]

(3) Demonstrate? Are you crazy? The only people who would demonstrate are spoiled guilty white kids in America. Who would demonstrate in Iraq? I think you're a secret Dennis Kucinich fan...

Just remember when Truman (a democrat) became the only person in human history to order the nuclear incineration of a nation? Now dance demonstrator boy, DANCE YOUR MERRY STREET SLUR.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

A different US? Pray tell, who's going to change the US? I assure you, the Imperialists will win the next election, and the next election, and the next election. Just as Bill Clinton was an imperialist, so is George Bush, and so is Wesley Clark. Maybe you'll feel better the way that Clark plays the Imperialist card, but eventually, we'll all be in one big perpetually-happy Chinese-style Brave New World.

Why is the US government imperialist? Because its companies need the money, and that money is tax money for the government. And if Uncle Sam wins the war on terror, Uncle Sam will win the war on political dissent.

Believe me, I think the first thing the Democrats will do is use their expanded Patriot Act power to persecute gun owners. And you'll hear all kinds of 'clamoring' in right-leaning papers complaining about the very law that they're defending now. At least that will make pro-gun-control European governments 'happy'. I guess you like Democratic soma better than Republican soma.

Remember, Bill Clinton did the same thing to Yugoslavia, that George Bush is doing to Iraq. The only difference, is that on one hand, Europe agreed with the US, and on the other, they didn't. It didn't change the result.

If you want the US to change, you have to change it yourself. France and Germany may look like they 'tried' to prevent war with Iraq, but in the end, they didn't really do ANYTHING besides 'talk'.

In the US, Voting is the opiate of the masses. At least the illusion of change can provide Americans with some sense that they are making a difference.

I'm not defending Saddam Hussein, and maybe when the US government conquers the world, things will be better; but absolute power corrupts absolutely, so don't count on it.

Obviously Americans have too much at stake to change anything about their government. And clearly, the Europeans governments get their power as much from the US as anywhere else. So no legitimate 'government' has any vested interest in preventing the US from conquering the world.

I think the game of Risk usually ends when the other players lose interest.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I need better evidence to convince me that this was a staged scene."

I spent all day doing nothing else than watch this LIVE on TV. The only possible staged aspect was possibly some of the Iraqis MIGHT have been American-Iraqis; but thats simply assurtion without evidence. Oh, also showing anti-Saddam Iraqis MORE than pro-Saddam Iraqis. But it was clearly not "stage-managed". Those Iraqis spend HOURS trying to topple not only that statue but MANY statues, Further, the face of Saddam was shot at, spit at, disfigured, etc by PASSERBYS everywhere in Iraq! His image is EVERYWHERE in Iraq. And those images where immedialy disfigured everywhere. Those were ALL fake? NO WAY.

Re:who cares?

[jd_esguerra]

The 'capture' of sadam will mean no difference to the state iraq and the rest of the world is in.

Squeeze him for intelligence info. Of all the people in the world, he is the most qualified to say whether or not there are WMD in Iraq. His word has more credibility than most of the people posting here today....

Re:who cares?

[jd_esguerra]

We are sincerely hoping that you will vote their asses out of office next time and elect somebody with a finer understanding of the world into what's easily the world's most important political function.

Will do! I have no issues with GW Bush as a man-- I don't know him well enough. But I woudn't mind trying out new leadership over here. If only we would elect a scientist or engineer into office...

Re:who cares?

[the_2nd_coming]

yeah, that is what I heard how it went down. Fox news reported that on the day it happened.

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

Wow, a comment that was completely, factually incorrect scores +5 Insightful (along with some Interesting and Informative ratings).

Sad, really...

(And some people around here think Fox News is biased... :P)

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Calm your capitals.

If it was not stage-managed, then why the ring of tanks? Why the road-blocks? Why were so many of the media in attendence?

Maybe the event represented genuine feelings, and maybe others were less stage-managed, but the statue-toppling show shown by the networks was clearly in no way spontaneous.

And most of the media certainly mis-reported the number of people involved.

Re:who cares?

[Alsee]

Talk about propaganda and lying with photographs!

First photo: top right street is deserted of civilian vehicals and the statue is standing. Second photo: top right street is completely obstructed due to accumulated civilian vehicles and the statue is down. The first photo was taken very early, long before the statue came down. People had first gotten the news and had first started to gather.

Third photo: There are about 100 people in the close up swarmed BEHIND the vehicle that pulled down the statue. Second photo: Note that there is essentailly nobody standing behind that vehicle. The second photo was taken much later, after people started dispersing.

First photo / second photo : I can only identify a SINGLE military vehical stationary between - the tank at the bottom right. For the first photo someone grabbed a snapshot of when a CONVOY happened to drive past well before hand to paint an illusion! Yes, there were military vehicles stationed that circle. The circle was a central choke point, the city was still a WAR-ZONE, and of course there the military was keeping an eye on ANY crowd of people. Even if we assume every vehicle in the second photo is parked on-station, it strikes me as a very reasonable military presence under the circumstances. The first photo is pure trickery.

Now look at the sidewalk across the street behind the statue, the only thing visible in all 4 photos. The first wide view photo supposedly proving "the truth" shows a deserted sidewalk. The second wide view photo supposedly proving "the truth" shows a deserted side walk. The third photo mid-zoom photo shows a mob around the statue plus may a dozen people on a wide stretch of sidewalk. The fourth very close-up photo during the peak of events shows at least a dozen people on a tiny stretch of sidewalk. If that narrow angle is representitive of 360 degrees then I figure it represents maybe a two-hundred person increase in the time between the third and fourth pictures alone.

The close up photos are there so the viewer will mentally link all four photos as being during the event. Not only were the photos are presented out-of order, but the two wide angle photos were actually taken several hours apart.

If they want to claim the media overstated the situation the how about they try presenting a wide-angle photo from when they were actually pulling down the statue! Instead they are being intentionally deceptive!

-

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

A good portion of the balloons (about one-third I believe) actually did make it to the USA. I think the original intention of them was to start forest fires in the American NorthWest, causing havoc for the domestic population. The fires didn't really cause much of a problem and the government kept information about the balloons out of the newspapers so that the Japanese would not learn how effective the balloons were or how many actually reached the U.S. mainland.

The Japanese did have a biological weapons program. So, if they were so inclined, they could have attached canisters carrying fleas infected with anthrax or the bubonic plague. We're lucky that didn't happen.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. 9/11 wouldn't have happened, as Gore didn't need to divert attention from the election fiasco, thus he allowed the CIA to prevent the attacks.
2. After capturing the terrorists, US intelligence would have gained insight as to who truly planned them--since the terrorists wouldn't be dead.
3. No war in Iraq, as after the inspectors find there are weapons, Gore believes them.

Yes. This is a troll.

Re:who cares?

[FurryFeet]

The U.S. cann't attack any nation.... blah blah blah.... Well pal we did, and the world is now a much safer place for it.

You know, my country was never afraid if Iraq. We're halfway across the world, plus have no beef with them. I think pretty much the rest of the world --including the US-- could have said that.
Now, I feel that the US can and will invade my country, kill my elected leaders and "liberate" us from our own uses and traditions. Why? Hell, because they can.
No, pal, the world was a lot safer with Saddam than it is with Bush.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if the U.S. invasion of Iraq is illegal, then Saddam is the legal ruler of Iraq. To make things right would require restoring Saddam to power in Iraq.

Huh, I wonder why the left has a reputation for supporting Saddam?

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Kay report from a few weeks ago talks about plenty of evidense that Iraq was violating the sanctions. From long-range drone programs, to trying to buy illegal missiles from North Korea, Saddam was violating the U.N. resolutions, no question about it.

Re:who cares?

[geekee]

Saddam loyalists will be much less likely to fight without the hope that he will return to power, and they will get back their priveleges.

Re:who cares?

[bm_luethke]

And should you still be able to find the *live* feeds you can find the nearly identical camera angle (they were taken from the same building that reporters were staying at, just different rooms).

You can clearly see MANY more people (both a group around the vehicle nearly 4 times larger *and* people ringing the square *and* people walking up and down the side streets *and* no cars as of yet stopped) along with the sun at a completely different angle (as in definate long shadows). Immediatly after the statue was torn down most dispersed with different parts of it (remember the video of people riding the head around town while it was being dragged for example?).

Plus Chalabi being there is irrelevent. Given his placement there there is no reason to think he wouldn't know that the troops would be there around then and would want to participate in tearing the statue down (I know I would were I in his shoes).

That picture was easily debunked when it first came out and the continual quoting of it is no better than the complaints you probably have against many pro-war people accepting information simply because it fits thier political idealology.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

You think Hussein could walk free on a Geneva Convention technicality?

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah the separatists only bomb major tourist sites every summer.

Good luck.

Re:who cares?

[Kelz]

It's not some disbanded Ba'ath party members that suicide bombing the country side, but it's crazed militants from around the middle east.
Where's Osama?!

Maybe he went to Iraq to fight the infidels?

Re:who cares?

[msim]

Exactly.

Im Australian, dont forget our troops. Do you remember our PM? The little balding spectacle wearing dude with a pair of eyebrows with lives of their very own *twitch*. Do you even remember him going to the US and being given praise by Bush? no i didnt think so.

America & their war on terror, George has his head stuck far up his own back passage. This was all about oil^H^H^HWMD's. The fact alone that Saddam was a dictator and was horribly cruel to his own people and deserved to be ousted was a side benefit for the people that he made suffer.

Oh yeah, the world is *SO* much a safer place now.
Can anyone goddamnwell say "Bali"?

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

Thank you for your post. :-)

"It took 11 hours to evacuate some 50,000 people from the complex."

It should be pointed out that (thank goodness!) the terrorists were quite incompetent in their 9/11 attack. It could easily have been 30,000+ dead in rather than less than 3,000.

The two factors were not setting the time until more people were at work, and not crashing into the base of the towers, which would have trapped everyone, and brought the towers down faster due to greater stresses.

Go USA!!!!!

Re:who cares?

[eugene ts wong]

Thanks. I appreciate that a lot.

Re:who cares?

[h4x0r-3l337]

In a perfect world, they would thus turn against that leadership In a perfect world, there would have been no NEED to go to war, ever.

Re:who cares?

[gnuLNX]

Interesting. Only governments that look at the US government as dictators are those that are themselves un-willing to trust their own people with simple freedom. I would say most governments at least tolerate us with the amount of aid and money that we supply to quite a large potrion of the world. Besides if we were so bad don't you think that we would just take Iraq? I mean Geez we could have a strangle hold on a large portion of the oil in the world, and at the same time set up fronts in another part of the world from which we could begin staging further invasions....Oh wait we don't do that now do we....no see we actually take a country like Japan and over the course of many years help them to rebuild and become an economic super power....ok so I am making it black and white, but so are you.

And I am sorry buyt to compare the US goverment, with ALL of it's short comings (there are many) to a government like Irag....come on now show some since. Have opinions, but don't be blind. don't make up false arguments to simply probe a point.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The world is a safer place? How? How did Saddam make the world less safe?

Re:who cares?

[Kohath]

So the Saddam statue is still up then?

Re:who cares?

[keith_nt4]

I might also point out Embassies are considered sovereign U.S. territory. As found here U.S. Embassies were bombed in Kenya and Tanzania August 7, 1998. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was the parent not rated +Insightful, Slashdrones..? Wake up!

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, slashdot is "run" by American teens, so what can you expect? Teenage idolation of phallistic guns and adulation of military that can do no wrong since their boyhood cartoons and Rambos were the definitive truth and history - really all they know about it, or at best what was repeated on FOX.

It only serves to prove the sad state of the americans and their education. - It serves the government to keep their citizens dumb.

We believe we are right, therefore we must be.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's moot point, NOT mute point! GRrrrrrrrrr.r.r.rrr.....

Re:who cares?

[commodoresloat]

Chalabi is not in the photo. A member of his militia is, and it is notable because he was known to be in Najaf the day before. It certainly raises questions.

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

Well, slashdot is "run" by American teens, so what can you expect? Teenage idolation of phallistic guns and adulation of military that can do no wrong since their boyhood cartoons and Rambos were the definitive truth and history - really all they know about it, or at best what was repeated on FOX.

Hi AC, busy again I see... ;-)

What I was complaining about was some serious minus ratings based on the opposite attitudes (right or wrong ;) from what you describe above.

So, sleep well knowing that many Slashdottites(?) are falling right in line with your views, regardless of how ridiculous they are. =)

Merry Christmas!

Re:who cares?

[zeroprime]

sadly, thats the mentality of the adults
I blame the schools

Re:who cares?

[gamgee5273]

You know, perhaps when we speak of spite, you should be keeping an eye on your nose...

Don't allow another person to dictate, either through orders or actions, how you choose to vote next year.

Your vote should reflect your thoughts, not because you got pissed off at another person on /., right?

Re:who cares?

[FatherOfONe]

Has your leader killed over 40,000 of your own people with nerve gas? Has your leader sponsored terrorism with large amounts of money, and weapons? If so then you are correct to worry about the U.S. attacking your government.

Re:who cares?

[mark2003]

I'm assuming your are American, in which case your government and your countrymen HAVE sponsored international terrorism with large amounts of money and weapons.

Admitedly your country hasn't killed 40,000 of it's own people with nerve gas, but it has killed 10s of thousands of Vietnamese.

Re:who cares?

[the_real_tigga]

>>The international press (for example the press in my country, Austria)
>Before I go any further, I just want to compliment you on your country's Glock pistols...great stuff! :-)

Yeah, well we make other great stuff too.

The cannon in the former link was point of great controversy here in the early 90s because Austrians sold those to Iraq AND Iran during the First Gulf (Iran-Iraq) War. You know, because we are a Neutral country.
Trust an Austrian when he calls something hypocrisy. We know that in and out.

>(Just out of curiousity, are you allowed to own >them?)
It's the standard sidearm for our police.

It is rather hard to get a weapon license (which allows you to OWN a firearm, and transport it to the gun range or hunting grounds), and almost impossible to get a "weapon carrying permission" which allows you to carry it on your body.

If you have one of those permissions, it's no problem to have a Glock though.

Re:who cares?

[mark2003]

OK - so your argument is based on the premise that because we haven't found the WMDs that is no reason to suppose that they don't exist, therefore they do exist?

I hope you are not a techy - I can just imagine your conditional statements...

Is there any way that anyone could prove to you that the WMDs do not exist?

Re:who cares?

[mark2003]

Of course dropping big f*cking nuclear "balloons" on Japan were intended to frighten and demoralize the Japanese citizenry, and show how far reaching America's offensive could get. I'd call that state-supported terrorism.

Can anyone tell me the diference here? It seems to everyone outside the US that an attack on the US, it's interests or soldiers is terrorism but any attack by the US on anyone else is a "legal" war.

Re:who cares?

[Bitsy Boffin]

Kennedy was mere days away from beginning a rapid pull out from Vietnam, and if he hadn't been assasinated the cold war would have come to an end much sooner as well. More or less as soon as Kennedy was dead the papers were signed to not only stop the intended pull out, but send more troops in, to Vietnam.

He drove your people to space travel, and indeed reach the Moon (although sadly he didn't see that) which united the world in awe.

Kennedy died because it was not good business for the warmongers to have him in power, and there was no other way to remove him.

I'm not saying Kennedy was a great, or good man, only that had he not been cut down that the world would likely be a very different place. It would be hard to do worse than we are now.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The situation down there is not a beautiful one; the rest of the world blames the many problems on the Bush administration. We are sincerely hoping that you will vote their asses out of office next time and elect somebody with a finer understanding of the world into what's easily the world's most important political function. The rest of the world needs a different US. You might not care, tho - but I for one hope you do.

I'm really hoping after the next election the US gets out of the middle east, and out of europe, and out of africa and channels their money into fixing their own country. I hope the next time one of your eurotrash garbage old europe countries gets itself in trouble with a dictator, some type of plague, or whatever we (the US) let your ungrateful worthless liberal pansy asses die.

Re:who cares?

[BiteMeFanboy]

... and ironic that it was about six feet deep.

Re:who cares?

[JavaLord]

One could wonder, would there have been an 9/11 if the Bush administration ware not elected?

of course it wouldn't have. Osama just hated GWB. He didn't hate the 40-50 years of the US protecting and supporting Isreal...He just had a beef with GWB. Osama wouldn't have done that had gore become president. As a matter of fact, I think osama may run as Dean's vice president. He really loves America and Isreal, he just hates GWB.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah and you sand niggers keep it up we'll probally nuke a few more of you camel fuckers.

Re:who cares?

[tbannist]

Who would be. You trade power and fresh water under a dictator who doesn't often bother you for no power and no water with occasionally contained anarchy.

There's a reason why the Chinese curse is:
"May you live in interesting times"

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, power and water, and being shot in the head for saying the wrong thing. Yup, that's a lot better.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why tanks, why road blocks, why reporters? Could it be because there was a war going on? You see, we have these things called tanks, we use them in wars, reporters were with each group of the military. Just because you don't want Bush to get any positive press, which he gets indirectly when things go right in Iraq, doesn't mean it wasn't real.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

What country are you from? In the US (else where probably) we have a saying involving a glass house and stones. The parent is from Austria, didn't they help the Germans? Wasn't Austria part of the SS? If so, then fuck you.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

So? The more dead vietnamese the better.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I clicked reply before I saw the last line :). I would like to add something though, the terrorists started planning in 1996, that is 4 years of Clinton's blow jobs. The terrorists didn't attack us because of Bush or even Clinton's blowjobs, they hate us and nothing can stop hate. Also, if we showed that we were weak by not attacking afghanistan, then we would be attacked again and again. I didn't vote for Bush, but I'm damn happy he won or it would be a different place. When he was at ground zero and the worker said "we can't hear you" and he said "but I can hear you, and soon the people that knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us" I got a chill went up my spine (in a good way). It was the first time in my 30 years that the government did something I wanted them to do. Also, I'd like each person to post their age in the posts so that we can see how most people complaining were 10 years old in 1991.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hawaii is US soil, there were 2000+ Americans killed there. Then again Bush was president back in the 40's so I guess you are right, you asshat.

Re:who cares?

[FurryFeet]

As long as China has "Preferred Partner" status, I'd just shut up. Nobody believes your "we were liberating iraquis" crap.

Re: who cares?

[Black Parrot]

> With him captured, you can expect to see the vast majority of the domestic Iraqi resistance disappear.

I doubt it. We thought killing his sons would make a difference, and things actually got worse. The pyramidal organization of the Ba'ath party has surely been decimated, but that just makes space for others to move up. And the nature of the guerilla attacks in Iraq (not the suicide bombings) suggests that Ba'ath or some other anti-US organization has been repairing itself. I think after a temporary blip we won't see any difference at all.

For that matter, things might get worse if his capture allows would-be guerillas to feel like they're fighting for Iraq rather than some hated dictator.

Re: who cares?

[Black Parrot]

> And before you start bitching about WW2: The US got involved because Mister Fuhrer sunk a few US ships too many.

Actually, we got involved because we (rightly) disapproved of what the Japanese were doing in China, and imposed an embargo that made it impossible for them to continue that war. By doing so we left them the options of (a) a humiliating withdrawal from China, (b) starving, or (c) grabbing the resources by force. And given even the most rudimentary knowlege about the warlords who were running Japan at the time, anyone with a clue should have seen (c) as the inevitable result of the embargo.

I'm not saying the embargo was wrong, but it should have been (and almost certainly was) undertaken with the certain knowledge that war would be the unavoidable result.

The Japanese tried to disable the US fleet at Pearl Harbor because they calculated (probably correctly) that the US would intervene with military force once they went on their rampage in southeast Asia to acquire the resource base they needed to avoid options (a) and (b).

Re:who cares?

[Glock27]

It is rather hard to get a weapon license (which allows you to OWN a firearm, and transport it to the gun range or hunting grounds), and almost impossible to get a "weapon carrying permission" which allows you to carry it on your body.

If you have one of those permissions, it's no problem to have a Glock though.

Thanks for the reply! Sorry it took me so long to respond, it's been a busy couple of days. I hope you notice this response... :-)

BTW, the situation here is that you can own any pistol, rifle or shotgun (unless it is an all-so-evil "assault weapon", then it has to be of pre-1994 manufacture;) after taking a short safety test at the store, and signing a statement saying you're not insane, a felon, a drug addict etc.

In my state the rule for getting a "carry permit" is "shall issue" meaning that unless there is a strong reason not to issue the permit, they will do it. Many states aren't that way, and it's much harder to get a carry permit.

Re:who cares?

[FatherOfONe]

It is hard to argue with your point. But the two points don't have to be related. The U.S. can make a mistake with China and still do what is right with Iraq.

Good point though, and I hope that our administration wakes up and does something about China. Well to be honest I hope China wakes up and does something about China. Most of the people I have met from China seem intelligent, so I would imagine it shouldn't be too long before they come around.

Re:who cares?

[FatherOfONe]

If it was about oil then why aren't the spoils of war going to the victors? America could VERY easily take most of the oil. But instead America is bending over backwards to help Iraq. Heck $40+ BILLION in help. That would buy a heck of a lot of oil.

Re:who cares?

[FurryFeet]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree, and here is why: I think the US are doing the right thing in China, and the mistake in Iraq.
Countries have a right to self-determination. That means, each country can choose its form of government, religion, uses. No other country can come and force its beliefs upon them.
Remember the Soviet Union "liberating" East Germany, Poland and many other countries. No dounbt, they thought they were right; we know better. What makes you so sure the US is right?
Hussein may have been a bad leader, and I personally think he was a lousy and evil one. But it was his people's job to overthrow him, if they wanted to. The US has absolutely no right to decide on behalf of a foreign people.
In other words, I think --along with most of the civilized world-- that George Bush is a petty, potential tyrant with a penchant for world domination, and I sincerely think he should be overthrown. How would you americans feel if the rest of the world invaded your country to "libarate" you?

Re:who cares?

[tbannist]

Versus no power and water and being shot in the head for no particular reason. It's still a step backwards until the situation is stabilized.

Re:who cares?

[js7a]

With him captured, you can expect to see the vast majority of the domestic Iraqi resistance disappear.

So much for that idea.

Apparently you don't have to be dead to be a martyr these days, if the CIA is willing to hummiliate you on TV. Oops.

Re:who cares?

[renehollan]

This is getting off topic... the original claim was that no terrorist acts ever succeeded on American soil prior to 9/11/2001. But your observation deserves a response.

Of course, the U.S. action of nuking Japan can be considered terrorism... I suppose all war can be considered terrorism and vice versa, with the differences between the two terms largly legal and semantic. If you want greater evidence against the U.S. as "bad guy", just think of the carpet bombing of Germany. No argument.

But, getting back to the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... these were industrial towns, and fair game in a declared war. Same goes for the carpet bombing of Germany, though both could be argued to be excesses.

Still, there is a difference between an air raid siren preceeding the arrival of enemy bombers over a military town from a nation that has declared war, and the surprise of an unexpected attack, that indescriminately targets civilian, industrial, or military targets alike. The latter qualifies as terrorism in my book. It is not "fair play" as far as war goes.

The distinction between a "legal" war and a terrorist act, by that standard is murky indeed, and I would not debate whether the U.S. has played the part of terrorist. However, the victor gets to write the history books, and I find the U.S. record in the regard is no worse than any other nation with which they have had conflicts.

While I would prefer that the U.S. exit Iraq as expeditiously as possible, and Saddam Hussein and henchmen be tried as fairly as possible in an Iraqui milleu, it would be naive to think that the U.S. will not try to retain as much of a regional presence as it can get away with. Any other occupier would act similarly. But, even if the U.S. remains indefinately, I can not see this any worse than the previous regime, and certainly better for Americans (as long as they can stomach the stream of body bags).

Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally got the guy that attacked the world trade cen... oh, wrong guy?

Well... so he had weapons of mass dest... no?

Re:Not bad.

[shaka999]

No, just the guy who had hundreds of thousands of people tortured and gased.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he had no ties to 9/11 or we still can't find his nuclear/biological/chemical weapons, but he still did this.

Re:Not bad.

[imr]

i find your comment rather more interresting than funny since you had to shelter under the ac to tell 2 true and important facts.

Re:Not bad.

[WIAKywbfatw]

Well, I'm glad that Saddam Hussein is no longer at large, but am I the only one who's a little bit disappointed that, in a news conference in which Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez (the US commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq), talked about "closure", there was no mention of weapons of mass destruction?

Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about? Or has that all been forgotten?

Re:Not bad.

[kir]

What do you mean he "had to shelter under the ac"? WTF is that supposed to mean? He would be beat for speaking his mind (even though his "points" are... well... pointless)?

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Adolf Hitler was captured?
Now that's great news!

I always knew that he was hiding in some tax paradise together with Elvis!

Re:Not bad.

[NeuroManson]

We went in because he was involved in 9/11- Whoops, nevermind.

We went in because he has weapons of mass- Damn. Nevermind.

We went in because he's really bad, okay? Just wave your plastic American flag, citizen, go back to bed. All is well. The monitors are your friends.

Re:Not bad.

[madprof]

Great - let's go and invade China then. They've been imprisoning, torturing, killing and generally oppressing their population for decades.
Do you remember the troops turning on protestors in Tiananmen Square?

Or is it that Iraq is strategically useful and that even pressing China about human rights seems to cause problems with selling them goods and services?

Re:Not bad.

[tomstdenis]

Yeah heaven forbid that the US govt lied to the world about WMD so they could invade a foreign land, get cheap gas, pump up the military, look good for the cameras and get a re-elect.

It seems the "goals" have quickly changed and all news is turning into "right, that's what we wanted todo in the first place!".

Recall that Bush was the one whining at hour long press conferences about how the world is so unsafe with his WMDs at large....

Tom

Re:Not bad.

[NixterAg]

"I am not trying to say that [the Americans] are angels! They have their interests; they came to Iraq for that reason, not to free the Iraqis. But the fruit is, in fact, liberation." - Chaldean Bishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk, speaking to an Italian journalist.

Read it for yourself.

The most important issue here is that the Iraqi people are free and their future just got brighter. It is unfortunate that the first reaction by so many wasn't to be happy for the Iraqi people but to, instead, spin this against Bush.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

the WMD was only part of the reason we went there, it was proven that ties did existed between saddam and several terrorist fractions. As for the WMDs, they could be bared in the middle of the desert far enough down so that our sat cant locate them.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

hundreds of thousands

Just where did you take that numbers from?

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this funny? Am I the only one that remember that iraq sought to develop nuclear weapons and could fire chemical weapons in just 45 minutes?

Only that wasn't true at all - and those in power knew.

I am happy Saddam is gone, but it is the happy circumstance of a lie that people have forgotten or choose not to remember.

Recently I re-read 1984. The regime in Orwell's book made it a point to rewrite history. If nothing else in the book came to pass(I wish!) abuse of history did.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

you are a tool of the devil

Re:Not bad.

[CaptainBaz]

Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about?

You misspelt "oil".

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it is because China is a physically huge country with a population over three times the US population. Maybe it is because China has the ability to directly attack the United States. Maybe it is because China is seen as potentially moving in the right direction - meaning more commercialization (that is the right direction in US leadership's mind at least).

If you are going to ask a question then why aren't we in North Korea. That answer is, of course, because he is even crazier than Saddam and would nuke all of the South Korea in a heartbeat. To me North Korea is the greatest threat to the World - even more then the random car bombers. Nuke is the hands of a nutcase have the potential to not just kill millions but to cause irreparable damage to the environment.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Spin what against Bush? Bush has lied about a great many things while going to war against Iraq. Hussein was an asshole, sure, but had no links - none - to 9/11, did not pose any sort of military threat to the U.S., had no WMD, no nukes, had none of the claimed biological weapons of mass destruction. Bush claimed he did and gave those claims as reasons to invade without authority from the U.N. The only spin taking place is by those who want others to forget about all those false reasons that were given for sending U.S. troops to kill and die in Iraq.

Re:Not bad.

[NixterAg]

Yeah heaven forbid that the US govt lied to the world about WMD so they could invade a foreign land, get cheap gas, pump up the military, look good for the cameras and get a re-elect.

You need to pick, I'm tired of this crap. Is Bush:
A) The mastermind of an international junta and leader of the illuminati that wants to control the world.
B) A simpleton puppet who has to wear velcro shoes.

Seriously though, you've been all over this thread dismissing today's news. Maybe you should really do some introspection. When Saddam's capture seems to be bad news for your views on the conflict in Iraq then something is very, very wrong.

Re:Not bad.

[ibeleo]

Actually, what caused this war (or at least the public version of the reason) was that we suspected Weapons of Mass Destruction and that Iraq wasn't fully cooperating fully in providing they didn't. Yeah maybe we were paranoid, but since they were not an innocent county (I remember them invading somebody? ) we have to assume the worse when there is a ruthless dictator running about.

Freeing the Iraq people was a nice bonus.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where was it proven. Anwar Al Islam was operating in Iraq; however, no proof was shown that the government and any Al Quida group have worked together.

Re:Not bad.

[kir]

Yeah heaven forbid that the US govt lied to the world about WMD so they could invade a foreign land, get cheap gas, pump up the military, look good for the cameras and get a re-elect.

And would you (or any of you fucking wackos) please remember that nearly every country's intelligence service said the same thing, INCLUDING THE FUCKING U.N. -- Saddam had a highly developed WMD program. If the U.S. government "lied", then all those other countries did too. Now... what was your point again?

Recall that Bush was the one whining at hour long press conferences about how the world is so unsafe with his WMDs at large....

Hmmm... so now they're his WMDs? Bush's? Huh?

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what caused this prosecution (or at least the public version of the reason) was that we suspected minor drug possesion and that ibeleo wasn't fully cooperating fully in providing he didn't. Yeah maybe we were paranoid, but since they he was not an innocent citizen (I remember him looking suspicious ? ) we have to assume the worse when there is a ruthless gang banger running about. And they say Americans don't have double standards.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about? Or has that all been forgotten?

Well, it could be argued that it still was about them even though none were found now. Iraq at the time of the invasion still had a WMD infrastructure that would have certainly been restarted if sanctions were lifted. You should also remember that before Bush began beating the war drums, support for sanctions against Iraq were starting to disintegrate. One the one hand you had Iraq's Security Council patrons (France, Russsia) pushing for their weakening (which would have eventually become their de facto repeal), on the other you had left-wing activists saying the sanctions regime was killing "10,000's" Iraqi children every year, and on the third hand the Arabs, now that Saddam was no longer menacing them, had started grumbling about why America was punishing its Iraqi "brothers". So in short, it can be argued that Iraq was a WMD threat- a once and future one, that is.

Re:Not bad.

[the_2nd_coming]

I don't give a shit why we went in (though it was a combination of many things)

the guy was a bastard and deserves what ever the Iraqis do to him.

I was thinking that they might condemn him to death by strining him up by his neck and stoning him as he flail there. that would be a nice comeupentce for the people there.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you remember the troops turning on protestors in Tiananmen Square?

Do you remember the troops turning on protestors at Kent State?

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

NO!!! we need China to keep Walmart, BestBuy, and Sears stocked with plenty of cheap electronics...

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

No WMD? Well we should have never listened to the Democrats on this, should we...

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
- President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
- Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S.Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
- Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John
Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the
cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
- Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and
others, December 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the
mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

! "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam
is in power."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I
believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to remember the United States recently invading a country illegally. The burden of proof before going to war should be sufficiently high - don't forget the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Re:Not bad.

[krygny]

Yeah, we should have ignored Iraq until it was too late. Just like we ignored Afghanistan until it was too late. We can't be enforcing treaties like those that were agreed to after the Pursian Gulf war. The rest of the world might get the impression we won't accept being screwed and lied to.

I think we got off easy on September 11, 2001. I expect one day in my lifetime, everything south of Canal street will be leveled.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it is because China is a physically huge country with a population over three times the US population. Maybe it is because China has the ability to directly attack the United States.

Translation: It's because the US doesn't have the balls for it. They're happier fighting little pussy wars against countries without real armies and then circle jerking while watching Fox news.

Re:Not bad.

[theonetruekeebler]

Maybe we could ask him?

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Cheap gas"? Hey bud, if we wanted cheap gas all we had to do was lift the embargo and get back to business as usual. Instead, we did the hard but right thing. We spent our money and lives to free the Iraqi people. Since we are winning at this, whiners such as yourself are being driven mad with rage. You would prefer the Iraqis to still be oppressed by Saddam Hussein rather than have the Americans free them. Self-centered pricks like you make me sick.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

And who sold him the chemical weapons?

Re:Not bad.

[AmericaHater]

I think we got off easy on September 11, 2001. I expect one day in my lifetime, everything south of Canal street will be leveled.

Lets hope so. For most of the rest of the World that is the dream; to See the bully bullied & the number one terrorist state humbled.

Many of us in the West wept for joy when the Twin Tower went down. For me it was a pleasure so great it transcended the mere sexual.

Re:Not bad.

[the_mad_poster]

You know, I'M getting tired of this crap about having to "pick one of the two".

The man is, quite simply, the truest form of a politician.

He's sleazy. We go to war with Afghanistan because Al Quaeda attacked us (let's not mention that we're taking that assertion that it was Al Quaeda on faith since the administration wouldn't share any of the "evidence" it magically had only hours after the attacks). Bin Laden, the psychofuck we're supposed to get, gets away. Solution? Look harder? No. Divert attention to Iraq. Pretend they have a current WMD program (again, present no [truthful] evidence), blow them the fuck up, and then, when you realize your ass is getting handed to you by all the people who want to see this Great Big Threat to America and all these WMDs, start pretending like you started yammering about all this a year ago because you wanted to "liberate" people.

Bull fucking shit. He knows damn well that Hussein is already a villian in everybody's minds and that he can back that up because the man IS a villian. He knows he can whip people into a frenzy every time he passes "ter'rism" through his lips and he can sweep his fuck-ups under the carpet by changing his story later.

You want to know why I hate him more than any recent prez in history? More than lying, two-faced, backstabbing Clinton? Because everytime I cried for evidence when the man started making claims, I got nasty looks from idiots who just wanted to hear that ter'rists were being taken out of their happy little world. When I start pointing out that the man has lied his way into two wars so far and changed the story or conveniently just closed the book halfway through, I get the same goddamn looks.

I'm tired of Bush apologists in particular and political apologists in general. The man doesn't know what the truth is and probably wouldn't know it if he choked on it watching football. He wasn't elected to push his own personal agendas, and I'm sick of it. The man is the epitomy of slimy politicians through and through. The fact that good things (like this) occasionally happen as a result of his constant fucking about doesn't excuse the fact that he's a sniveling, manipulative, two-faced liar. At least when Clinton lied about a blow job from a mildly unattractive ditz nobody got killed. Can't say nobody died as a result of this asshole's lies. I don't appreciate that.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A or B

False dilema.

Re: bad news

Strawman.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, just the guy who had hundreds of thousands of people tortured and gased. Sounds like Bush...

Re:Not bad.

[Artifakt]

There's lots of evidence Saddam killed at least tens of thousands of his own people (Mass graves for example). There's equally good evidence for systematized torture, for killings specifically targeted at supressing political dissent, and lots of crimes worth the death penalty.
Re. the gassing of northern Kurds though, there's some fair evidence that this was accomplished by Iranian weapons used by Iranian commanders during the Iran/Iraq war.
The best thing here, would be for Iraq to try him and the rest of the world be willing to accept it if he is found not guilty of some of these crimes. If it's shown that he never had weapons of mass distruction, or didn't order the gassing of the Kurds, or isn't the guy who robbed that Pizza place on 34th street, he still personally ordered the execution of numerous political foes and their families, and still actually carried out some of these executions himself.

Re:Not bad.

[will_die]

The WMD are in the same place where they found Saddam, 14 air craft and other stuff, buried in the sand. Good luck find it without being told, he had 8+ year with noone watching to bury it.

WMD have not been forgtten they are just on the back burner compared to getting the country working again. As for thier not being WMD mention some people or organizations who firmly believe that they did not have such weapons and who do not a an interest in not having them found.
I have france,Germany, Russia and others saying that they existed and still do.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Spelt" is a type of wheat. The word you are looking for is "spelled," specifically "misspelled." And you are an illiterate buffoon.

In other news, the "it's about the oiiiiiil" thing was silly when it was new. Now it's silly and dated. Move along.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

If that were the case, then where is the oil that this invasion supposedly was about?

Re:Not bad.

[_iris]

Bush would probably say that he _is_ a WMD :]

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

China is a lot more powerful and harder to invade than Iraq ever was. You never start a fight you know you can't win. It is as simple as that.

Re:Not bad.

[tomstdenis]

Free them? That's why the US is controlling who may bid on the reconstruction?

Yeah, Iraqis are soooo free....

Coming from a nation of knee-jerk imprision the nerds country who is entirely xenophobic that sounds funny.

Re:Not bad.

[yoriknme]

Well, there are about two million dead. He's the right guy for that.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush is (B). Cheney is (A).

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of these quotes are truncated and taken out of context. While many Democrats believed that Saddam might have been hiding WMDs, they still believed there was insufficient proof to justify a war. You can read the surrounding text to these quotes at
www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp

Unfortunately, the truth gets lost sometimes.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about? Or has that all been forgotten?

It wasn't about THAT either.

You heard the WMD argument because IF they were found, the war would be 100% justified. If not found, we could say he USED to have WMDs... ... which was frickin obvious... Don Rumsfeld *sold* them to Hussein in the 80's, knowing full well they may be used against "Communist guerrillas" (Reagan-era documents and Congressional testimony prove this).

There will be no public fair trial for Saddam. He doesn't need one- he's guilty, right? There will be no airing of right-wing CIA dirty secrets.

Clue: 5 days before Saddam invaded Kuwait and remarking on the Iraqi builduyp, the US Ambassador to Iraq publicly stated that they considered the impending Iraq-Kuwait war a "regional dispute" and would not get involved.

I don't know if it was the promises of FREE OIL WELLS that made Bush Sr. reverse his statements. Maybe encouraging a war was the most logical way to "step in" and secure a base. Times were changing - the Cold War was over - South Asia could no longer pit the US against the USSR for whoever offered the best deal and Big Oil sensed a power shift to where the oil was produced...

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's our tax dollars that are paying for the reconstruction of Iraq. Other countries have no right (or ability) to force us to spend our dollars any way but how we wish.

If the French/German/Russian governments want their companies to participate, they can use their tax francs/marks/rubles to pay them. Nobody is telling them they can't.

Re:Not bad.

[tomstdenis]

Who are you to decide though? If you are sitting there willing to pay for reconstruction too bad. That's like a sore giver [e.g. give something to someone then want it back].

If the US didn't want to flip the bill [and why should they, they got their own troubles to worry about] they shouldn't have invaded a foreign country, deposed the leader and then pledge money to rebuild it.

I mean if the Iraqi government says no, we don't want US companies here, we want [say] Japanese companies, who are you to say otherwise?

How are they "free" if the US controls what goes on there?

Tom

Re:Not bad.

[motardo]

[quote]The WMD are in the same place where they found Saddam, 14 air craft and other stuff, buried in the sand. Good luck find it without being told, he had 8+ year with noone watching to bury it.[/quote]

that makes me think of saddam hussein looking like a cat burying its shit in a litterbox

Re:Not bad.

[yamla]

Get a clue. 'Spelt' is certainly a word meaning the same as 'spelled'. Just because you are ignorant and living in North America doesn't mean the rest of the world is.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haliburton's private stash, of course. What, you expect the American public's money to be used to benefit the American public? How unAmerican! No, the only proper place for your hard-earned cash is in the pockets of a massive corporation. Don't worry, they'll be sure to put it to good use. Oh, wait... You say you value your civil liberties? Well, you should've known better than to vote Republican!

Re:Not bad.

[Buzz_Litebeer]

Its because the US, in all truth, might lose in all the matters that actually matter.

If you go against a country willing to use nuclear weapons, even ones merely as small as hiroshima and nagasaki (and yes i say merely as small) then your in for a heap of trouble.

Fighting doesnt mean dick if who your fighting destroys the prize, at a high cost to yourself.

The entire trick with sadaam, was to get him BEFORE he had the ability to do such things.

Now whether or not it was justified to beleive he had that ability, or would have the ability, is not part of this convo.

But if the US were to attack china, or North Korea, China would have to have nukes used on it, and i dont think there is any person, or any nation who could hold such responsibility. Even the United States is still considering the ramifications of just dropping 2 very small (in nuke terms) nukes during a war more than 50 years ago. No one wants to be responsible for dropping 20 if a war against china goes bad, or losing large chunks of south korea to nukes from north korea, because we had an axe to grind with north korea.

We ARE fighting a war with north korea, but its the same kind of war we won against Russia, and in that kind of war, patience, not rash action is going to win the day.

Re:Not bad.

[randyest]

No, it wasn't about WMD, nor can you back up your claim that it ever was supposed to be all about WMD.

It's about this.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iraqis are free to bring in any company for the reconstruction that they can afford.

Also, the restriction is only on the primary contracts. Anyone can participate in the sub-contracts. For example, if the US tax-payer donates $1M to rebuild a school, only a US company can hold that contract. However, they will turn around and sub-contract the plumbing to the French, the wiring to the Germans, etc. Each of those countries will get their share. They just won't get a chance to take the cream off the top.

You are clearly the sort of person who will "look a gift horse in the mouth" (i.e., if I give you $100 you complain it wasn't $1000).

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm against the war in Iraq, I would disagree that the connection between Al Queda(sp) and Afghanistan and 9/11 has not been presented. Many of the 9/11 terrorists were filmed or photographed with Al Queda operatives. Money transfers from Pakistan and later Al Queda were traced. Afghanistan's Taliban government has continually assisted and protected Osama's organization. In addition, Al Queda had detailed plans and foreknowledge of the events based on intelligence and captured officials. The case for 9/11, Al Queda and Afghanistan is strong and convincing - convincing enough to be presented to Middle Eastern governments and NATO. Convincing enough for them to allow overflights and even participation in the conflict.

I agree that the case for Iraq is nowhere near as convincing. Plus, Republicans and Democrats have very different set of standards. Blow job versus an unjust war :)

Re:Not bad.

[tomstdenis]

This is different though. Iraq is not your country. So if you pledge money because the US is "soooo" concerned with the well being of the Iraqi people you can't turn around and say "to go back to American companies".

Doesn't work that way. This is just a voter grab move by the US [e.g. look at all the jobs!].

And it isn't like you gave 100 and I want 1000. It should be like you gave 100, thanks. End of story. Sentence finished. Not you gave 100, now move in all your american contractors to own Iraq. Build your urban sprawl, mini-marts, etc, etc, etc.

Let the Iraqi people choose who they want to build their nation. If they want the US then great. If they don't then step aside and let the work be done.

Tom

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least when Clinton lied about a blow job from a mildly unattractive ditz nobody got killed. Can't say nobody died as a result of this asshole's lies. I don't appreciate that.

You forget that: 1.) It was Clinton who first proposed overthrowing Saddam because of alleged WMD's 2.) It was Clinton who, for 8 years, allowed the ineffective UN sanctions to continue, starving to death hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, according to some sources

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what scares me as an European ?

That there are so few people like you, and so many ignorants. How Bush can get away with what he did is beyong me, specially after having seen how Clinton was next to be fired for getting a blowjob and lying about it.

How can so many americans be happy with the lies of Bush that killed many innocent people, both iraqis and americans ?

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you're the ignorant one, assuming that Americans don't use spelt, when it is in fact used here as well. Don't be so quick to label ignorance. It ends up making you the ignorant one.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

ROTFLMAO !!!!!!!

really good one. You made my day.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those pictures--he looks as bad as Kieth Richards!
A face like that _has_ to be guilty.

Re:Not bad.

[KilobyteKnight]

Get a clue. 'Spelt' is certainly a word meaning the same as 'spelled'. Just because you are ignorant and living in North America doesn't mean the rest of the world is.

Geesh.... the spelling nazis are attacking people for using correct spelling now.

What's next? Corrected typp^Hos?

Re:Not bad.

[anthony_dipierro]

Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about?

Of course not. The WMDs are what convinced the UN to give us the authority to invade Iraq. It's not what this invasion was about. This invasion was about regime change. That's pretty obvious to anyone who's paid attention to the news.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it does work that way as the reality of the world is proving. It's our money and it will be spent the way we see fit because we care about the Iraqis. We have not said the companies doing the work have to be from the US coalition. We have said the companies managing the projects (holding the primary contracts) will be from the US coalition; i.e., the countries who have sought to help the Iraqis from the begining. The non-coalition countries are suspect in their motives. If they really wanted to help the Iraqis, where were they before? They only want to eat at the US table, they don't want to help pay the bill (by even speaking up to support us at the UN).

If the non-coalition countries really cared about Iraq they would be spending their own money with their own companies and not whining about being left out again. France, Germany, and Russia are accomplishing nothing by their whining except to further prove they are irrelevant in today's world. Not only do they not have the political or military strength to back up their objectives, they don't have the fiscal strength to do something independent of the US.

Re:Not bad.

[JudeanPeople'sFront]

Can you feel these looks now? We're staring at you, buddy :)

Seriously, those looks will get harder now, because Saddam has grown long beard and will appear on all photos like that. In the mind of the average coach-potatoes, long black-gray beard is an attribute of the ayatollah. So, Saddam must be a Muslim fundamentalist and a supporter of ben Laden, as they have already been told at least 864 times!

Too far fetched? Wait and see. You can never overestimate the rationality of the crowd. Gustave Lebon said it first, I think.

Re:Not bad.

[tomstdenis]

First off, there is noting glorious about having a strong military. It just proves your society has yet to move on. Countries like Canada, France, etc don't have million man armies because we realize that we don't need them.

Second, it's still not upto the US who works in Iraq. Last time I checked freedom means free to choose. If the Iraqi people are free then they should be able to choose who they want.

That's like saying "you have freedom of speech but don't say things I don't want to hear".

Third, other nations did want to help Iraq. We just didn't want to start a war with them to achieve it. Last time I checked planes flew into american buildings so this seems like a good idea.

Fourth, the US has a long history of messing with nations [e.g. funding iraq to fight iran, funding taliban to fight russia] and having it turn on themselves. How about you guys stop fucking in foreign affairs and you will have less "terrorism" to worry about.

Fifth, suspect in their motives. Yeah not like the unquestionably objective Americans. Why did you fund Iraq, Taliban, etc, in the first place? Why did you lie about the WMD? Why didn't you wait for a peaceful solution to the problem?

I'm not saying American is shit and the world is super. I'm saying get off your high horses. America screws up left, right and center then changes the focus by slandering other nations.

Tom

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a reality-check for you, moron: there's the United States of America, and scattered irrelevancies. That's the way it's been for more than half a century now.

In other words: yawn, with a capital yaw.

Re:Not bad.

[volkris]

Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about?

Only to the myopic people who let the superficial media think for them.

This was also about much larger, much more important things including the impotence of the UN, the sanctity of international agreements, stability in the region, brutality to citizenry, etc...

WMD were just one more justification, and from the beginning it was clear that the weapons might never be found even if they did exist.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a fucking idiot. Countries like Canada & France don't have strong militaries because they run straight to the US if they need any help. There was something in the Telegraph this week about how Britain is now unable to mount any sort of significant military operation against anyone without help from the US.

Re:Not bad.

[Old Wolf]

Oh come on. Every man and his dog (and his government) knows that the WMD line was just to try and provide some legal justification for what they wanted to do anyway.

Re:Not bad.

[Mathness]

Despite a careful search no WMD was found, it turned out to be nothing but bad breath.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, there is noting glorious about having a strong military. It just proves your society has yet to move on. Countries like Canada, France, etc don't have million man armies because we realize that we don't need them.

So long as there are bad people in the world (and nothing in the history of humanity suggests a change in the foreseeable future) there will be a need for strong militaries. Canada and France don't have strong militaries because the US exists. The French have benefitted twice in the past century from the US military. How would WWII have ended if the US had declared itself to have "moved on" from needing a military?

Second, it's still not upto the US who works in Iraq. Last time I checked freedom means free to choose. If the Iraqi people are free then they should be able to choose who they want.

Your assertion that it's not up to the US how our money gets spent in Iraq is to ignore the facts. Who is going to make us change our position? The Iraqis are free to decline our aid if they don't like the terms.

That's like saying "you have freedom of speech but don't say things I don't want to hear".

It's more accurately a case of "You have freedom of speech but I am not going to pay for you to print your newspaper".

Third, other nations did want to help Iraq. We just didn't want to start a war with them to achieve it. Last time I checked planes flew into american buildings so this seems like a good idea.

Other countries were not interested in helping Iraq. There reaches a point in every situation when negotiations break down and force is required. A decade of negotiation achieved nothing. Nine months of combat has achieved a lot.

Fourth, the US has a long history of messing with nations [e.g. funding iraq to fight iran, funding taliban to fight russia] and having it turn on themselves. How about you guys stop fucking in foreign affairs and you will have less "terrorism" to worry about.

As far as not messing with other countries: we no longer care what you think. We have been damned for staying out (accused of isolationism) and we are damned when we get involved (accused of imperialism). It is clear the rest of the world is not capable of managing their own lives so "Daddy" has to sort them out. This has been the situation throughout history. There has always been a big dog on the block and a lot of whimpering curs. There is not a country on earth that would act any differently than the US if they were in our position. I assume from what you wrote you would have preferred the Afghans to not have any military when the Soviets arrived and to have rolled over saying "we've moved on"? If we hadn't helped against the Soviets the rest of the world would have accused us of ignoring the Afghans because they have no oil.

Fifth, suspect in their motives. Yeah not like the unquestionably objective Americans. Why did you fund Iraq, Taliban, etc, in the first place? Why did you lie about the WMD? Why didn't you wait for a peaceful solution to the problem?

We waited ten years for a peaceful solution and then took action. As to why we keep supporting some less than desirable people: we are coping with the mess 500 years of European imperialism created. Did you know that in WWI and WWII the Iraqis were German collaborators? Between the Europeans and the Ottomans 100% of the mess in Africa and the Middle East can be accounted for. They caused the mess and we get blamed because we get some dirt on us while cleaning up.

I am not saying the US is perfect. What I am saying is we are getting pretty sick and tired of being forced to choose the lesser of two evils in policing squabbles created by people who then turn around and accuse us of being manipulators and exploiters.

The citizens of the US are here to help the oppressed and downtrodden and we will not let the

Re:Not bad.

[swillden]

Seriously, those looks will get harder now, because Saddam has grown long beard and will appear on all photos like that.

They already shaved him.

Re:Not bad.

[tomstdenis]

Um last I checked Canada has not been at war since 1945. We don't *need* a huge military to defend ourselves because we don't have a war every 39 seconds.

We spend our money on other important things like health care, quebec, those health canada ads about smoking... um certainly not education though... [stupid high tuition schools].

Tom

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

And would you (or any of you fucking wackos) please remember that nearly every country's intelligence service said the same thing, INCLUDING THE FUCKING U.N. -- Saddam had a highly developed WMD program.

This would be the same UN whose inspectors, on the ground, were saying they couldn't find anything? The same UN whose chief of inspections was on the public record left, right, and center saying he believed Iraq had destroyed all its WMD in 1991?

I recall precisely two intelligence services claiming that Saddam had and planned to use WMD - those belonging to the US and the UK. The two countries which then illegally invaded a sovereign state.

Here's a hint: the thing between your legs and your back is called your ass, and it's for shitting out of. The appropriate organ for speech is your mouth, which you will find just below your nose (that's the sticky-outy bit on the front of your face).

Re:Not bad.

[tomstdenis]

"The French have benefitted twice in the past century from the US military"

I'm sorry. What? Oh yeah. The US liberated france. I forgot you take your history lessons from movies...

Last I checked Canada was in WWII since day 1 [well a bit afterwards but you know what I mean] Not three years into it.

"It's more accurately a case of "You have freedom of speech but I am not going to pay for you to print your newspaper"."

Oh but I thought the US was *donating* this money to rebuild Iraq. I mean afterall you guys are christ re-incarnate right?

As for the middle of your post... Other nations get involved [like Canada does] but usually with collaboration of the nations that have to live with the consequences! Sure it may not be "made for tv action" but it ensures that people actually manage to survive and have some quality of life.

Tom

Re:Not bad.

[JudeanPeople'sFront]

Look at him! He knows he is dead already.

Re:Not bad.

[0x0d0a]

Actually, my understanding was that Iraqi oil was supposed to pay for a significant chunk of all this, but that the industry was pretty wiped out (for the second time) by war, and that it's going to be a couple of years before it can be putting out enough oil to pay for our war costs.

We *do* have a certain responsibility to pay for the reconstruction for Iraq (i.e. it isn't out of the goodness of our heart) given that we were the ones that bombed the shit out of it in the first place.

Re:Not bad.

[RickHunter]

A-freaking-men, brother. I hated Clinton, and I hate Bush for the same reasons. In fact, I hate him more because he's been so damn good at convincing the American people (including some that are ordinarly very intelligent) that he's really a nice guy. He's not. So far, everything he's done has been so he can tick of a campaign promise on his list and to hell with the consequences. I almost wish he'll get a second term, just so he can be in office when all the screw-ups he's made come crashing down on his head.

This capture isn't going to change a single thing except Bush's poll numbers for the next month or so. We still got lied into war. We've still had thousands of casualties. And there's still going to be widespread armed resistance and discontent in Iraq.

The only thing he's done right is start ignoring Afghanistan, so the people there have a chance of building a real government.

Re:Not bad.

[Oliver Defacszio]

Pff, you don't think for one second that the U.S. is going to stand for any justice but its own here, do you? Do you? The american ego is as big as its debt, and there should be no doubt of who will be dolling out the punishment to justify the immense cost.

Re:Not bad.

[Oliver Defacszio]

WRT your comment -- yes.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada runs to the US? Heh, not when the US doesn't wait long enough to be asked. Good for them -- they send their young men to war while we send ours to school. I can live with being the weaker intellectual who hides behind the big, stupid bully. My dick's big enough without having to prove it over and over and over.

Re:Not bad.

[theedge318]

Now that I know he was living in a rat-infested s***hole, I am glad that it took us so long to capture him. Now that he's been arrested, his gotten a shower and a shave. Its unforunate that the Geneva Conventions won't allow us to force him to continue living in that hole for the rest of his life.

To our troops in Iraq - Bravo Zulu

Re:Not bad.

[SnowZero]

At least when Clinton lied about a blow job from a mildly unattractive ditz nobody got killed.

Actually the answer is at least 25 killed and 75 wounded. Now I know 4 years is an awful long time to remember, so here's a link. We called it Operation Desert Fox. They called it "Operation Monica", because of the very interesting timing.

Don't forget around that time who launched a half-assed attack on Al Queda, which only really served to piss them off further. I wonder when 9/11 got planned. We're still waiting for a good president; It's been quite a while. But at least this one finishes things, rather than just exacerbating them.

Re:Not bad.

[Evil Pete]

Well I'm glad they got him because he's an A-grade arsehole. But starting a war means your going to end up losing some or many of your own people ... and there are lots and lots of arseholes in the world who need invading. Mugabe in Zimbabwe comes immediately to mind. Invading just makes trouble for yourself unless you have a very good reason. Saddam had nothing, or very little, to do with 9/11 but the Taliban and Osama did. And does anyone really believe the US invaded Iraq for WMD ? Come on it was so obvious from the beginning, they kept changing tack all the time as if these were just public excuses. I'd turn rant mode off now but being Slashdot that functionality is not implemented.

OK. Feel much better now.

Re:Not bad.

[senior.ee]

That is funny. My younger sister was with the U.S. Navy at the time and she was abroad near Iraq. She said that their first name for the "war for iraqi freedom" was Operation Iraqi Liberation. They got rid of that idea when someone thought about the acronym :)

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

>nearly every country's intelligence service said the same thing, INCLUDING THE
>FUCKING U.N. -- Saddam had a highly developed WMD program

Incorrect.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Finishes things? You mean like Afghanistan?

Re:Not bad.

[SnowZero]

You don't need a military because the US would protect its neighbor. Do you really believe Canada would still be a sovereign country if during the cold war the US declared that it would not interefere in an invasion of Canada? Do you really think Canada would have fought in WW2 if the US had not entered, or that its contribution was the same as that of the US and the UK, in terms of winning the war?

Incidentally, Canada spends more on its military than Israel, which really is at war every 39 seconds. I do like foreign countries, and travel a lot. However I get tired of people from smaller (population,GNP) countries thinking that their isolationist approach would work for the US too. We tried that before; it didn't work.

Re:Not bad.

[PhilippeT]

OMG your such a fing moron, Canada was in WWII way before your goverment let it's own naval base be bombed to have an excuse to goto WAR. US fucked canada over durring the cold war with those damn missle baterries and forcing us to kill the most advanced fighter jet int the world at that time. Plus didnt we burn down the White house last time we went to war?

Re:Not bad.

[kubrick]

How many countries has Kim Jong-Il attacked recently? None. How many countries has GWB attacked recently? Two.

Who has more nukes?

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy responsible for killing an estimated 300,000 people?

Re:Not bad.

[XO]

What the fuck are you talking about? Operation Desert Fox has been going on since before the first Bush had left office. I know - I lost my best friend, stationed in Saudi, during it. Who launched a half-assed attack against Al Qaeda? Can you find a reference to "Al Qaeda" that exists before 9/11/01? Not likely. This is all made up bullshit.

Even if Clinton lying about getting his dick slobbed on took attention away from what was still going on in the middle east, as a result of the previous Bush's actions, lying about getting his dick sucked did NOT -cause- the death of thousands of people. Every time Bush makes a statement, you might as well chalk a few hundred casualties up. (one of them being intelligence)

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like the kind of person when stopped for speeding says "But look at all those others that are speeding!" Sorry the excuse that everyone else does it doesn't count.

Re:Not bad.

[tealover]

Canada was in WW2 from day one because they are a Commonwealth nation whose identity is inextricably linked to Britain. The United States shares no such compunction.

We are allies with Britain but in 1939, after a decade long depression and memories of WW1 still alive, American certainly felt no obligation to intercede in European affairs, particularly when the Europeans allowed those affaris to conflagrate.

Canada wasn't doing anything heroic. They were acting out of a sense of Commonwealth obligation.

Re:Not bad.

[StarTux]

Weapons of Mass destruction, could simply be glass vials and its too easy to dispose of them or to hide them anywhere. If a person can hide for a year (or more in some cases) then imagine what some glass vials could do?

My prediction:

100 years from now history books, and because humans expect everything overnight, they will assume that WMD's in Iraq never existed, or did quite some number of years before (like when the Israeli's blew up their nuclear reactor, whcih had been provided to them by France), but some archeologist excavating around Babylon will find some glass vials containing Anthrax...

Seriously, it would have been surprising if they had found them so soon.

StarTux

Re:Not bad.

[tomstdenis]

Last I checked the US had a draft during WWII. How heroic is that?

So by your logic Americans were not heroic during WWII either.

Tom

Re:Not bad.

[madprof]

No, I'm the kind of person who thinks a policy on human rights is something you should apply consistently.
This is slightly more serious than speeding, don't make it sound so trivial.

Re:Not bad.

[bluGill]

Where do you get that idea? Howard Dead is the currnet leading canidate for president from the Democratic party, and he is campaining against this war. Come 2004 eithe GWB will be re-elected, for Dead with be elected (there is a possibility of a different canidate from either party, but right now that seems unlikely, and no other party as a reasonable chance). Americans are not all in favor of this. However we are intelligent enough to know that we cannot be presented with all the information for security reasons, and we are not going to let the troops down. (Many remember who Vietnam soliders were treated with horror, and won't repeat that no matter what their other thoughts are)

Re:Not bad.

[tealover]

All I'm saying is that Canadians who love to point out that they entered the war in 1939 and try to use that as some some of defining moment in which they can separate themselves from America are deluding themselves.

They didn't enter the war out of act on honor and nobility. They did so because they were a commonwealth nation who has the British Monarch as the titular head of their government. With the head of the Commonwealth vanquished, Canada loses a great part of its identity.

I certainly don't recall Canada declaring war on Germany after Czechoslovakia was annexed by Germany.

If the Canadian history books portray themselves as being heroic, that's to be expected. All nations have to spoonfeed patriotism to their peoples in some manner.

Re:Not bad.

[skajake]

Actually all of the above, but you just dont want to beleive it. Read all about it in the leaked 16 page memo detailing Iraq's relationship with terrorism here

Re:Not bad.

[WTF Wazzat]

Damned right. Well said.

Re:Not bad.

[krappie]

"Spelt" is a type of wheat. The word you are looking for is "spelled," specifically "misspelled." And you are an illiterate buffoon.

"Spelt" is not a type of wheat. Spelt is a member of the same grain family but is an entirely different species. And now you are the buffoon.

Re:Not bad.

[haxor.dk]

Wow, a USA bash, and a 1984 reference. And it gets modded +5 ?

Re:Not bad.

[Arapahoe Moe]

Yeah, invade China. I won't take issue with your larger comment as I consider it to be flamebait.

But I want you to know that the U.S. runs an annual trade deficit with the Chinese of nigh, 100 billion US every year now. Seems to me that the Chinese are the ones who would have a problem selling the U.S. the fruits of their cheapo labor market. Read all about it here.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

You misspelled misspelled.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally got the guy that attacked the world trade cen... oh, wrong guy?

He'll be given a choice between admitting it or having a "Cuban Vacation".

Re:Not bad.

[mpe]

We went in because he's really bad, okay? Just wave your plastic American flag, citizen, go back to bed.

But don't think too much about the raw material to make that plastic flag :)

Re:Not bad.

[Bert64]

France and germany dont use francs or marks anymore, they use euros

Re:Not bad.

[Syberghost]

We went in because he's really bad, okay? Just wave your plastic American flag, citizen, go back to bed. All is well. The monitors are your friends.

That's right, Saddam never did anything wrong.

I bet all those Iraqis he would have gone on to murder are grateful for your attempts to prevent their rescue.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

They did so because they were a commonwealth nation who has the British Monarch as the titular head of their government.

Yeah, we don't actually do anything remotely resembling following royal decree. The Queen is a good woman and deserving of respect, though.

With the head of the Commonwealth vanquished, Canada loses a great part of its identity.

Umm... No. We don't actually care about our "Commonwealth identity." We do care that it's our brothers and sisters over there.

Re:Not bad.

[tealover]

Umm... No. We don't actually care about our "Commonwealth identity." We do care that it's our brothers and sisters over there.

Uhm...yes. Canada didn't declare war when Czechoslovakia was annexed by Germany. It only declared war after Britain had done so. Had Britain not declared war, Canada would not have declared war to protect Poland.

Why?

Because Poland is not the head of the Commonwealth.

So much for the humanity of Canadians. They do take orders very well, though.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

They invaded, with superior numbers much like they have now. You'd think Canada should have lost, but they pushed the USA back to their capitol and burned their capitol building down before withdrawing to leave the USA with a bloody nose (the White House is white in order to cover up the scorch marks). I've always wondered why the Canadians didn't just push on and take the northern states.

My grandfather fought in WWII and was a commando at Dieppe in 1942. He always said that the Canadian soldiers fought like demons. They were so ferocious that the Germans kept falling back before the threat to their positions actually warranted it.

Re:Not bad.

[SnowZero]

Hey, Saddam called some of later missile strikes "Operation Monica", not me. Though now that you mention it, I don't know why the news article called it Desert Fox, which it couldn't have been. My point is its hypocritical to say Bush is doing this as a PR campaign, or to deflect attention, when basically the same thing happened with Clinton and his many cruise missiles. I personally tend to give them both the benefit of the doubt. But this is Slashdot, so we should only give one the benefit of the doubt and the earlier one must have been good because we only have 2 year memories. I'm sorry you lost your buddy in Iraq; My family has lost relatives in every war from WW1 to Vietnam; We've been lucky since then.

Who launched a half-assed attack against Al Qaeda? Can you find a reference to "Al Qaeda" that exists before 9/11/01? Not likely. This is all made up bullshit.

Here you go, that took about 10 seconds. I guess you're technically right since it was only called "bin Laden's network of terrorist groups", not "Al Qaeda" then. Of course, 1998 was such a long time ago, and those cruise missiles were just a friendly gesture. Here's an interview where OBL himself mentions the attack. Half-assed is demonstrated in these two articles, however the latter one is written after 9/11 and it isn't fully fair, since hindsight is 20/20. But we could have done better, that's for sure. Here's another referenencing the attack. Calling it all "made up bullshit" sure sounds good, but its hard to rebut the facts of history. Do I think Clinton's scandal caused the 75 cruise missile attack? No, but the timing sure seems bad. Now tell me again why Bush is doing this all as a big PR campaign? Seems like "No War" would have been a hell of a lot more popular with the voters around here.

as a result of the previous Bush's actions

We made a mistake in 1991, but again hindsight is perfect. We're finishing it now; the sanctions and cruise missiles were just putting it off. Responsibility for OBL and Al Qaeda rest soley with Clinton and later GWB. Sure, the original Gulf War fanned the flames a lot, but that was a UN war, and our options were limited since the UN only knows limited/partial war, and all the limited/partial results that brings (see Korea). So who's your favorite leader? More likely than not they either (1) fought a war in which Americans died, or (2) ignored a security threat so that his successor had to fight the war instead. Don't even say JFK was your favorite... you'll have a lot more bodies to count.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're with us (US) now, limey. Get over it.

Re:Not bad.

[SnowZero]

We're still there. The "popular" approach would be to pull out like Reagan did. The president after the next election probably will, and the president after that will have to deal with it again. This president hasn't made _that_ mistake.

Re:Not bad.

[SnowZero]

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/courage/worldwariichro nology.html

I see them declaring war and sending an infantry division to Britain, so I guess I should say they followed the UK, while the US waited for its naval base to be attacked. The US sent 14.5 times the troops to the war, 12.4% of its population, while Canada sent 10%. Australians sent an incredible 18.6% of its population, as well as more troops in total than Canada; guess they are the real heroes. Probably doesn't show up in your classbooks either. Now put that nationalism aside and honor the true heroes who gave more than any allied country, the Australians, or can you not do that because you're too used to thinking only your country is the best at everything?

So do you disagree with the grandparent post then? Is Canada a peaceful pacifist county or a donwtrodden superpower? You can't have it both ways. Yeah, Canada should have told the US to fuck off during the Cold War, but the fact that it didn't demonstrates that at the time it was in its best interest not to.

Yes, Canada torched Washington, but only in response to us torching Toronto first. Unfortunately stupid US school books like to forget about the Toronto part, and that the US really did deserve the attack on Washington. However, I do recall the US winning the war of 1812, not losing it.

Re:Not bad.

[Hoarke42]

One thing that does tend to get missed is that they DID find Iraq to have weapons that were in clear violation of the agreements resulting from the first Gulf War.

Re:Not bad.

[1029]

This is a rather geeky site, so I'll put this into terms you can most likely understand...

Lets say you are in calculus class (nevermind right now if you know calc like the back of your hand. Pretend this is the first day of class). For homework your teacher gives you 10 problems... 6 simple review, 3 actual calc problems to get you going, and 1 problem that is said to be unsolvable.

When you go home do you throw out everything but the last unsolvable problem then go head long into trying to solve it? Fuck no, if you aren't that good at math you try a few of those review problems, then if things are going well you hit those 3 harder ones... then if you are really feeling good you look over that last unsolvable problem just to see why it is unsolvable.

So tell me, when millions of lives are at stake (instead of just your math grade), why would you take on the hardest problem first? Why would anybody just skip over the lesser tyrants of the world and start a world war with a nuclear power that probably has more troops than your whole country has citizens?

Re:Not bad.

[madprof]

Perhaps you missed the point.
Let's replace 'China' with 'Zimbabwe' now shall we?
Now I'll ask almost the same question - why not invade Zimbabwe?
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people intimidated, murdered, starved and oppressed by a horrible regime that refuses to give up power. There's a famine there right now.
Let's look at Burma too. Or maybe Cuba? Or Iran?
Why not any of these countries?
Iran has made comments about nuclear aspirations but none of them have nukes or would be hard to invade given coalition firepower.

The point of the my original question was to highlight inconsistency of thought. The invasion of Iraq was about security first and foremost - it was about ridding the area from a dictator who was potentially a huge security threat not just to his neighbours but to the USA. This is why they are looking for WMDs and stated very clearly that they went in because of the threat WMDs may pose.

Getting rid of a brutal dictator was a bonus - the real reason was national security. It is inconsistent to claim this was about human rights when we all know it was about WMDs.

Re:Not bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Never mind" is two words, you dumb ass.

Re:Not bad.

[Scudsucker]

You forget that: 1.) It was Clinton who first proposed overthrowing Saddam because of alleged WMD's

You remember he didn't go through with it, right?

2.) It was Clinton who, for 8 years, allowed the ineffective UN sanctions to continue, starving to death hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, according to some sources

True, he should have done something to get rid of them, but he didn't put them in place.

First photoshops

[objekt]

http://www.spiceweasel.net/albums/miscellanea/sadd ammk2.jpg

http://www.worth1000.com/web/media/3185/saddam%2 0c laus.jpg

Re:First photoshops

[fidget42]

Is it just me, or does he look amazingly like Ted Kazinsky? Coincidence?

WMD

[Staos]

Was he carrying Weapons of Mass Destruction at the time? No? Hmm...

Re:WMD

[aled]

They say there is a joke in Washington:
The pentagon knows all about Saddam's WMD. They made the bills...

Naysayers

[bruthasj]

Well, I thought I'd get this comment in before all the anti-war people got on. GOOD JOB GUYS!!!!

Re:Naysayers

[NMerriam]

Note: Anti-War is not the same as Pro-Saddam.

GOOD JOB GUYS!!!!

Re:Naysayers

[geekster]

I'm one of those anti-war people... but that doesn't mean I'm not happy to see him caught. You don't have to be pro-saddam to be anti-war.

So congratulation

Re:Naysayers

[ahillen]

Well, I thought I'd get this comment in before all the anti-war people got on.
It's very well possible to see the war as a mistake and seeing the arrest of Saddam as a Very Good Thing(TM).

GOOD JOB GUYS!!!!
Indeed.

Re:Naysayers

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be tough being such an enigma.

Re:Naysayers

[Leffe]

Considering that he should have been caught years ago... no.

Whoever is responsible for this failure should have to go. And the one responsible for the arrest should get a GNU/free(including recipe, and freedom to change it) cookie.

Also, MR. OSAMA is still on the run, I suspect he is in Nigeria from where he sends a lot of e-mails asking for help:

Hello YOU, I am DR. MR. OSAMA BIN LADIN KING OF NIGERIA

Please join my army of elite soldiers, we will avenge our sons.

Oh, and by the way, I have a bank account with $1.000.000.000 in Holland that is yours for the taking.

Re:Naysayers

[USAPatriot]

Note: Anti-War is not the same as Pro-Saddam.

Maybe not, but they did share the same goal: to keep Saddam in power.

Re:Naysayers

[Squideye]

Indeed, the capture of Saddam will hopefully end the war. If we wanted less fighting, we wanted this to happen as soon as possible.

That they didn't capture him immediately meant the war went on, and on, and on... not that it was easy to find him, of course. Congratulations to the U.S. Army and the Coalition of the Recipients of Contracts.

Re:Naysayers

[Richard Allen]

To the people saying that they are anti-war, pro-Saddam arrest ... What? Did you think he was going to surrender?

ditto to: GOOD JOB GUYS!!!!

Re:Naysayers

[Anonymous Coward]

It just might very well be possible, but that doesn't mean it makes sense.

Re:Naysayers

[geekster]

Well, sorry for stating the obvious... but apparently it wasn't for the poster I was replying to.

It must be tough being so damn petty

Re:Naysayers

[bheading]

This chap too

Re:Naysayers

[Anonymous Coward]

No. No. No.

Anti-war campaigners were against the attack because the war was NOT done in order to dislodge Saddam or save the Iraqi people on humanitarian grounds. Had the war been suggested in such a way, I imagine it would have received more support.

The war was fought on false premises, lies and a basis of American imperialism. Your blind loyalty to America regardless of her actions is what most people dislike about your country.

Re:Naysayers

[kir]

I think everbody fucking understands this. That wasn't your point though, was it?

Re:Naysayers

[JFMulder]

Your blind loyalty to America regardless of her actions is what most people dislike about your country.
Please, dont' say "America". Canada is part of America. Mexico too, as is Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, etc. Don't bring us into this. Say United States of America. Thanks. :)

Re:Naysayers

[plumby]

Is it worth pointing out that the west, including the US, was actively supporting Hussain, including supplying weapons and chemical/biological agents, throughout the 80's (even after the attack on Halabja)?

Re:Naysayers

[ahillen]

To the people saying that they are anti-war, pro-Saddam arrest ... What? Did you think he was going to surrender?

I think there is more about starting a war against Iraq than the question whether you are in favor of Saddam or against him.
First of all it's the reasons the politicians are giving you why this war is necessary, and there the US government made a tremendously bad job with questinable reasons and proofs.
Second, you have to consider the consequences, and I mean all the possible consequences of such a war. The US government always claimed that it was necessary for national security, especially in the light of international terrorism, to attack Iraq and remove Saddam. Now the fear of many people was that the war would just make the delicate situation in the middle east even more unstable, that it would further fuel the hate against the US and the west in general, thus making it even easier for Al-Qaida, Hamas etc. to deceive people for their cause and thus not really helping at all in fighting against such threats. Many people might have thought that at this point it might have been more worthwhile to invest more energy in solving longstanding problems which are for decades now causing trouble, grieve and hate, namely the problem between Israel and the Palestine people. I'm quite sure that a solution that would finally settle this dispute and allow the Palestinians to live in their own state would do more good in fighting fundamentalistic terrorism than removing Saddam Hussein (and nothing in which happened in the last few months gave me the feeling that I am wrong).

You see, it's not only about Saddam. I was against the US war against Iraq, and above I gave some of my reasons for this opinion. Still, the war took place, and I now hope that as many good things come out of this as possible. Catching and punishing Saddam Husseins is one of this good things which result from this war. Reducing the threat of international terrorism, I fear, is not.

Re:Naysayers

[love2hateMS]

This is an absolute lie. The U.S. DID support Iraq in the 80's., but NEVER provided weapons. Period. That is a simple unassailable fact.

Stop lying.

Re:Naysayers

[corbettw]

Please, dont' say "America". Canada is part of America. Mexico too, as is Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, etc. Don't bring us into this. Say United States of America. Thanks. :)

So when Muslim fanatics start chanting "Death to America!" do you think they mean you, or just people in the United States?

Re:Naysayers

[love2hateMS]

Darn Right! Give the U.S. the credit it deserves. The cowardly nations shouldn't be included in that. The coalition countries, particularly Britain and Spain, along with the U.S. have changed the world for the Iraqi people. Terrorists are running desperately trying to prove they still have influence, and you can see this desperation in the fact they are now targeting ARAB INNOCENTS. The U.S. and the coalition are winning the war on terror, despite the betrayal of countries like France.

The French are just going to have to find another murdering dictator to make money from-- oh wait, they are still one of the biggest trading partners with Iran.

If you can't tell, I don't like France. They'll ignore any atrocity if they can make money from it.

Re:Naysayers

[Richard Allen]

I appreciate your view. Even though I disagree with your logic, I can at least appreciate your view. There are many "naysayers" who just seem to beat down everything and anything Bush does - even if it's something they would applaud if "their guy" had done it.

I get so tired of the people who always see negative in everything Bush does without using any logic whatsoever. I sincerely believe Bush could solve world hunger, and those freaks would find something wrong with it.

Bottom line - I just ask the perpetual Bush "naysayers" to ask yourself when you criticize him - If you'd honestly do the same if XYZlib was doing it. If so, fine - go for it. But stop the mindless bashing.

My 2 cents.

Re:Naysayers

[the_2nd_coming]

for many people it may not be, but for most anti-war people, they neglect the "good job" commnet making them look like they like Saddam.

Re:Naysayers

[JFMulder]

You, sir, are an ignorant. Who do you think supported Saddam Hussein in the 80's when he was a bad man back then? The US of course. The only reason why they went to war with Irak back then was because Saddam said that the oil was the citizen's and Iraq's property. And the only reason they went back is because of unfinished business.

Freedom, terrorism and WMD were only a means to an end. It was never about these, and we were told countless times that they had undeniable proofs to support their accusations. The only truth was that the Iraki people were badly treated. If that was really the real reason to go to Irak, then why didn't the US
1) go there much earlier, and in fact, abandonned the first effort in the 90s
2) don't go to other countries.

This is not a war on terror, this is a war for oil.

Re:Naysayers

[plumby]

Is that so?

From CBS

Congressional investigations after the Gulf War revealed that the Commerce Department had licensed sales of biological agents, including anthrax, and insecticides, which could be used in chemical weapons, to Iraq.

Or from The Washington Post.

According to a sworn court affidavit prepared by (former National Security Council official) Teicher in 1995, the United States "actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required." Teicher said in the affidavit that former CIA director William Casey used a Chilean company, Cardoen, to supply Iraq with cluster bombs that could be used to disrupt the Iranian human wave attacks. Teicher refuses to discuss the affidavit.

Re:Naysayers

[tongue]

If we'd have done it right, he'd have committed to exile. Its bush's cowboy diplomacy style in which you back someone into a corner and give no terms for surrender other than the ones that make said someone look like a coward to his country which set the stage for this conflict. which of course, was his intention all along....

Re:Naysayers

[love2hateMS]

Oil? The total yearly export value of Iraq's oil doesn't even pay for 2 months of the troops over there. The coalition would have to confiscate Iraq's entire oil exports for a decade to make up what they have spent.

It is simple math. There is ZERO profit motive, therefore this ridiculous, moronic, stupid belief that it is a war for oil belies all common sense and economic theory.

(Math is a thing they teach in schools along with a subject called "history". You should investigate those two topics some day.)

Re:Naysayers

[love2hateMS]

Never proven. Also, many others in that administration with nothing to lose by telling the truth have denied any weapons sales were ever made. That does NOT mean the U.S. didn't foolishly provide other assistance-- which you refer to in your post.

For example, Richard Perle-- well known to people who follow foreign policy-- explicitly states NO WEAPONS were ever sold to Iraq.

Re:Naysayers

[JFMulder]

What the fuck are you saying??? Iraq is sitting on one of the biggest oil reserve in the world!

Re:Naysayers

[plumby]

Current cost of US troops - $3.9 bn/month (theoretically for a short period). Amount of oil in Iraq - 115bn barrels confirmed (possibly up 300bn with increased exploration). Current price of oil - approx $30/barrel (with lowest cost of extraction in the world). That gives around $3-9trillion worth of oil to fight for. That's 60-180 years worth of troops.

Also, the troops are being paid for by the government (i.e., taxpayer), and the profit is going to firms like Cheyney's old company, Halliburton.

Re:Naysayers

[plumby]

So are you backing down on your claim that "it's a simple unassailable fact." that the US never sold weapons?

And why do you think that Richard Perle is an honest, trustworthy, citizen that we should somehow believe? He's a Neoconservative, and parter at Trireme Partners, a company that invests in enterprises "that are of value to homeland security and defense," , while advising Bush on homeland security and defense. He had a strong interest in making Saddam look as bad as possible, and saying that the US had sold weapons to him would have rather undermined his position.

Re:Naysayers

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad you're one of the few that can hold an intelligent conversation on the bush subject.

It goes the other way too, I'm tired of people who always see the positive in everything Bush does without using any logic whatsoever.

Re:Naysayers

[love2hateMS]

It doesn't matter how much is in the GROUND, it matters how much they get OUT of the ground each year.

Sheesh.

Re:Naysayers

[love2hateMS]

Duh.... you can't just pull it all out of the ground at once and sell it. There is not enough demand. The rate at which Iraq produced oil BEFORE the first Gulf War (the rate set by Opec) would not pay for our troops if you produced at that rate for a decade.

Re:Naysayers

[plumby]

The figure for oil revenues in the past 5 years was $50bn - $10bn /year. This was during a time of very tightly controlled UN sanctions. The annual projection given by Dick Cheney in April was $25-$30bn. The estimate given by Rumsfeld in April for the cost to troops was $2bn/month, and this was intended to be for a short period (a year or so). So at the level of estimates used to make the decisions, there was expected to be a profit even within the first year.

Now, troop costs have gone up since then, and oil revenues will be down for the first year due to sabotage etc. However, assuming that the troops are not there indefinitly, it's still not going to take many years to start turning a profit (this ignoring things like the current 2b of contracts that have already been awarded to Halliburton).

And as I mentioned before - costs paid by tax payers, revenue reaped by private companies, most with connections with the administration.

Try to get a clue.

Re:Naysayers

[Anonymous Coward]

Math is the the thing you cannot do.

Moron.

Re:Naysayers

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow.. well do you think that OPEC rate is going to change now that the US is running things, do you? After all, one of the reasons Iraq attacked Kuwait was because Kuwait was screwing around with the quotas with help of the good old US of A. Everyone pretty much knew Kuwait was way way above their OPEC quota.

You're a fucking idiot.

Good.

[swerdloff]

Good news for Iraqis.

Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops, and the US can pull out and let Iraq start setting up its own country.

He didn't fire a shot or fight back at all, according to the news. That's the best part. According to a report on NPR, that's going to decimate his standing among the populace who used to fear him. Now he's just seen (according to the Al Hayat reporter on NPR) as a coward.

Good.

Re:Good.

[Kevinv]

doubtful. not all the opposition is saddam supporters. there are islamic terrorists that want to setup another afghanstan, probably some shiites wanting to setup a iran-type islamic gov't, maybe some sunni's and maybe some kurds.

There may even be an upswing in attacks in retaliation, but i would expect that to fall off fairly quickly.

And it isn't the attacks that are keeping us there, we have to be there through the setup of the country and to fix a lot of things we broke in a couple of wars (and even more things saddam broke through neglect).

Re:Good.

[leerpm]

It is unlikely. It will definitly put a damper on the attacks from people who used to be loyal to Saddam, but it won't deter the Islamic terrorists who are shifting their operations into Iraq from abroad. This could mean a shift in attacks from being fairly random, to more attacks targetted against US-owned interests in the region. Only time will tell.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, only a minority faction of the resistance forces are Saddam loyalists, and an even smaller faction are al-Qaeda operatives or other terrorist fundamentalists.

By far, the majority of the opposition is Sunni rebels who are (justifiably) opposed to US colonialism and (unjustifiably) opposed to Shiite rule.

The reistance will cotninue as long as the US remains, but, I hope the administration claims otherwise. It will make them look incredibly foolish as the attacks continue, intensify, and Iraq quickly becomes a new Palestine or Northern Ireland.

Re:Good.

[_Sprocket_]

Good points. But for the sake of conversation, I'd like to make some counter-points...

doubtful. not all the opposition is saddam supporters. there are islamic terrorists that want to setup another afghanstan, probably some shiites wanting to setup a iran-type islamic gov't, maybe some sunni's and maybe some kurds.

At the same time, Saddam was a symbol. Capturing him is also symbolic - that this regime is not going to return. This may hearten the Iraqi people. And those who feared such a return and kept silent while resistance / terrorists operated amoung them.

And it isn't the attacks that are keeping us there, we have to be there through the setup of the country and to fix a lot of things we broke in a couple of wars (and even more things saddam broke through neglect).

Actually - I have to disagree with this. The longer these attacks keep up, the longer US and its allies will remain in Iraq. True - the goal is to rebuild Iraq, not wipe out insurgants. But Iraq can not be rebuilt while the infrastructure of a new government is picked apart by assasinations and sabotage.

Re:Good.

[Homology]

Good news for Iraqis.

Undoubtly, and with some luck he will have a fair trial, in stark contrast to his own former justice system.

Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops

Hopefully, but very unlikely. Contrary to official propaganda not only Saddam loyalists, but also ordinary people are attacking the occupation forces. US disregard for civilians has made them quite a few enemies : Oh The LIttle Saddams We Weave The War on Iraq's Workers

and the US can pull out and let Iraq start setting up its own country.

US are already planning to have several permanent bases in Iraq, and are there to stay. And in the process install a puppet regime to protect their oil interests.

Re:Good.

[the_2nd_coming]

it is easier to root out terrorists from other countries because Iraqis report on these people when they know about them, and as the police force gets stronger, the police can root these people out even better than we can. the largest thret to Iraq's future was Saddam not being captured. now of course, I think we have to worry about attacks to try and save him.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops, and the US can pull out and let Iraq start setting up its own country.

Why should they stop? Do you think Saddam was controlling them now, giving out orders from some secret bunker? I don't think he was. The attacks were conducted by people who share a common goal: to get the US out now.

The attacks will not stop until the attackers are killed, or US leaves Iraq. But the US cannot leave Iraq without creating another big civil war mess and ending up with Yet Another Ultra-Islamistic Country. So, the US cannot do that. Meanwhile the battles continue and more soldiers go home in boxes wrapped in a piece of cloth.

By committing themselves to "freeing" Iraq, the USA might have actually already lost by creating suddenly more things at stake (a new, more evil Iraq) than there ever was!

Re:Good.

[Snaller]

Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops, and the US can pull out and let Iraq start setting up its own country.


Dream on. Did he look like a commander? He was a guy hiding in a hole - the attacks are run by all the others who hates the invaders.

Re:Good.

[thelaw]

i know this is slashdot and our standards of evidence/logic are pretty low, but....

there is nothing approaching a persuasive argument here. your first sentence uses an irrelevant conclusion and an ad hominem attack on White Christian Americans and US president bush, and the last three sentences are a straw man.

if you'd care to reformulate your response, i promise to give you a cohesive answer.

jon

Re:Good.

[johnjay]

I haven't read further down in the comments, so I don't know if someone else has mentioned this. This isn't just a symbol of Saddam's fall from power. It's a symbol of the increased control and improving intelligence capabilities of the American forces. Even if Saddam wasn't doing a lot of commanding from his hole in the ground, the fact that the special forces were able to track him down shows, once again, that they are picking apart the enemy infrastructure piece by piece.

Congratulations to them. This might be even more of an independence day for Iraqis than the day they threw down that statue in Bagdad.

Re:Good.

[Simulant]

Yep, Sadaam has been directing all attacks from his 6-8 foot hole in the ground. You can just make out the tin can with the string attached in the photos.

Re:Good.

[RickHunter]

Actually, it shows that they are picking apart the Ba'athist infrastructure. If most of the insurgents currently operating in Iraq are foreign Islamic fundamentalists, this says nothing about how well the special forces and intelligence agenices are doing against them. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they were responsible for this - most of them hate Saddam just as much as the USA does.

And remember, we've still found no sign of bin Laden, and have no clue how the fundamentalist terrorist networks get or use their money. The "intelligence capabilities of the American forces" have shown themselves to be utterly incompetent at infiltrating or even understanding these networks.

Don't expect peace anytime soon.

Re:Good.

[TopShelf]

While this obviously won't stop all attacks, it should make a huge difference. It is suspected that he and his supporters were using their massive hordes of cash to finance assaults and hire mercenaries, and along with Saddaam they found some of that cash.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

If most of the insurgents currently operating in Iraq are foreign Islamic fundamentalists

90% of the resistance is Iraqis, and to the extent that there are any foriegners, they are mercenaries working for the Iraqi resistance.

This rumor that all the islamic nuts were converging on Iraq is republican talkshow political fodder. There's never been any evidence presented.

Re:Good.

[Planesdragon]

And remember, we've still found no sign of bin Laden

We've got lots of signs of Bin Laden. He's just moving faster than Saddam, so we haven't caught him.

and have no clue how the fundamentalist terrorist networks get or use their money.

Sure we do. THey get them from a rich ex-Saudi prince and various isalimc fundamentalist organizations. Mostly in cash, I wager. And they use these monies to purchase things, like bulletts and plain tickets.

Of course, we don't know WHICH fundamentalist organizations, and we don't know who's working as a middleman for the terrorists...

The "intelligence capabilities of the American forces" have shown themselves to be utterly incompetent at infiltrating or even understanding these networks.

We're not all that worse off than the enemy.

Think about it: On September 10, 2001 the World Trade Center was just another building, considered by many to be quite an eyesore. The next day, it became a symbol of america that utterly failed to demoralize us--and really isn't going to lead to us leaving the Middle East anytime soon.

If Osama knew the USA as well as you think we should know Al Quaeda, he'd have picked a target that would have actually demoralized us--the capital and the white house, or the Statue of Liberty and just one of the WTC.

Re:Good.

[cheezedawg]

US disregard for civilians has made them quite a few enemies

Bullcrap. We are doing a lot of good there, and the people appreciate it. It was Saddam and his regime that showed a complete disregard for Iraqi civilians...

Re:Good.

[Marillion]

I agree, mostly. This really a non-event in the grand scheme of things.

Let's turn it arround. Let's imagine Iraqis conquered the US, Bush goes into hiding, they take over various governmental functions. All over the country, Red Blooded Americans start uprising. Not because of Bush, but because there are Iraqis running our country. Now the Iraqis captured Bush. Do you really think Red Blooded Americans would suddenly say, "Oh, they got Bush. I guess I better get back to work now."

If more people thought, "Well what would an American do if the situation were reversed?" And stopped thinking like imperialists, then I think there would be far less blood spilt in the Cradle of Civilization.

Re:Good.

[Rotten168]

this is slashdot

That pretty much sums up the (low) level of debate here.

Re:Good.

[fbg111]

Now he's just seen as a coward.

As all bullies ultimately are.

Re:Good.

[Snaller]

It shall be interesting to see how much of it has been bought and how much is conviction.

Re:Good.

[fiddlesticks]

>Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops

Unlikely. Most attackers aren't opposing the occupation of Iraq by 'Coalition' forces with violent means because they like(d) Saddam, but because they (understandably) don't like being occupied, by 'freedom fighters' or not, and there's no way for them to express this except with direct action, at the moment.

If it takes the cessation of attacks on occupying forces to get the occupying forces to withdraw, then I fear we're in an infinite loop.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops, and the US can >pull out and let Iraq start setting up its own country.

Non sequitor.

And what if he calls Rumsfeld as a defence witness? "Your honour, this guy kept giving me guns and poison gas and money and shit - what was I supposed to do with it?"

Re:Good.

[cabraverde]

A friend of mine who spent time in post-war iraq says that much of the resistance is not Hussein-led, or even 'terrorist'-led, but because:

a) Iraqis are increasingly intolerant of the US occupation, and
b) The general population generally quite well-armed.

Of course the general population doesn't have rocket lauchers and explosive, so there must be more to the resistance than just that.

Re:Good.

[Trepalium]

You know, it's possible that BOTH are correct. An occupying army in a foreign country typically causes damage to the civilian populace if it wants to or not. Civilians die at the hands of the army because soldiers make really poor law enforcement. Army doctors can't replace a proper medical infrastructure. And unless the military relinquishes control back to the Iraqii people, many of those civilians will become frustrated with the prolonged occupation by foreign forces in their own country.

Both sides of this debate like to look at the situation through their very own rose coloured glasses. Accept the few facts that support their position, ignore all the rest. American forces in Iraq are helping the citizens, but they're also hurting them. It's all an unavoidable consequence of occupation.

I was personally opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, but now that US forces are there, they'd better make sure they do a damn good job of getting the Iraq people self-sufficient.

Re:Good.

[lysium]

The longer these attacks keep up, the longer US and its allies will remain in Iraq. True - the goal is to rebuild Iraq, not wipe out insurgants. But Iraq can not be rebuilt while the infrastructure of a new government is picked apart by assasinations and sabotage.

You do realize that the US military is going to keep a permanent force in Iraq, don't you? Like Germany and Japan, Iraq is going to be our "friend" in the new American theater of interest (that is, the Middle East). Depending on the timetable of attacks, rebuilding, and shifting political currents (in Iraq and at home), we can expect another premptive strike in Bush's second term. Once Iraq contains US bases, we won't need to rely on Saudia Arabia, supercarriers, or flights over Turkey....only the subservience of the country we kindly liberated.

Re:Good.

[_Sprocket_]

Let's turn it arround. Let's imagine Iraqis conquered the US, Bush goes into hiding, they take over various governmental functions. All over the country, Red Blooded Americans start uprising. Not because of Bush, but because there are Iraqis running our country.

I think I understand what you're trying to say. And sure, the capture of Saddam will not immediately end violence in the area. But your anology is incorrect.

Iraq is not the US. The US culture is very different than Iraqi culture. The people are different - and so are their experiences and history. The two governments are entirely different in attitude and structure. This includes how that government was formed, who was put in to what positions and why, and individual loyalties.

There are basic simularities between people. But that does not mean you can simply take one set of events, transplant them artificially in to a new environment, and then expect to gain any insight towards the culture and politics involved in the origional events.

If more people thought, "Well what would an American do if the situation were reversed?" And stopped thinking like imperialists, then I think there would be far less blood spilt in the Cradle of Civilization.

Because what... the Middle East was the bastion of peace before the US showed up?

Re:Good.

[_Sprocket_]

You do realize that the US military is going to keep a permanent force in Iraq, don't you? Like Germany and Japan, Iraq is going to be our "friend" in the new American theater of interest (that is, the Middle East).

Its very likely the US will maintain a military presence for some time. It will certainly want to protect its interests in the region. And the prospect of a stable, secular government in Iraq would definately be in the US' interest.

Once Iraq contains US bases, we won't need to rely on Saudia Arabia, supercarriers, or flights over Turkey....only the subservience of the country we kindly liberated.

Keep in mind that the US already has military bases in that area with the blessings of a country glad for its liberation. Kuwait.

Re:Good.

[DF5JT]

"Keep in mind that the US already has military bases in that area with the blessings of a country glad for its liberation. Kuwait."

Yes, but Kuwait's oil is not in the hand of the US to pay for its presence in a strategically perfect location. Comes in handy, doesn't it?

Re:Good.

[Kanasta]

Why would attacks on the coalition troops stop? I don't think the attackers knew before the status of Saddam, and his capture wouldn't reduce hatred of the US.

I agree this brings some closure, but I don't see reason for magical 'US can pull out' now.

What would be interesting is if Saddam died in US custody before trial...
I guess it depends if the US puts him in a cage in the middle of the desert like the others...

Re:Good.

[HiThere]

And what laws will you use in your "fair trial"? Would they be laws that the US could reasonably claim to not have broken?

Face it. A fair trial is an impossibility, as there are no laws that could be applied. Just consider the farce that was Nuremberg. Yes, they were vile people. But they were hardly given a fair trial. The laws they were conviced under were created after the fact. And that would need to be done again. You can say "but he's clearly vile", and you would be right. But this doesn't form a reasonable basis for a trial, or the top tenth of the US govt. would be under indictment right now. What you're doing is proving publically "We won, and you can't stop us from humiliating you in public before we kill you, if we want to." I don't think that matches my idea of a fair trial.

People make a lot of noise about "international law", but in the application it seems to always turn out to be "The guy with the most power is right. The other guy is wrong. Do what you want with him." This is convenient when you are the guy with the most power, but it hardly matches any normal meaning of fair.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't like all the trolls in this forum who bash our elected leader and I will probably stop reading slashdot from now on.

C'mon guys grow up.. this story shouldn't generate 3000 comments from anti-americans!

I wish the department of homeland security will start enforcing the patriot act and start shutting down wasp nests like slashdot.

The internet has become such a collection of rubish. Hey RIAA why don't you shutdown all the torrent links to michael moore's latest libel book on bush instead of defending jacko and britney spears interests!

God bless America!!! Show some faith for your country!

"Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction." George W. Bush

Re:Good.

[CanadaDave]

It's a symbol of the increased control and improving intelligence capabilities of the American forces

Or maybe some Iraqi guy just tipped them off. Some intelligence.

Re:Good.

[_Sprocket_]

Yes, but Kuwait's oil is not in the hand of the US to pay for its presence in a strategically perfect location. Comes in handy, doesn't it?

But then - the Kuwaiti oil is going to be cheaper than water for US forces if that helps keep them in-country. Kuwait has also been working towards providing facilities and other logistical support for US forces stationed there. The cost of maintaining a presence in Kuwait is going to be considerably cheaper than almost any other location in the world.

Kuwait does not have a strong military - either in equipment or experience. They generally like having US forces keeping the sanctity of their borders.

Re:Good.

[line.at.infinity]

You can link your RHET 101 reference site all you want. It doesn't matter whether you think this war is justified or not because it isn't going to change the terrorists' perception of the occupation. The terrorists aren't pro-Saddam necessarily, but anti-occupation. I don't see how the suicide bombers' actions were conductive in getting Saddam back. Iraq was yet another victim of the US's manifest destiny because it was cheaper and more practical than a Mars exploration.

$1 million from Bruce?

[nacturation]

So does this mean that Bruce Willis is going to cough up his $1 million reward? And what about the four seconds alone with him? :)

Re:$1 million from Bruce?

[Glock27]

So does this mean that Bruce Willis is going to cough up his $1 million reward?

Only if someone besides the troops can claim responsibility (that person will also get $10 million from Uncle Sam if so). If it's only the soldiers, they can't claim a reward...though I'll bet Bruce will throw one heck of a party for them when they return to the States! :-)

Re:$1 million from Bruce?

[Anonymous Coward]

God help them if he wants to play the harmonica at the party.

Re:$1 million from Bruce?

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is:
will four seconds be enough for Saddam to beat Bruce Willis into a bloody pulp?

Re:$1 million from Bruce?

[Wateshay]

If I remember correctly, he said that he was going to donate the money to something (don't remember what) if it was soldiers that captured him.

Re:$1 million from Bruce?

[JuggleGeek]

Only if someone besides the troops can claim responsibility (that person will also get $10 million from Uncle Sam if so).

This story says the tip came from a family member.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20 031214.wtips1214/BNStory/Front/

Re:$1 million from Bruce?

[dvk]

> This story says the tip came from a family member

Man, I always knew that inlaws are evil, but this...

Re:$1 million from Bruce?

[JuggleGeek]

Actually, I think I got that wrong. I re-read the article I quoted after I had posted the link, and it says something similar - but not the same. Here's the quote...

Saddam Hussein was captured based on information from a member of a family "close to him," Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno said Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Odierno, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division that captured Mr. Hussein, said over the last 10 days soldiers have questioned "five to 10 members" of families "close to Saddam."

"Finally we got the ultimate information from one of these individuals," he said.

So it sonds like it wasn't his family, but someone from "a family close to Saddam". I do wonder if they owned the land where his hidey-hole was at?

Re:$1 million from Bruce?

[zakkie]

What a dickhead. Fuck.

Linux comes through again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the coalition troops were using Linux, this agains shows the superiority of this OS. Down with Microsoft! Down with Darl !

Re:Linux comes through again!

[Viking of the north]

I can't see how you get this to be a victory for linux. I think one of the thing we can be sure of is that Sadam is not using Microsoft windows.

Re:Linux comes through again!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't see how you get this to be a victory for linux. I think one of the thing we can be sure of is that Sadam is not using Microsoft windows.

He used to use Windows, which in part why he was arrested! :)

where's Katz?

[Anonymous Coward]

He needs to drop another article about how the people of Iraq are digging up their C-64's from under their livestock and sending emails of freedom!

This should boost Bush's popularity

[Anonymous Coward]

Now only if they could find the WMD's...

I'm still voting against Bush though.

(Posting anonymously because first posters get rated way too disproportionately high)

Mail sympathies or get well emails

[Anonymous Coward]

to saddamhussein@aljazeera.com

I'm sure he'll appreciate them

when he can get back to his email

Re:Mail sympathies or get well emails

[Anonymous Coward]

As a patriotic American you no doubt want to have a dig at this "terrorist news organisation" named "Al Jazeera", which is bad because Uncle Rummy said so. Unfortunately it backfired, since due to the incredible ignorance so frequently shown by patriotic Americans like you, you got the wrong domain. The correct domain is aljazeera.net. You sir, give the Americans a bad name. Shame on you.

Big Deal.

[Hektor_Troy]

This is news that matters? To whom? Us? How? My world doesn't change, just because he's captured. Not one bit.

Well, actually it does. It means that just about every channel is going to cancel their programs to tell us time and time and time again, that "this dictator was a threat to world peace, and killed puppies for fun".

'scuse me while I yaw.

Re:Big Deal.

[Down8]

Loss of TV does suck, but he was a BadManTM, and this deserves coverage.

-bZj

Re:Big Deal.

[mdvb747]

I'm sorry you're personally offended. You stupid. I don't get it? You went a head and took the time to tell eveybody just how much it isn't going to change you're life. Ok. GREAT! WE ALL CARE. NO. not one of us. sorry. On this note, does Powerpoint effect your life? Does a movie review effect your life? Oh well, i guess it's like talking to a wall. It would be nice if you'd understand, that maybe you don't care now about what's going on in the _World_, IT REALLY DOES MATTER. It will effect everyone's life. Everything of this scale (a major dictator being captured after harboring terrorism, etc.) effects peoples life.

first psot

[Anonymous Coward]

forst psot

Well, I'll be the first to say an own-ism:

[fyrewulff]

Saddam got saddowned.

Alright, work with me here :(

Re:Well, I'll be the first to say an own-ism:

[The One KEA]

Image: http://pcmunkey.net/h1/saddowned.jpg

This Is A Great Day

[USAPatriot]

for Iraq, the Middle East, and the rest of the world. Hopefully, this will mark the end of the previous regime and continue toward a brighter future.

Congratulations to the forces who made this possible.

This is another reason why I am proud to be an American.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[tomstdenis]

Totally forgetting the whole "war crime" bit eh? Also while the US does do a lot of good in the world you guys seem to always "innocently" forget to think about the fact that many many other nations contribute lives [which you have a habit of taking, fucking american pilots], money, supplies, time. Canada for instance has been a supporter of *peace keeping* efforts all over the world. So has france, germany and russia [countries the US tends to downplay].

Just because we don't invade foreign nations to get votes doesn't mean we don't contribute [in a positive manner]

Well as long as you fucking yuppies don't think Paul Martin is hiding WMDs under parliment or something we're all good.

Tom

Re:This Is A Great Day

[silverbax]

This hasn't solved anything. There are 1000's of Saddam wannabes ready to take over as soon as the U.S. pulls out, and now they really do have a reason to torrorize us.

What a joke. It pains me that we, as a nation, can be this gullible for this long.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Anonymous Coward]

How sad to see another delusional "Proud American" that's completely clueless about what's really happening in Iraq... Just look at the shit that you guys have left in Afghanistan...

Re:This Is A Great Day

[SalsaFrontier]

The world hates America. Trust me, they do.
If I were an American I would have long since moved out of that place.
The USA needs to quit bullying the world. You American's are not as "great" as you all seem to think. As a whole, mind you, I'm not talking about individuals, I'm sure there's lots of great American people, but the way your country is run makes me very worried as to how far your government will go in the name of "national security" which is just another word(s) for "oppression"

I, for one, hate the United States of America.
(mod me however you like)

Re:This Is A Great Day

[dialsoft]

The US is as great as we think. nothing can ever convince me that we were wrong to take out Sadaam. Sadaam and his government killed people for fun. Name one government that is better than the US government and name why.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[presearch]

There are 1000's of Saddam wannabes...

And it's coming to Fox this January!!!! Iraqi Idol!

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Liebre]

Woot! You must be one of the 70% USA congressmen that don't have a passport because they have never been out of their beloved land... mmmmmm... The big capitals telling the US government what to do to keep all of you fat and happy so you can consume more and more and more ad infinitum.
Yes, Saddam is a bad guy, like thousands more. He just happened to be in the way of the capitals.. woot!

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, why bother replying to punkass third-worlders like the grandparent? He "hates America", in his own words. Nobody ever picks on Number 2. We're Number 1, and those can't win, place, or show will just have to be content heckling from the stands.

I don't know about you, but I don't have time to "hate" anything. Hate ain't worth the energy. Now, disdain, sure.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[gustgr]

get a hold on my banana fucking american ... your country explores all the world ... a whole fucking continet is dying for AIDS ... fucking bush redneck is manipulating your worm's little blue and white mind ... give me a break ... i CAN say that I AM PROUD TO BE BRAZILIAN ... when all the rest of the world would be lacking water I'll be pissing on the amazon river :D

Re:This Is A Great Day

[u-238]

Laugh out loud, you make me even more proud to be american than those hippie street protesters in the UK

Re:This Is A Great Day

[gustgr]

what UK have to do with that conversation ? The only good and worth thing UK have produced the last 500 years were the beatles and bee gees...

Re:This Is A Great Day

[love2hateMS]

Your hateful anti-U.S. attitude aside, let me be the first to recognize the incredible support and sacrifice made by our allies in this war.

Thank God for Britain and Spain, along with the 30+ other countries that have the backbone to take a stand against terrorism and torture.

--
France sucks cheese

Re:This Is A Great Day

[nyseal]

Wow, that was insightful; you really impacted my thought process. I think I'll move to Iraq....it HAS to be better there, obviously.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[love2hateMS]

Bush pledged 15 BILLION DOLLARS to fight AIDS in Africa, you racist.

How much did Europe pledge? ZERO!!!!!!!

ZERO from EUROPE. ZERO FROM FRANCE!

Any money from Brazil?

Re:This Is A Great Day

[gustgr]

ohh .. and I forgot ... at least the inheir of my kingdom isn't a fag [prince harry] who like a banana in his ass ...

Re:This Is A Great Day

[gustgr]

any money from brazil ? last year brazil used 63% of our exporting money to pay the fucking US jews ... but don't worry, I don't hate you and I only have pity because I know you are have a manipulated american mind ... well, this is life. You should visit Brazil for about one or two months ... you would see the face of the truth. While 260 milions americans are swimming in money and have a dream life about 4 bilions people are starving. Great job man ... that's a good reason to be proud. But don't worry, the great empire of Rome had falled down and the German 1000 years Reich had falled too ... I want to be alive to see US falling down. This will be the best day of my life.

Regards

Re:This Is A Great Day

[vadim_t]

One? There are many.

Why? Because they don't try to be the damn world police. Face it, there was no reason to attack Saddam. First the excuse was 9/11. But oops, that wasn't it. Then it was the the missiles, but oops! he didn't have any after all. No, finally the reason was that he's evil.

No country is perfect, and the US should look at its own faults before trying to "fix" what's wrong in other places. Let's see, what country calls itself the "land of the free" while allows putting people in prison without judging them first? What country applies the death penalty to teenagers and people with obvious mental problems? The US is quicky becoming not much better than the dictators it tries to "liberate" other countries from.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Bruce J L]

Jews? Bananas ? Amazon Piss Water? I would love to visit the slums of Rio, I think one of the top 5 polluted cites in the world would be fun to visit. I see resentment because a country which you see as evil has a higher standard of living than your own. The Roman empire lasted for a thousand years, the US has been a country for 227 years. How long has Brazil been a country? And you can believe me when I say. The day the US falls in battle will be the last day of your life, because if you think the US will fall down and not take a few countries with it is sadly mistaken. Are you trying to get the US to attack Brazil? Maybe then we would forgive your 227 Billion in foriegn debt. Maybe then we would invest in your economy? Anyone who thinks the US isnt pumping tons of money into Iraq isn't paying attention. And while you may say that the US will get its money from oil, why shouldnt it. If I fix your dirt road and build you a house that isn't made of mud shouldnt I be paid back?

Re:This Is A Great Day

[MisterMook]

Obviously it has to be, if you're on the short list of companies owned by Cabinet members, Congress, and the President and Vice President. If there's nothing we want there, including mythical WMDs, then what the fuck are we there for? Just as an exercise to see how many 18 year old GIs we can lose each week while keeping the President popular in the polls?

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Anonymous Coward]

US isnt pumping tons of money into Iraq isn't paying attention

So wrong. Bush is pouring that money into the military contractors wallet. A contractor that happens to be one of his best friends.

It's a clever scam to take all of the American tax money and funnel into your friends bank account.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[andy1307]

You are confusing envy with hatred. Sure most people outside the US thinks America is arrogant and has double standards...but MOST people in the world aren't about to hijack a plane and fly it into an American building full of civilians. Speaking as someone who wasn't born in America, i think America isn't perfect but i'm glad America is the strongest country in the world as opposed to Russia/Britain/China/France/Germany etc etc.

There is a middle ground between "Rah rah America" and "great Satan"..And most people in the world are closer to the "rah-rah America" than "great satan"..they prove that everytime they dress like American teenagers, watch American movies and television..

Re:This Is A Great Day

[andy1307]

i CAN say that I AM PROUD TO BE BRAZILIAN

As you should be...And the guy who says he is proud to be American is right too...You don't stop loving your mother just because she makes a real bad lasangna..

Re:This Is A Great Day

[love2hateMS]

The U.S. citizens EARNED OUR SUCCESS with our blood and sweat. Our ancestors came from all around the world, fleeing oppression, religious hatred (like your anti-semitism), and poverty.

My mother lived in absolute poverty growing up. She worked THREE JOBS to pull my family out of poverty. The U.S. is the hardest working country in the world. We have the least vacation and the highest productivity. We work. We give a larger percentage of our personal income to charity then any industrialized country in the world.

Your comment about Jews just proves you are a racist. Fix your own government before you blame mine for its corruption and incompetence. If your country can't make good business decisions, blame yourselves not the entire Jewish race.

Pathetic. Do you blame all your problems on the Jews?

Re:This Is A Great Day

[tomstdenis]

Yeah too bad countries like Canada already pledged $230M US to the Iraqi effort, has already sent troops to Afghanistan, Somalia, [etc]. Oh yeah, the US is the *only* country doing things...

Man you guys are so full of yourselves its funny. I mean you guys can't possibly watch things like NBC or CNN and believe it? right?

As for terrorism and torture... last I checked the US was not exactly a good model of a free and democratic society. I mean Bush wasn't elected and all. And you can't argue that the DMCA, Patriot ACT [etc] are to help the mass citizens and not just cater to SIGs. Or the fact that the US has the largest stock pile of WMDs in the world, contributes the majority of global pollution [well Canada isn't much better...] and generally walks wherever it wants [spy plane in China].

While most Americans are friendly kind folk your politics and world appearance leave a lot to be desired.

Tom

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you f*cking Jew, that's right, I bet you live in New York. You have no idea how I was glad when those ppl destroyed those two horroble towers. I only hope that a lot of jews died in that "terrible attack". And yes, we can blame the Jews for a lot of problems in the world. For instance, what about the Jews exploring the Diamonds in Africa. Are the africans receiving something for it ? I bet it isn't. What about the poverty that is around the middle east ? JEWS ! Those fucking liers. I hope each and everyone of the Jews in the world die.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[love2hateMS]

230 Million? Million? That's pennies. That is nothing.

The DMCA has nothing to do with terrorism-- it is an abomination and but it was hardly the brainchild of the Defense Department. Hello? Do you read?

If you noticed I specifically thanked the other countries who had the integrity to support the Iraq effort.

230 million.. what a joke.

Don't get me wrong, Canada has mostly been a great neighbor and ally to the U.S. over the years.. but 230 million? *laugh*

Re:This Is A Great Day

[plumby]

Stand against torture? Tell that to the people in Guantanamo bay.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[tomstdenis]

Considering we have 1/10th the population and didn't agree with the war in the first place I'd say you guys ought to be thankful you got anything at all.

Also I wouldn't brag about spending so much money. Afterall, Canada is the one with the social heath care [which for all it's faults is very useful]. And it isn't as if your schools are rolling in the "this decade" textbooks, computers or curriculum [a problem Canada also has].

So having the US shell out billions upon billions of dollars to fund an illegitimate war isn't that impressive.

And what does the DMCA have todo with terrorism? Last time I checked terroism doesn't have to involve some sand jawas with a turban and an AK-47. As a cryptographer I find a government that wants to step in an make my legitimate work illegal... well "terrifying".

Tom

Re:This Is A Great Day

[andy1307]

You must be one of the 70% USA congressmen that don't have a passport because they have never been out of their beloved land...

Have YOU travelled to Iraq?

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, how about Brazil curing AIDS? How about Brazil bringing peace to North and South Korea? Or China and Taiwan? Or bringing democracy to Afgahnistan? How about Brazil doing ANYTHING except bitch and cry that the U.S. doesn't solve all the worlds problems?

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a sad, sad, little boy. So full of hate and envy.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[silverbax]

I have to smile at that one :)

Re:This Is A Great Day

[SnowZero]

No! There can be no middle ground! This is Slashdot; How dare you not pick one extreme!

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Anonymous Coward]

what is your obsession with bananas? Oh wait, I probably don't want to know.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[love2hateMS]

Socialized health care? HAH!

One of my best friend's sister, a lady I knew quite well, DIED waiting for an appointment with a cancer specialist up there. SIX MONTH WAIT, she died before she even got examined. After the autopsy they realized she would have lived if they had examined her sooner, because she didn't have cancer, she had a treatable stomach problem.

Her husband, a medical DOCTOR and senior member your government health care agency (I forget what it is called) got so fed up with the health care system he moved to the U.S.A. to practice medicine.

Don't brag about your health care system. It kills people.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[tomstdenis]

Um I call bullshit. While there are long waits in hospitals they don't turn people away. When I had an anxiety attack [never had one before, I didn't know what it was.... shut up!] they saw me in under an hour [took about 40 mins].

My friend just recently had some blood pressure problems. They saw him in two hours.

Just last year my mother had a cyst removed. Took only a month or so from diagnosis to surgery.

So really I call bullshit. No way she had a six month delay unless

a. She failed to show up for delays [they hate that]

b. Failed to provide accurate help [e.g. help the doctor diagnose it]

c. Required something rare [bone marrow, transplant, etc...]

But just to have a doctor look at it... that's usually under a week even with specialists...

Tom

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Anonymous Coward]

...30+ other countries who don't have the backbone to risk losing their chances of the favorable trading deals that are handed out as incentives to "our very best friends".

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your polling is in error, or digital.

Most people in the world are thinking America the Great Satan. Lying to start aggressive attack on sovereign nation, 1.5 million people dead, some 30 000 civilians dead, Israel having 200 secretly developed nukes, which they have used to threaten Europe with, and all thanks to Americans.

Same goes to the anti-torture treaty, Kyoto protocol for climate protection, environment protection, whale protection, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on about a mile and a half with very small print.

Don't you american's read?

Re:This Is A Great Day

[love2hateMS]

I am not kidding here. This woman had to wait six months and by then it was too late. I knew her personally and am very close with her sister. I WATCHED HER DIE. This family was native Canadian, and their parents still live there. My friend and her husband a bigwig doctor moved to the U.S. because he was so disgusted with the health care system.

Call bulls**t all you want, but this is very personal to me and you are wrong.

Re:This Is A Great Day

[Froug]

I'm also Canadian and have never had to wait exorbitant lengths of time in the health care system, and neither has anyone I know. You are wrong.

You're either bullshitting, or this woman took too many detrimental actions (ie: not show up for appointments, refuse to stay in hospital under care when told to, etc).

Wow!

[hermango]

Now this is what I call a Christmas Present!!! Ole Saddam looks like a homeless critter, which he is! A fine comuppance for a major murdering sleazeball. I bet that George can't keep from smiling!

Obiously excited

[biet]

"Saddam Hissen was arrested"

Do yoi inderstand ?

So much for that theory...

[Radix37]

You mean they didn't capture him months ago and keep it covered up to be revealed just before election next year? So much for the conspiracy theorists.

Wonderful, Simply Wonderful

[Kajin_X]

Simply wonderful. A scapegoat for the Bush administration to parade around. Does anybody actually think this will do anything to help the situation over there? My Prediction: We sentence him to "Capital Punishment" and turn a bloody tyrant into a martyr for the cause... (think Charles I of England)

Re:Wonderful, Simply Wonderful

[kir]

WOW. That was quick. You're already spouting the NEW party line.

First you complained about the U.S. NOT catching him. Now that they've caught him, you're complaining his capture is just a scapegoat for the Bush administration and that he'll be turned into a martyr. Amazing.

This is good news. How the fuck could anyone twist into a negative. You fucking people amaze me.

Re:Wonderful, Simply Wonderful

[NoseSocks]

Well, now at least the Iraqi people will say what is really on their mind (whether pro or anti-American) because they do not have to fear what Saddam will do to them when we pull out of Iraq (again). No matter what negative way you spin it, Saddam was a bloody tyrant, and he will only be a "martyr" in the eyes of those who are too blind to see otherwise.

Disclaimer: I am not saying that invading Iraq to get rid of this guy was the right thing to do...far from it... but if you are going to invade Iraq with the mindset to remove Saddam, at least get the job done.

Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate?

[Faust7]

Considering the crimes Saddam Hussein has committed against people of several countries, would it not be logical for his ultimate trial to be held in the form of an international war crimes tribunal, a la Nuremberg?

Will the newly-established Iraqi government, or perhaps the U.S. itself, take steps to prevent such an event from occurring?

I foresee international tensions rising from their already heightened point over this matter.

Bush

[danimrich]

I hope this doesn't mean George will win the elections again!

Re:Bush

[qwertyatwork]

Again?

Re:Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

Link

Re:Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

Again?

I guess it's debatable whether or not he actually won the elections the first time... however, with Diebold voting machines, he's guaranteed to come through again with a 110% majority.

Re:Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that GW is next for his lies to the US people.

Re:Bush

[JFMulder]

You mean he won the first time? ;)

Re:Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

The hatred for Bush seems to blind them from seeing past anything else.

Prove it.

Re:Bush

[dcw3]

This is Insightful??? Weather you're pro or anti-Bush, this is not Insightful.

For those who want to spin this great news one way or the other, you should be ashamed of yourselves. It's wonderful for the Iraqi people, and that's that. Hopefully, we'll capture Bin Laden soon too.

Re:Bush

[Alomex]

This is yet another example of how deranged the Bush-haters are.

Do the words "large federal budget fiscal deficit" and "assault on constitutionally protected individual freedoms" still have any meaning to the radical right?

I still remember the times when they did.

Re:Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course he will. Aren't you looking forward to giving up more of your privacy and freedom for fighting terrorism? And at the same time feeling proud of it all? That's what America is all about!

Re:Bush

[Grummet]

You must not be reading slashdot very often. Regular readers like me know he is going to win because Diebold is going to hand him the votes. (negative votes for Mr. Gore was my favorite from all of those articles.)

Re:Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude.

I think you proved it by how you were moderated for the simple things you said.

Never underestimate the unreasoned hatred held by the Angry Left.

Saddam is fully deposed, captured, and about to stand trial by his own people. Can you say that this is a good thing without being negative? I can.

Hooray for the capture of a genocidal tyrant!

Re:Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

I am really glad that Saddam has been captured; however, it is entirely natural for anti-war protestors to have reservations about it. This is going to be a large boost to the Bush reelection campaign and like so many things American - it's entirely empty.

Capturing Saddam does not negate the fact that the war was unjust. Saddam was not linked to 9/11. The United States supplied no proof (even remotely conclusive) that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (post-2002, I know how Bush supporters think). Saddam was not an immenient threat to the United States or surrounding countries.

It also does not change how Bush has completely screwed the environment: Kyoto, removing greenhouse gasses as a pollutant, tax breaks for expensive SUV owners, "Healthy Forests" initiative, "Clean Skies" initiative. Bush is a total corporate whore, which is something that affects the everyone.

Bush has totally screwed up international relations between the United States and the World. Instead of fostering cooperation, he seems to do everything to tear down cooperation with NATO allies and the UN. The US had incredible support and sympathy after 9/11. Yet we have now lost it all.

Plus, every time Bush talks about the danger of Saddam and his WMDs, very few people mention North Korea: a country with an active nuclear weapons program, the materials for several nuclear bombs, and has stated its intention to build one.

The real problem this event will completely overshadow many more troubling events that affect people directly. Stop listening to the soundbite and really LISTEN to the entire story.

Re:Bush

[Glock27]

I hope this doesn't mean George will win the elections again!

Heh, he would have won (IMO) without this. Now, barring total disaster, the next election will be a "slam dunk".

The fact that the economy is now turning around was already taking away the Democrat's last real issue against Dubya. ;-)

Re:Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the story about him hiding in a hole?

Oh and by North Korea you mean the country we have been trying to negotiate with for quite a while now?

Re:Bush

[Jesrad]

It's a shame Iraqi don't get to vote in November 2004 US Presidential Election, hmm ?

Re:Bush

[Jesrad]

Wishful thinking. There's no way the Iraqi are not going to reelect Bush in 2004 now ! He did so much for them !

Re:Bush

[El_Ge_Ex]

I hope this doesn't mean George will win the elections again!

You know, I try to think positively when a complete a$$hole gets elected and runs the world into the ground. For instance:

France fully admits that they don't like the US being the only superpower left and they'll do anything within reason to run them down out of that status.

Bill Clinton was a great politican, probably one of the best you'll ever see, but a horrible president. He figured out every area he had controll over and manipulated to his and his parties gain. Democrats hate Bush's fundraising now, but Bush learned how to do it from Clinton.

Sometimes, you need major shifts in policy, if only to keep society from going astray. As much as we loved the dot-com bubble, we all knew it was only a matter of time that it would burst. The same can be said for social and foreign policy. We can only ignore it for so long before it hits us hard and we _have_ to react.

-B

Re:Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

read some basic civics, dumbass.

Re:Bush

[cheeser]

Actually, yes he did.

Re:Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes he did. In case you liberal sheep still haven't gotten over the 2000 election, George W. Bush won the Presidency. We all know Al Gore won the popular vote, but according to the U.S. Constitution, it's the electoral college that elects the President. Bush won the electoral vote, he's the President.

So shut the fuck up.

Re:FP IN 100 comment topic

[Julian Tosh]

I just want to say I'm disappointed that I didnt see it on drugereport first!

Why should we care

[snkmoorthy]

This is absurd, I don't know why /. even bothered reporting this story.

Cellmates

[objekt]

http://www.worth1000.com/web/media/5549/SC.jpg

not killed ?

[clarkie.mg]

I thought that kind of guy would never be arrested but fight until dead or suicide himself like hitler inn Berlin in 1945.

But maybe it's a dupe, I mean an actor don't know how you call it.

Re:not killed ?

[snkmoorthy]

Who told you Hitler commited suicide? Did the allies recover his body?

Re:not killed ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If he actually believed in everything he always said, instead of just getting everyone else to do the work for him, he would have killed himself and made himself a martyr

show trial time!

[alan_d_post]

Time for a Soviet-Russia-style show trial, in which Hussein admits *he* personally destroyed the Trade Center!

Re:show trial time!

[gedeco]

I you choose Darl mcBride as the judge, you will have such a trial.

Re:show trial time!

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, Trade Center destroys YOU!

So Obvious

[Squideye]

He was wearing a red-striped sweater and toque, hiding in a crowd of people. Luckily we had a 7-year-old kid with us. ....no, no, no. Well, at least there is no longer the excuse that Hussein is loose. If the attacks continue -- if this effort to suppress and dominate Iraq by US forces still meets with resistance -- there's not a lot of recourse anymore.

For any of those...

[mgcsinc]

For any of those who think this whole story is offtopic, just rememeber that for many this is basically the only place they get news, and someone had to let them know.

Re:For any of those...

[Anonymous Coward]

ok it's modded funny. But aside from the TV my family sometimes watch, that's basically it.

Re:For any of those...

[G27 Radio]

I would've eventually seen it on the Daily Show. It's good to have more than one source for your news!

Re:For any of those...

[SurgeonGeneral]

For any of those who think this whole story is offtopic, just rememeber that for many this is basically the only place they get news, and someone had to let them know.

This comment has been moderated as "Funny", but I dont see why. Its an astute observation.

I fail to see what other alternatives are out there for me.

First of all, I dont order the newspaper to my house, however even if I did, its sunday.

Secondly, I do not trust any news sources like CNN, NBC, and ABC, and unfortunately these are the only televised news broadcasts in North America (I wonder why?). I would never "watch" the news on television. I take offence to the manipulative, thinnly vieled attempts to frame stories according to a few certain principles, which the U.S. Government has endorsed. To be oblivious to their alterior motives and hidden intentions is far, far below my level of intelligence. These news broadcasts (online or on television) are insulting and socially degenerative.

Finally, Slashdot.com is my homepage, and its one of the first things I see in the morning, after I'm done booting up. I'm sure many others are the same way.

So laugh away guys, but at least I'm not having my brain washed by "the powers that be".

Re:For any of those...

[jelle]

I'm very sad that especially recently, this forum is more and more becoming a place to formulate angry responses riddled with unnecessary personal insults. Especially, because the people writing the worst insults are probably sugarsweet in real life, for fear of being put in their place for their childish behaviour.

Re:For any of those...

[Anonymous Coward]

From the parent: I was actually surprised to see a Funny mod, I was being quite serious.

Re:For any of those...

[Anonymous Coward]

That would make them one step above me. I found out about it on a Morning Musume website.

Re:For any of those...

[sootman]

First of all, I dont order the newspaper to my house, however even if I did, its sunday.

Um, you never heard of the Sunday Paper? As it happens, that's the *only* one I get delivered to my house--because it has all the ads. As it happens, this *is* where I first heard about the arrest--my wife went through the paper and brought me all the good ads (circuit city, best buy, compusa, etc.) so I didn't even see the paper itself. Don't know if this happened this morning or last night, but for all I know he's on the front page. My wife just gets my ads and hers (target, pier 1, etc.) and gives the rest to the neighbors.

Re:For any of those...

[SurgeonGeneral]

Dont try to pretend like you are not aware of the fact that most newspapers dont serve their papers on Sunday.

Re:For any of those...

[sootman]

I've only lived in large cities, but honestly, no, I've never known life without "the sunday paper." Not trolling or making fun of you, but where do you live where they don't make a big thick paper on Sundays?

In any case, check the friday or saturday paper for ads, or go to the stores themselves--they usually have stacks of the week's sales flyers (if they made on that week) right by the front door.

And in true Slashdot tradition...

[herko_cl]

We celebrate it with...
"...reporting that Saddam Hissein..."
Spelling errors!

Re:And in true Slashdot tradition...

[LiquidCoooled]

Following the tradition, we will hear about this Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day.......

Re:And in true Slashdot tradition...

[Pflipp]

I, for one, welcome our new American overlords! ...now THAT would be in true Slashdot tradition!! :-)

Re:And in true Slashdot tradition...

[Anonymous Coward]

We celebrate it with...
"...reporting that Saddam Hissein..."
Spelling errors!

Seeing how his name is in Arabic, it's phonetic anyway. There really isn't a "correct" way to spell Arabic words in English; the "correct" spelling of Saddam's name is a jumble of Arabic characters that is unintelligible to most English speakers.

Thread: place yer bets

[whovian]

US stock markets surge Monday.

The US detains Saddam indefinitely to prevent Iraqis from assassinating him.

Bush gets re-elected.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[nacturation]

Shares of Rumsfeld's Haliburton surges over 30% as more government-subsidized exclusive contracts come flooding in.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[Anonymous Coward]

chaney's haliburton not rumsfeld

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[Peyna]

Not close enough to the election to have too much effect on Mr. Bush. It might improve his poll rankings for a little while, but unless Osama Bin Laden is captured within a month of the election, I wouldn't worry too much.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[raind]

Yeah the market will probably surge on monday, hope that translates into a job for me!
God help us if dubya gets in again....sure doesn't look promising so far.

New slashdot poll? who you gonna vote for in 04?

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[kir]

Rumsfeld's Halliburton???

When scrambling to get off a needless jab at the Bush administration, you should slow down and actually read what you're typing.

Dumbass.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[whovian]

Yeah ok. Still, I just think the Republicans will do everything they can to use and extend Hussein's capture as a plank in their political platform. Osama being captured will probably incite a mass euphoria.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[RocketScientist]

Directly, you're right, this doesn't effect the election much.

Indirectly, I think many parts of the U.S. economy have been holding their breath to see how the war turns out. This will be seen as the-beginning-of-the-end for that war, and I think the economy will start to pick up momentum from here, which for better or worse will help the Bush re-election. Uncertainty is the bane of an economy, and a certain amount of uncertainty just went away.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[AlgUSF]

George W Bush

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[RocketScientist]

Sorry, way OT response....but I love your .sig.

rs.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[gludington]

New slashdot poll? who you gonna vote for in 04?

Do you really want to see President CowboyNeal?

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[artemis67]

Bush gets re-elected.

WOOO HOOOOOOO!!!! YEAH, BABY!!!!!

Actually, it's going to be funny to watch the response of the Democratic candidates. Just last week, Al Gore started speaking out against Iraq, and Howard Dean and Weslesy Clark have been outspoken opponents.

Granted, we still have out work cut out for us over there, but as far as the American public is concerned, this is a significant milestone.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[Jagasian]

Elections are determined by the state of the economy, and whether or not people have jobs. The stock market going up is nice, but not if people aren't getting good paying jobs. If everyone is becoming a wage slave, then Bush will not get reelected.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[tandr]

Bush gets re-elected. ... and then stock markets will tank big way...

ps. sorry, couldn't resist.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point I'd vote for a turnip as long as it was running against GWB.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[blair1q]

>US stock markets surge Monday.

A lock. Dolla.

>The US detains Saddam indefinitely to prevent Iraqis from assassinating him.

Two dolla.

>Bush gets re-elected.

Fitty dolla. Against.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[slutdot]

>Bush gets re-elected.

Fitty dolla. Against.

I'll take that bet and give you two to one odds...four to one if Dean is the candidate.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[blair1q]

If you're looking at the "Bush vs. ____" polls before the Democrats have selected a nominee, then I'll give you 8:1.

I love a sucker.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point I'd vote for a turnip as long as it was running against GWB.

Then you're in luck!

Seriously though, I'm a democrat and am very dissapointed by what my party offered last time, and seemingly will this time around.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[Enucite]

So because they captured Hussein, that validates the invasion of Iraq?

I'm not sure I follow your logic.

The Iraq invasion was based on false pretenses and always has been and will continue to be a bad idea. It is good that they captured Hussein, but that doesn't change the fact that the invasion wasn't a good idea.

Why would Democratic candidates have anything to respond to? The only point that can no longer be made is "we still haven't found Hussein", all others remain true.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[kabrakan]

Yeah, this is a great publicity stunt for re-election. What makes you think this is the real saddam, and not a look-alike? Saddam is considered captured and thus is free to live the rest of his life, and Bush gets credibility for capturing the guy. I wanna see DNA evidence, pronto. Bush will do anything to get re-elected, and that is why we need more than 1/3 of the population to vote next fall to boot his ass out of office.

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha! It's a mistake, but most people including you know what he meant by it - and it was a good point, not a "needless jab" - your post however was a "needless jab against people criticizing Bush". You made a post even longer than the one you complained about, and STILL not found it in you to SIMPLY CORRECT WHAT WAS BEING MISSTATED. E.g. mention Cheney etc... stupid ad-hominem pure noise post.... thanks for playing, try again, and don't be so fucking obviously desperate next time, okay? Cheers!

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I keep forgetting which Bush official was going over and playing with Saddam. Rumsfeld, Cheney... can you see a difference?

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[raind]

oh for god's sake: do you get your news information from tv news? please get a REALITY CHECK at any of the following:

www.indymedia.org

www.bushflash.com

www.peterwerbe.com

PS: I voted with the majority.....

Re:Thread: place yer bets

[Anonymous Coward]

I voted with the majority.....

Two words: "electoral college".

Three words: Get over it

Four words: I'm voting for Bush

That took a while to get here.

[JFMulder]

It's been at least 3 hours since the news is out. Anyway, that's now what my post is about.

I'm really glad for the iraki people that this man has been captured. Finally, they'll be able to put him to trial for the atrocities he did (like releasing chemical weapons on his OWN populace in the 80s). He also did good things at the beginning, such as opening lots of schools and giving women access to education. I think we'll all agree though that the bad far outweights the good he did.

Now, what I'm worrying about are two things :
1) Bush will appoint american people on Saddam's trial. It's time to step down now Mr. Bush. Leave the iraki judge Saddam for the crimes he commited against them, and if they chose death penalty, or only to send him to prison, respect that choice.
2) As much as I hate Bush, I'm happy for him because at least he proved people wrong that they couldn't do this. What I'm afraid now is that american citizen will see him once again as a great ruler because of this single event and re-elect him next november. This has tremendous political implication for the president. Let's not forget that in his cases the bad far outweights the good, even though his bad decisions don't compare to Saddam's.

It is because of the One Ring

[Anonymous Coward]

Once Frodo dropped that ringy-ding into Mt Doom, it was all over for this Dark Lord. Things should calm down as the Easterling terrorists start to go home.

Re:It is because of the One Ring

[AndroidCat]

You wish! There's all the Mordor rebuilding to be done and installing a responsible government. And the political situation with Umbar is still unsettled, continuing problems with the Elvish homeland, Moria repatriation...

You think it just goes three books and bang, it's over?

At last he's captured!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about time! Geeze! It took long enough, didn't it? He's responsible so so much suffering bt millions of victims, but now they got him and he's facing a long prison term. Yeah, Stubberfield's career has finally ended.

Oh, And they nailed some guy in Iraq too.

(stolen from a nanae post by William R. James)

The important question

[iamatlas]

Does he run linux?

Re:The important question

[tomstdenis]

pfft... no. Gentoo. He's a real man...

kiddin....kiddin!

Re:The important question

[Anonymous Coward]

He had it made until he started using Kazaa in his "spider hole" to share copyrighted files, then the RIAA got him!

Re:The important question

[jarek]

My guess is he's running away from anything in a suit ... or tuxedo. The answer is probably no. /jarek

Re:The important question

[tomstdenis]

fuck I thought you mentioned a distro in your OP [to which the comment would apply].........

arrg..

Yeah I know gentoo is a linux distro...

fuck...

too early...

Re:The important question

[AndroidCat]

Definitely not Linux. When they pulled him out of his hole, Clippy was on his laptop screen: "I see you're trying to devise an escape plan..."

Re:The important question

[Anonymous Coward]

Does he run linux?

The news says he's "not on the run anymore".

Re:The important question

[tiggles]

Not yet, but we're modifying a Slackware distro to run on the 64-bit WMD's, and we have a complete browser that runs on an ancient C-4 canister.

The real prgress has been getting Debian to recognize the ports on Osama Bin Laden's Dialysis machine.

Re:The important question

[will_die]

He is evil. So he must run windows. ;)

Re:The important question

[ar1550]

Did you see the beard? He's definitely a kernel hacker.

Re:The important question

[Anonymous Coward]

Does he run linux?

No, he just tried to run away...

Re:The important question

[iamatlas]

Ah, now I see, That makes perfect sense then that he did not run away. This just shows that even evil former dictators can be baffled trying to turn off clippy. It would also explain his reportedly girlish screams upon seeing the paper clip attached to the doctors' clip boards as they examined him. That and the doctors' ice cold hands as they told him to "turn your head and cough"

Re:The important question

[AndroidCat]

You got it. All the news reports describe his state as confused. (No confirmation that he keeps muttering "Make it stop! Make it stop!")

Re:The important question

[Pathetic Coward]

No, but he did look like some sysadmins I've known ...

Re:The important question

[Gleng]

Can he play oggs?

Re: The important question

[Black Parrot]

> When they pulled him out of his hole, Clippy was on his laptop screen: "I see you're trying to devise an escape plan..."

No, that's just the politically correct version of the story released for public consumption.

What Clippy really said was "I see that you are shitting in your pants...".

Most interesting Technology story

[Brahmastra]

This has got to be the most interesting technology story of the year

Happy Iraqi independence day!

[e3wah]

What an awesome day. You should see the video and listen to the audio of the streets of Iraq. Its pandemonium over there! What's even more amazing is how he went out like the coward he was. After hiding in a whole, he litereally burried himself in a desperate effort to prevent himself from capture. Not such a terrible horror now, eh? Then again, I don't think even the stupidist of dictators would try anything staring down 600 coalition barrels...

Confirmation

[Anonymous Coward]

Paul Bremer and Tony Blair confirmed that Saddam was captured, the DNA tests proved his identity. It is not yet known whether he'll be handed over to Iraqis, but either way the trial will be public and Saddam will have the right to appoint his lawyers.

It remains to be seen whether his capture will escalate the attacks on Coalition forces (given the insurgency is not co-ordinated centrally, but by separate operational cells).

Congratulations

[draevil]

Stunning work - congratulations to the US military. Let's hope this helps to end the killing of innocents in Iraq by the terrorists/Ba'athists. Has there been an equivalent to this?

It's almost as if the Western allies had captured Hitler alive...

Re:Congratulations

[sethstorm]

Hardly stunning work. I'll save my congrats when the White House flies some oppressor's flag, through a major job of fscking the military over and over.

Fair trial?

[Blue Master]

The question now is: Will he get a fair trial? As far as I could make out from the news broadcast here (Norway), he will face a court specifically assigned to try the cases of members of the former regime. Now, this court was assigned by who, excactly? Let me guess, Americans? Wouldn't it be more fair to try him in the international court in Haag?

Re:Fair trial?

[mafelixs]

I absolutely agree that he should be tried in some internationally recognized court. If he gets tried in a court that even appears to be picked out by the coalition, chances are he'll just become a martyr and the guerillas loyal to him will continue their fights.

Re:Fair trial?

[CausticWindow]

This is outside the jurisdiction of the ICJ in Hague simply due to the age of the crimes. I think representatives of the ICJ have stated so themselves.

He will most likely be tried by an Iraqi court when such is established.

Re:Fair trial?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is these "guerillas" will stop playing chicken with 70-ton tanks in their Toyotas if Hussein is tried in an "internationally recognized court"?

Dude, I think they're a little too FUCKED UP to care whether he's tried in an IHOP or Footlocker.

Re:Fair trial?

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that like the only outcome of a fair trial is "not guilty". He will have a fair trial and he will be found guilty.

As long as the people handling the trial are Iraqi citizens, I have no complaint about any punsihment they give him.

Re:Fair trial?

[cheeser]

There's a tribunal being set up by the interim government in Iraq, not the Americans, and there's a war crimes tribunal in the Hague waiting for him as well.

Re:Fair trial?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course Saddam can never be tried. The Bush administration would prefer a world without the ICC, the world court, etc. Even if they did make an exception in this case, trying Saddam Hussein in one of these courts would give that international body a tremendous amount of authority and precendence, and this administration would be loathe to give any kind of perceived power to an international body <gasp>. Aside from that, no US court has the authority to try him, either.

But even if he were tried, any decent defense of him would embarass the hell out of the Bush coterie... half of them were members of the Reagan administration who tirelessly defended (and even aided) Saddam's brutal tactics during the 1980's. Did I have the right to gas the Kurds? Why not ask Donald Rumsfeld, who said in 1986 that... you get the picture.

I have a strong feeling that Saddam is going to be locked away and interrogated for a year or two, then conveniently some illness will befall him that will prevent the need for him to be tried.

Re:Fair trial?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't expect he will. In a fair trial where he gets to actually defend himself, he'd probably reveal a couple of juicy details of the US' involvement in the Iran-Iraq war. The US administration can't let the happen. It'll be just another show trial, a case of the victor dispensing his very own idea of justice over the defeated like it always has been after a war. The concept of "right and wrong" does not even get involved here.

Which is a shame - if there ever was a case for the international court, it should be Saddam Hussein!

Let the Bush Bashing begin

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this will get marked as flamebait, but it'll be interesting how many people will take this oppertunity, to rag on Bush. Which is sad, when they should be saying congartualions to the collation....

Re:Let the Bush Bashing begin

[presearch]

when they should be saying congartualions to the collation....

I don't think anyone will be saying that, and if they did, nobody would understand what they said.

Although this post does point out how articulate Bush's core supporters are.
It's like they have their own secret language.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[WildBeast]

Really he helped the terrorists who where trying to oust him? Interesting. Is he the one who provided them with boxcutters and plane tickets? Must've cost him an arm and a leg.

The resistance will continue, most of the guerilla fighters are against Saddam to begin with.

Everyone who disagrees with you should get out of the US? Yeah you truely espouse American values for sure. Sorry but most people in the US are smarter than you.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[tuxette]

We don't need you, nor do you deserve any of the benefits or freedoms that you get for living in MY country.

Benefits and freedoms? Like what? Homeland Security? The Patriot Act? What benefits and freedoms exactly?

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[Richard Allen]

Freedom is always a relative thing.
What country shall we compare with?
Name me a non 3rd world country, and I will list at least 2 (like you) things that I would not consider freedoms.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[Richard Allen]

Sorry but most people in the US are smarter than you.

Good point! (insert foot in mouth)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06 -poll-iraq_x.htm

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[sethstorm]

Let me guess, another graduate of the Govt School of Spin, or another Bush/Cheney/Haliburton/Pro-Israel fanatic. His death will only do the opposite, it'll incite them, it will strengthen them, it will make even more people support their cause. Thank you for starting another war that'll kill countless others while the real evil grows in the White House, and at the Pentagon.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[tuxette]

You really don't get it. Freedom may be a relative thing, but if it's something that is important , it's not something to be given up. Ever. Not in the name of "security," not in the name of "fight against terrorism," not for anything. You don't give up freedom to get freedom. It just does not work that way.

Americans willingly gave up lots of freedoms by letting Homeland Security and Patriot come into existence. Yes, all these freedoms Americans just love to brag about having. Apparently freedom is not that important to the American people, if they're OK with all the new limitations. So please stop bragging about all the freedoms you don't have.

And what have you people really gotten in return for giving up your freedoms anyways?

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[gerardrj]

...He also helped subsidize the terrorists that attacked this country...

What are you talking about? The US government (despite trying desperately to do so) has found absoloutly no evidence that Saddam or the Iraqi government ever funded or consorted with Al Queda or any other "terrorist" group.

On the other hand, we have plenty of evidence that Saudi Arabia HAS directly funded, armed, aided and abedded known terrorist leaders and groups. When do we invade Saudi Arabia?

The "pot shots" as you call them that I take at the US President are simply requests for factual information that makes his stated case. To date I have not seen that ANYTHING that Bush stated as a reason for illegally invading Iraq to be true (no weapons, no terrorist support, no intent to harm neigbors).

Bush lied, he is a cad and a coward. If you think otherwise, then please link to official government press releases/information that provides me with this information. NOT press releases that say they have the information, but the actual information.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans willingly gave up lots of freedoms

Lots? Okay, asswipe, list them one by one.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[Anonymous Coward]

To date I have not seen that ANYTHING that Bush stated as a reason for illegally invading Iraq to be true (no weapons, no terrorist support, no intent to harm neigbors).

Just because you choose to wear blinders does not mean the rest of us do. Open your fucking eyes, read the U.N. resolutions leading up to the war, and read the newspapers. Are you living in a cave with your buddy, Bin Laden?

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[soccerisgod]

Saddam was an sadistic, evil, insane, dictator that enjoyed killing masses of people when he was in a bad mood..

He sure is a ruthless man, but I doubt he did it because he's satan's best friend. I suppose he used the most "effective" means available to him when he killed off those insurgencies... if that's what you're refering to.

He also helped subsidize the terrorists that attacked this country, and others..

I don't want to spoil your ranting, but...where's the actual proof?

And blatantly claimed he hated the US ( and other nations ) He needed to be gone, at most any cost.

I hate your gov too..does that mean you gonna come and kill me?

For those of you that are just too f-ing short sided and must twist everything around to make it an attack on our leader and our country, I only have one thing to say to you: Get the hell out if you dislike it here so much. We don't need you, nor do you deserve any of the benefits or freedoms that you get for living in MY country.

Wow..I thought the US was the land of the free, where everyone could have their own opinion... Makes me wonder, you know. If many people in your country think that way - that you have no right to your own opinion - it's actually a scary idea that you people wish to export your "democracy" to other countries. Yes, you can have your own opinion - if it happens to match mine!

You scare me.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[Richard Allen]

The Patriot Act didn't take away any of my freedoms. It took away the freedom of terrorists. We had similar laws against drug dealers for many years, and we applied those towards terrorists.
You're believing the hype about our freedom being taken away. Believe me, I love freedom. It makes me want to revolt since the Supreme Court eroded our 1st Amendment right on Wednesday. But you've got to keep things in perspective.
Give specifics and we'll talk, but you are just ranting against the administration.
By the way, did you write your congressman about the McCain-Feingold bill eroding your freedom on Wednesday? Did you do anything? Did you support it? I'm guessing you supported it. (could be wrong) Do you get it?

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[heff]

I couldn't have said it better myself..

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[f0rt0r]

Too late. The Bush-bashing began before he was elected,and continued afterward.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[dtungsten]

How come it is an Evil Lie when Bush says it, but not when Clinton does? "Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons," Clinton said.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[gerardrj]

You've either responded to the wrong message, or your have completely failed to understand my point.

Simply STATING that Hussein must be "controlled" and unilaterally taking matters in to your own hands without any Constitutional basis or support of international law or concensus are two completely different things.

There is no crime in the former, and there is with the latter.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[demon]

You're deluding yourself if you really think the PATRIOT Act's expanded powers won't be (and haven't been) used outside the scope of terrorism. There have already been news stories about the use of those broad, sweeping powers in cases that have nothing whatsoever to do with "terrorism". Read the news, man. These limit _everyone's_ freedoms. Don't give me the "oh, they'll REALLY only use it against X" - the government and law enforcement will use it whenever they damn well please. They're just following our "great leader's" *cough* *cough* example, after all...

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[ChaosDiscord]

>For those of you that are just too f-ing short sided and must twist everything around to make it an attack on our leader and our country, I only have one thing to say to you: Get the hell out if you dislike it here so much. We don't need you, nor do you deserve any of the benefits or freedoms that you get for living in MY country.

It's my country too. Learn to fucking share.

Yes, I hate George W. Bush. I think he's a spineless fucking coward, an idiot, and a puppet. I think he's ruining OUR country.

But I'm not going to leave. I live the United States of American and I love my country. Leaving our country just because you hate its leader would be the easy, unpatriotic action. Instead I choose to remain, to do what I can do improve my country. That's patriotism. Our forefathers didn't decide that they hated England and moved somewhere else. They fought to improve things, even when it meant a revolution. Fortunately they instituted a democracy and a free press so we can fight to improve our country every day without needing to pull out our guns.

Big clue-by-four. Those thousands of protestors you occasionally hear about? Those aren't people who hate their country. They know perfectly well where the border is. No, those are patriots who fear that the country that they love is under attack from the inside and are working to defend it.

So sorry, we're not going anywhere. That you think this is a "agree or leave" situation shows that you have no fucking idea what this country is about. Since our forefathers are deceased, I'll be disgusted with you on their behalf.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[Shadowlore]

What are you talking about? The US government (despite trying desperately to do so) has found absoloutly no evidence that Saddam or the Iraqi government ever funded or consorted with Al Queda or any other "terrorist" group.


If you think otherwise, then please link to official government press releases/information
So you only buy it if the government says it??

There hav ebeen quite a number of sources stating that SH gave money to terrorists, and even concocted a group to attack the US. The reason it wasn't made a big deal in the news is because they failed pretty badly.

http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/iraq99 l. htm
http://www.worldthreats.com/middle_east/Conti nuati on.htm

The allegations and evidence of an Iraq-Al Queada connection predate Bush by several years. dating back to at least pre-1997 when classified memos were declassified that spoke of these connections.

Spain and checkoslavakia have provided evidence of a direct connection between Iraqi officials and the 9/11 terrorists.

Beyond al queda, SH/Iraq has indeed supported terrorism, ranging from paying "bounties" to families of suicide terrorists, to the aforementioned embassy bombing attempts.

Some links for you to peruse:
http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/ 030210fa_ fact
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2001/ht ml/102 49.htm
"Iraq provided bases to several terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), and the Abu Nidal organization (ANO). In 2001, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) raised its profile in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by carrying out successful terrorist attacks against Israeli targets. In recognition of the PFLP's growing role, an Iraqi Vice President met with former PFLP Secretary General Habbash in Baghdad in January 2001 and expressed continued Iraqi support for the intifadah. Also, in mid-September, a senior delegation from the PFLP met with an Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister. Baghdad also continued to host other Palestinian rejectionist groups, including the Arab Liberation Front, and the 15 May Organization.

Meanwhile, Czech police continued to provide protection to the Prague office of the US Government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which produces Radio Free Iraq programs and employs expatriate journalists. The police presence was augmented in 1999 and 2000, following reports that the Iraqi Intelligence Service might retaliate against RFE/RL for broadcasts critical of the Iraqi regime. As concerns over the facility's security mounted through 2000, the Czechs expelled an Iraqi intelligence officer in April 2001.

The Iraqi regime has not met a request from Riyadh for the extradition of two Saudis who had hijacked a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Baghdad in 2000. Disregarding its obligations under international law, the regime granted political asylum to the hijackers and gave them ample opportunity to voice their criticisms of alleged abuses by the Saudi Government in the Iraqi Government-controlled and international media."

This link does quite the job of documenting the various pieces of evidence:
http://www.hereticalideas.com/archives/ 000106.html

http://blog.draga.com/archives/000044.html

This one is a short and a bit cryptic one involving Russia:
http://www.bigpig.org/cgi-bin/pig.cgi?op= read&sid= 374

http://www.worldthreats.com/middle_east/iraq_ter ro r.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml? xml=/ne ws/2003/04/27/walq127.xml

Now you have the opporuntity to do some reasearch, to read that which you assert does not exist. Whether you do or not, is a mark of your character and honesty.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably, next. Iraqi oil isn't going to last forever.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[sethstorm]

Finally, someone who says it right, and hasnt been modbombed(twice in same article; makes you wonder if the pro-bush advocates are in Texas, the NE, or Florida for the most part). Well, if the govt thinks you can kill off Bush, agents come a'knocking down your door. If anything, Saddam could only at best provide financial backing - whether he gets killed off/captured, or lives as Castro does, he was the end of the line for his regime if he didnt deal with Kuwait properly.

The only proof the US would want to show you about the Sauds would be heavily redacted of truth.

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[Glock27]

Wow, all that and not even a +1 Informative.

Nice post! :-)

Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[js7a]

He will no longer serve as incentive for many of the 2bit terrorists to continue. His capture will take a lot of wind out of their 'cause'.

So much for that idea.

Apparently, you don't have to be dead to be a martyr these days, not with the CIA humiliating you on TV.

Information Minister

[Moth7]

Saddam has not been captured. He did not bury himself in a cellar. The infidels are committing suicide at the gates of the great fortress in which he resides >.

Re:Information Minister

[IM6100]

And SCO will be crushed, their first day in court.

YES, AND WE ARE ALL RELIEVED

[Anonymous Coward]

that some random sand-nigger dictator is captured, a person that was no threat to the USA is now detained, that his capture is purely symbolic and the typical American NASCAR-obsessed idiot will see as "victory".

What's your problem?

[illuminata]

This isn't normal Slashdot subject matter, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

1. Of course it's worth mentioning. I'd be surprised to hear somebody say that it wasn't.

2. Of course it's not normal SLashdot subject matter, tech news is (along with certain unrelated YRO stuff).

3. You have reported on this as well as other major world events.

So, CmdrTaco, why did you give little more than a couple of links and a snide comment about such a major event?

Re:What's your problem?

[illuminata]

On point #3, "on this" is in regards to the Iraqi situation as a whole to clarify.

Grammar whores, I apologize for the accidental capitalized L in point #2.

That should do it.

Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[Anonymous Coward]

The so-called "anti war movement" in the West is very pro-Saddam. They opposed efforts to get him out of power, or even dent his power. If the "anti-war" people had their way, Saddam would still be filling mass graves.

Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[hey!]

The so-called "anti war movement" in the West is very pro-Saddam. They opposed efforts to get him out of power, or even dent his power. If the "anti-war" people had their way, Saddam would still be filling mass graves.

This attitude really reminds me of working with my business partner.

Some years ago I introduced him to the term "opportunity cost". He immediately took it to mean the exact opposite of what it does. It is supposed to represent the lost revenue you get by going after a lesser opportunity when it interferes with pursuing a better one. He still thinks it is the opportunities you "lost" by not trying to do everything at once.

I was very anti-war and very anti-Sadaam at the same time, but for this reason. If there were nothing else on our agenda at the time, then by all means I would have supported taking Sadaam out. But after 9/11 we had a unique, once in a generation chance to unite the world in the pursuit of freedom and democracy. Now the action we've taken in the name of freedom and democracy have united freedom's opponents as never before and divided its proponents. This is to say nothing of Al Qaeda or North Korea.

I agree, Sadaam was evil. He should have been removed. But power has its limitations. You can't acheive everything at once. With patience and strategy, we could have removed him, at lower cost, not just in money but to our long term interests and to the interests of humanity at large. Granted, Iraqis would have unfairly borne the cost of Sadaam's regime for some months longer. It wouldn't have been fair to them. But we are now in a precarious and risky situation, and others may suffer if luck is not with us. It's not going to be fair to them either.

I'm glad he was taken out of power. I'm glad he was caught, and that he will be brought to justice. I am optimistic by by nature and continue to hope for the best. If Bush and America are very, very lucky, or if we begin to be a lot more skillful in our affairs, things may yet turn out brilliantly. However I think it was a very unwise course of action.

Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[the_2nd_coming]

you were not Anti-war then, you were just anti-"choosing to attack iraq when we have other things going on"

Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[NMerriam]

I pretty much agree with Hey!'s reasoning but most people (at least in the US) consider that to be anti-war. Note the number of people in this thread alone who assume that there is no third option in the question of "we should invade" vs "Saddam is a great leader".

Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[quacking duck]

Which goes straight back to the whole "you're either with us or against us" mentality that Bush advocated after the 9/11 attacks. I hate such black and white, simplistic thinking.

Thankfully shades of gray have been allowed to come out of hiding since then.

Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[Scrameustache]

I agree, Sadaam was evil. He should have been removed. But power has its limitations. You can't acheive everything at once. With patience and strategy, we could have removed him, at lower cost, not just in money but to our long term interests and to the interests of humanity at large. Granted, Iraqis would have unfairly borne the cost of Sadaam's regime for some months longer. It wouldn't have been fair to them.

Lets see...

They had the shit bombed out of them, they had their electricity cut out for months. Water cut out for months. Sewer system cut out for months (hold your breath, and enjoy your fun case of cholera!). Their hospitals ransacked while U.S. troops watched and joked. Their museums pillaged while U.S. troops smoked their cigarettes next to the doors. Their police disbanded, letting all manners of criminals run loose for months.

Saddam was bad, but no hospitals, no police, no electricity, bombs, and no hospitals is worse.

Sure, the whole thing will eventually be rebuilt, but in the meantime they have a major case of terrorism goin on, killing them on a semi-daily basis.

Things are not much better now...they might be worse. There's a promise that it will get better, but now its worse.

Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[hey!]

Being an absolute pacifist is too strong a condition to qualify as "antiwar".

In my view war is fundamentally brutal and unfair. Not only do civilians suffer and die, but at its most basic, war comes down to a man taking a gun and slaughtering another man he has never met, because a politician told him he must. For this reason I don't accept that a war can be justified by its intent alone: the alternatives and their likely outcomes have to measured against it with a sober and critical eye.

Maybe this viewpoint doesn't meet some "antiwar" litmus test, but it doesn't alter my contempt for the officials who were so drunk with power that they thought they could sanitize war. The Iraq war was as "clean" as war is ever likely to get, but it was still bad enough.

Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[Anonymous Coward]

...a fine idea. But this seems rather cold? Do you sacrifice the tens, even hundreds of thousands that die in Iraq? Is that an acceptable cost for rhetoric? How often have you seen the UN jump into action without being dragged by the US first? Yugoslavia? Somalia? The first Gulf War?

The fact is, the UN does absolutely nothing. There are too many factions with differing goals to have a body that seeks to right wrongs. Will China back the US to invade a country over civil rights abuses all the while its killing Tibetans?

Its silly to think that the world will ever be united as you suggest was possible. What horrible incident occurred that lost America it's sympathy? Taking action on bettering the world? How horrendous! Do you think the UN would have taken some other action elsewhere in the world, had we not taken this one? No.

What I want for one anti-war protester to say to me is that Iraq will NOT be a better place a generation from now than it was before the US invaded. Then I'll know for sure just how much of a brainless demagogue they are.

For all the cries of evil oppressive Bush, show me even one bit of evidence that Iraq will be a MORE oppressive place post-Saddam.

They worry about the unilateral actions of Bush, but care not one bit about Saddam's. They care more about the sovereignty of a rogue nation than the human rights of it's people. America is evil because we take action against the worst human since Hitler, yet Bush is the bad man.

You may care to be the winner of the Mr. Congeniality Award, but I prefer taking action to MAKE the world a better place, even if we have to drag the UN and its whining kicking screaming debate club along with us.

And if they feel powerless to stop us, then I suggest they start spending 25% of their budget on defense. Of course they'll have to drop the socialist programs to pay for it.

So which is gonna be, fellas? Big pensions or a big defense budget? I think I know what the answer will be, big pensions, just MORE whining.

Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[Anonymous Coward]

With patience and strategy, we could have removed him, at lower cost, not just in money but to our long term interests and to the interests of humanity at large.

Is the ghost of Neville Chamberlain posting on Slashdot?

Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[sheldon]

The fact is, the UN does absolutely nothing.

You know, for all the claims that the UN does absolutely nothing...

The UN Weapons Inspection teams turned out to be correct.

Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's interesting that I have never heard from any of the Anti-war crowd a logical alternative. You say:

"I agree, Sadaam was evil. He should have been removed. But power has its limitations. You can't acheive everything at once. With patience and strategy, we could have removed him, at lower cost, not just in money but to our long term interests and to the interests of humanity at large. Granted, Iraqis would have unfairly borne the cost of Sadaam's regime for some months longer. It wouldn't have been fair to them."

With "patience and strategy"? What kind of plan is that? What could we have done differently that we haven't done in the past 10 years since the last Gulf War? No one ever explains this. No, the Iraqis would not have "borne the cost of Sadaam's regime for some months longer" they would have borne it (read: been killed) for the next ten years. What was the alternative to going to war? No one speaks up. The status quo? Good solution, you're a foreign policy wizard. More diplomatic pressure. Yeah, that really made a difference in the past 10 years. Come on where's the alternative?

Yay

[dubbayu_d_40]

I hope he isn't a turkey.

That didn't take too long

[raider_red]

When you put this in perspective, this really didn't take that long. It took us almost two decades to catch the Unibomber, and three or four years to catch Eric Rudolph. This is a lot like the Rudolph case, where he turned up exactly where they'd been looking for him.

Now we just need to catch that other jerk, Bin Laden.

Er...

[bbtom]

It's Iraq/Saddam goddamnit!

No connection

[bgfay]

Keep in mind folks that this has absolutely nothing to do with September 11. Sure, a dictator is out of power. That's fine. Remember though that to topple him, our government invaded a sovereign nation without international support or a plan for after the initial attacks. The administration is going to spin this as a wonderful thing for Americans and a sure sign that the administration is tough on terrorists. This isn't the war on terrorism (as ill-thought as that war is). It's the war on Iraq that was started many years ago by the father and now reengaged by the son. Nothing more. Iraqi citizens may rejoice, but there is no reason for us to do the same.

Re:No connection

[squarooticus]

: our government invaded a sovereign nation

I don't recognize the sovereignty of a nation that doesn't recognize the liberty of its people.

Anything else is an insult to the human rights of people who don't enjoy the freedoms you do. It's a shame you choose to exercise your free speech rights by advocating the suppression of theirs.

Re:No connection

[bgfay]

Ridiculous. I in no way advocate the suppression of anyone's human rights. Nor do I advocate the brutal attack of any nation in order to "save" the people from a dicatorship. George Bush's foreign policy states that the US can invade when it feels that the justfication is there or that the justfication may soon be there. That's a horrendous, dangerous and absurd policy based largely on hubris.

As for not recognizing the sovereignty of a nation that doesn't recognize the liberty of its people, then you may not want to become a US citizen any time soon. The current US administration places many things higher on its list of priorities than it does the notion of personal liberty. Ask John Ashcroft. Ask the detainees in Guantanamo. Ask the thousands of people held in American jails without habeus corpus on the suspicion of terror sympathy.

The US government DID invade a soveriegn nation. It did so without international support. It did so in violation of international law. The means, especially in this case, do not justify the ends.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't recognize the sovereignty of a nation that doesn't recognize the liberty of its people.

Like, say, the US?

Re:No connection

[leerpm]

I am glad that Saddam is gone. I think the Iraqi people are better off now than they were before. However I am still against the War in Iraq, because I think it sets a dangerous precedent for the US to start invading countries without due cause ( it has been shown that there are no connections to terrorism or WMD), aside from the fact that he is a threat to his own people? What about other countries around the world that have governments harming their own people like North Korea? Will the US take them on too.. I doubt it. This is a country that has shown its willingness to attempt to invade other countries (witness the Korean War), it has weapons of mass destruction and the ability to deliver them against American interests (witness the missile being test fired over Japan), and it has a horrible human rights record.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the war in Iraq IS now a war on terror because of all the foreign fanatics being bussed in.

First drink today goes to 4ID and the ninjas. Second goes to all our boys out there, American or otherwise. Third's for the ones that aren't coming home.

Stay safe guys.

Re:No connection

[blastedtokyo]

Do you know you this for sure because you're an al quaeda executive?

Mideast 'intelligence' is 90% political. The GOP think that everything's connected while Howard Dean's supporters think that nothing's connected. It's incredibly hard to disprove any connection. Heck, with Stanley Millgram's six degrees of separation theory and the recent evidence it's probably easy to establish connections between former Iraqi government officials and the taliban. To make these kinds of conclusions based on 3rd hand media reports is difficult.

The bottom line is that someone who killed 300,000 people who disagreed with him politically amidst other horrible acts has been arrested.

All of humanity should be celebrating that.

Re:No connection

[USAPatriot]

Sure, a dictator is out of power. That's fine.

That's so disingenuous. If the anti-war people had their way, this wouldn't have happened at all.

Remember though that to topple him, our government invaded a sovereign nation without international support

Wrong. We did have international support. Just because it wasn't suppport from the countries you liked doesn't mean it didn't exist. Britain, Spain, Australia were certainly part of the coalition.

The administration is going to spin this as a wonderful thing for Americans and a sure sign that the administration is tough on terrorists.

Maybe because it is. And for Iraqis too.It's the war on Iraq that was started many years ago by the father and now reengaged by the son.

I believe that Saddam was the one who started it by invading Kuwait.

Iraqi citizens may rejoice, but there is no reason for us to do the same.

How shortsighted that is. We've accomplished something that no doubt has made the world just a little better. The entire record of Saddam is still coming out, the fact that we ended him is going to be one of the biggest stories in the modern history.

Re:No connection

[fuxoft]

"I don't recognize the sovereignty of a nation that doesn't recognize the liberty of its people."

By your definition, it seems you don't recognize the sovereignity of the United Kingdom.

On the other hand, if you say that UK (a monarchy) DOES recognize the liberty of its people while the old Iraq (a republic) did not, who exactly decides what "recognizing the libery of its people" means and who does/doesn't recognize this liberty? Of course, "everyone can see that" is hardly an argument.

(Please note that my post doesn't state that UK is not sovereing nor that the old Iraq was sovereing and makes no claims about legitimity of the Iraq invasion)

Re:No connection

[BTWR]

invaded a sovereign nation without international support

Besides The UK, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Israel, India, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Spain, Uzbekistan, Kuwait, more...

If you need sources just reply with that standard reply. I have them waiting if you need them...

Re:No connection

[Rumagent]

"human rights of people who don't enjoy the freedoms you do"

That would sound a lot better if the US didn't lock up foreign citizens(including children) for years without being charged or tried.

yes, I am talking about Guantanmo.

Re:No connection

[squarooticus]

Spare me your moral relativism. Your response makes me laugh.

The UK is a monarchy in name only: the crown commands no actual power. The country itself is goverened by the lower house of Parliament, which is elected by the people.

Why am I even responding to this trolling...

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

umm, they only started getting bussed in after you started invading...

Re:No connection

[squarooticus]

[Insert Beavis and Butthead laugh]

Like, the US is, like, uh.... goverened by a dictator... right?

You may not have the president you voted for, but you had a say in his election, as well as the election of your other representatives.

This is not the case in Iraq. I don't think the Iraqis had any say at all in the elec...er, I mean coup, that brought Saddam to power. I mean, unless you believe that 100% of Iraqis voted for Saddam in the last election. Do you?

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm only going to have one drink. Make mine the third one, please.

All gave some, and some gave all.

Cheers.

Re:No connection

[blastedtokyo]

Jews in the holocaust. Ethnic cleansing in eastern europe. Genocide in somalia and other african warzones. Chinese college students murdered in plain public view. North Koreans who aren't in the miliary starving, working in camps.

If you're one of these suffering people, it's your sovereign government that's probably going to kill you. If you plainly respect the soverign government, the people die. I'd rather take down a man made notion of government than let masses of innocent people die.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

The Queen has the power to remove the prime minister. I believe she also has the power to claim any land in the UK as her own, regardless of who currently owns it. Of course, she chooses not to use these powers, but they are there all the same.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

Then by god, start invading the African continent right now, those people should not suffer a moment longer! You might want to free the Chinese too, while you're at it!

Starting to see the problem? It's not as simple as you would like it to be. It's very good that this tyrant has been removed, he made his people suffer immensely.
But that was NOT why the US invaded iraq! Iraq was invaded because it was developing or had WMD's, remember? They were not found and the reason for the invasion was so twisted and turned that everyone now seems to believe we achieved our goal! The fact remains that a country that did not provoke the US was invaded by it. A good thing Saddam was ousted, but what now?

If anything about the current justicifation for invading Iraq (removing a dictator) is true, then there is a LOT of work waiting for the marines in Africa and Asia.

Re:No connection

[nyseal]

It's not really correct to say America didn't have international support, we just didn't have support from certain countries and those countries combined do not make up 'international' status.

Re:No connection

[YrWrstNtmr]

Keep in mind folks that this has absolutely nothing to do with September 11.

So I guess you missed this little tidbit.
"The most conclusive evidence comes in a highly detailed list of intelligence reports revealed last month in the Weekly Standard. Senior Iraqis were said to have traveled to Sudan in the mid-1990s to teach bin Laden's operatives how to make sophisticated truck bombs. Terrorists subsequently used such bombs to hit targets in Saudi Arabia and at two U.S. embassies in Africa. "

It's the war on Iraq that was started many years ago by the father

Ahh...it comes into focus now. You believe that Bush Sr. invaded Iraq before Saddam went over the border into Kuwait. And got many, many other countries to go along with him. Gotcha.

Re:No connection

[CausticWindow]

Not supporters: Belgium, Greece, Israel, India, New Zealand, Norway, Kuwait

Idiot. You list thirteen countries, out of which only six were really supporters of the invasion. Please do provide sources.

Here are the only supporters of the coalition according to the US state department:

Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.

Here is a source (which also explains the motives of some of these countries): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2862343.stm

"And it says that there are an additional 15 countries which are providing assistance, such as over-flight rights, but which do not want to declare support."

Amongst them Kuwait, which you list as a supporter. These fifteen other countries also includes territories under US administration, like Puerto Rico. Norway, which you also list as a supporter, was a vocal opponent of the invasion.

Face the facts. You have been misled. The vast majority of the international community did not support this war.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

and lincoln killed how many people that disagreed with him politically? it was essentially a civil war...

Re:No connection

[PsychoSpunk]

Just a quick point that Bush the Elder was against the neo-con view in 1991 of going in. They did accomplish the mission at hand.

So, while from Bush the Younger's view, it may be a matter of finishing what daddy started, Bush the Elder has not been entirely thrilled at this precedent setting policy of invading a sovereign nation with first strike.

Re:No connection

[kir]

Wow. You must really really hate President Bush. This is wonderful news and you can't even see that. You're already spinning this to fit your own agenda.

That's a shame.

Re:No connection

[BTWR]

It's a difference between "supporting" with "supporting militarily." Take Kuwait. Our base was in Kuwait City. We had half a million men and women there. I'd call that support. Of course, they didn't want to officially support the US against a fellow Arab nation. And Greece has bases on our war against terrorism. Those countries also have troops in the war against terror (in afganistan, iraq, etc).

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it when people say that tired old line: "This has nothing to do with September 11".

Bullshit.

And broad tax cuts have nothing to do with boosting an economy in recession. Yeah right. How about this: Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000. Wait, that doesn't count for anything either. How about it's politically incorrect to say "Merry Christmas" in public schools. Please.

I am glad that characters like you still don't get it, because frankly you never will. Thank you very much for telling me how I should feel about the matter. I calmy disagree.

Re:No connection

[matfud]

However if you use Stanley Millgrams theory then
it is possible to connect you to the taliban or pretty much any organisation on the planet.

Re:No connection

[God Hates Liberals]

Dangerous and absurd?

Funny, it so resembles nature.

Re:No connection

[Keebler71]

Bullshit. Iraq was in violation of the terms of the cease-fire at the end of the Gulf War by firing up coalition aircraft nearly every day for the last several years. If shooting at US aircraft is not a reason to go to war in its own right, what is?

Re:No connection

[CausticWindow]

I repeat: Idiot. Greece supported the invasion of Afghanistan. So did Norway. So did many others. They did not support the invasion of Iraq which you stated. Please admit (at least to yourself) that you were lying.

Re:No connection

[MicroBerto]

I disagree, and for a different reason than most people. I'd love to stick around and argue too, but I'll be driving all day.

Anyway, Bush could care less about Iraq or WMD. What he did do, however, is say that "if you dare terrorize us again, we'll annihilate another one of your countries" to the arab world. Personally, I think it's working. They now know that we're a looser canon than you'd hope for.

And in the meantime, Bush got revenge on his arch-nemesis. The man who tried to kill his father. The arab world now knows that SOMEONE, possibly ANYONE, will pay a price if they dare touch us. Bush sent quite a message.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, I think a lot of people opposed to the war would actually have preferred that scenario. At least there would have been a somewhat valid reason.

Problem is, it's hard to get the many millions, if not billions, of dollars needed on just a minor shooting incident. It's far easier to sell if your add a nice terrorism sauce and WMD frosting...

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

absolutely nothing to do with September 11

Who cares? Does everything we do from now to the end of time have to be because of 9-11? This is a good thing. You casually say, "a dictator is out of power" like it was something insignificant.

Insightful? No, I would mod you benighted and bitter.

Re:No connection

[BTWR]

You're the idiot. USA invaded TWO countries. Iraq and... (wait for it...) Afganistan. Sorry "buddy," but Greece supported/supports/will support that mission.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

She has those powers in theory, but how long do you think she'd last if she chose to use them?

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we ought to release those foreign citizens and send them to your house. They may kill you or they may just teach you how to spell.

Re:No connection

[CausticWindow]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2752591. stm

"Greece, which is in Europe's anti-war camp, did not sign the declaration and was angry that it was not even consulted about it."

Feel free to continue living in your own fantasy world.

Re:No connection

[BTWR]

OK, so the base that Greece has allowed the US to use is a fabric of my imagination.

Please don't reply. You bore me.

Re:No connection

[Keebler71]

agreed except that I would hardly call thousands of attacks (AAA and SAM) on coalition aircraft a "minor shooting incident"

Re:No connection

[JohnnyCannuk]

That's so disingenuous. If the anti-war people had their way, this wouldn't have happened at all.

BS. Most people that were in the anti-war movement do not like Saddam or support dictators. As a matter of fact, they were against Saddam back in the days when Rummy was happily shaking his hand, when the Reagan administration was defeating UN resolutions and US legislation that would have punished him for gassing his own people. Instead Ronny and his gang, many of whom are now working for the Shrub, allowed the chemicals that did the deed to be sold to him. Saddam being toppled and captured is a positive side effect of a very wrong action. Maybe if the US had been active in NOT supporting Saddam for years, he would have gone the way of the likes of Nicholae Caucescu (sorry I can't spell it) a long time ago.

Wrong. We did have international support. Just because it wasn't suppport from the countries you liked doesn't mean it didn't exist. Britain, Spain, Australia were certainly part of the coalition.

And no support from almost all of the UN and the UN security council and most other internatioal organizations (the Commonwealth of Nations, OAS etc). And even in the countries were the US had the support of the government, they had NO support from the people - just ask a few citizens of Britain, Spain and Australia wat they think of GWB and his war policy. It's easy to buy support from a bunch of 3rd world nations and former eastern bloc countries with promises of friendship and "support"....just because you got support form countries you liked, doesn't make it "international."

How shortsighted that is. We've accomplished something that no doubt has made the world just a little better. The entire record of Saddam is still coming out, the fact that we ended him is going to be one of the biggest stories in the modern history.

Good. I'm glad. So if that's how the US really feels about dictatorships and freedom and liberty then I say Good. So I can now expect that the US will be sending troops to the various parts of Africa, where brutal dicators and genocides that make Saddam look like a pussy cat are going on right now. You know, like in the Congo and the Ivory Coast. Stuff like what happend in Rawanda or in Bosnia in the 90's - genocide, rape camps, mass graves. I can expect to see the Marines charging into Kinchasa soon, eh? Or how about going into the Sudan, which almost advertises it's support for terrorist in general and Al-Queda in particular - no need to look for a maybe link to terrorist (as is the case with Iraq), it's pretty well known. So next we can go after North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, China - you know all those other places in the world with brutal dicators who regularly violate their citizen's human rights and freedoms...

Ah but I guess many of them aren't in the "US national interests". Over the last 20 years, the "US national interests" have had more to do with Oil and other resources rather than the freedom and liberty of the people.

At the risk of revealing my religious and philisophical background, the US is now paying for it's past short-sighted decisions to support brutal dicators for convenience and expedience during the cold war rather than supporting the rights and needs of the people - you know, so long as the Shah of Iran (as an example) is buying our weapons and playing nice with us against the Soviets, he can torture and murder as many of his own people as he wants. The same can be said for the governments of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Burma, South Africa, Egypt and others. The US is now almost uniformly despised by most of the common people in most of these poor countries. Gee, I wonder why many of them then get sucked into religious fanaticism and join the likes of Al-Queda and then commit terrorist acts against the US and it's interests.

Gee, I'm sure glad they captured Saddam after bombing the hell out of Iraq killing countless innocent civilians...I sure feel a lot safer now....

Re:No connection

[Artifakt]

I'm not sure about the land seizure part, but I recall watching one debate in the House of Commons where it was claimed that the British monarchy had only one remaining power with no checks and balances - the Queen can sell off the British navy at will, even if she sold every ship for 1 pound each to an enemy nation.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no international government, hence no "International Law." The UN does not count. There is no international law. Saying it over and over does not make it true.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mispelled your nick when you registered it with Slashdot. You bgfay when it's obvious you meant bfgay. That is, Big Fucking Gay.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the 3 parents above your post with proof of a connection. does that mean you're FOR the war now since proof has been provided to the contrary?

Re:No connection

[JohnnyCannuk]

Ok, sorry for the tone of that last post...it was a little preachy and angry.

I am truly glad that Saddam is now captured and that he can no longer oppress the people of Iraq.

What's done in the past is done and cannot be changed. I do hope that while the Bush administration and the people of the US are celebrating his capture, that they consider what got us here.

I watched GWB's comments with my 2 year old son. I hope, for his sake, that the US, with all it's might and potential, will back away from backing dictators and hired thugs for short term gain and think down the road. I don't like Ronald Reagan for his politics, but as a person and a father, I'm quite sure if he knew (or thought) in 1986 that supporting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan would start a chain of events that would lead to bombings, the September 11 terrorist attacks and the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers in 2 wars, he would NOT have approved the sale of those stinger missles to the Mujahadeen. He would not have been such a friend to Saddam during the Iran Iraq war.

I hope the US takes this chance to see the long-term consequences of its actions in the world. I hope the government stops to think of the long-term consequences before it acts from now on.

So that my little boy isn't sent back to me in a body bag in 20 years, because it was more immediately convenient to choose one action in the interest of the US government rather than do what was best for everyone...

Re:No connection

[10Ghz]

If you're one of these suffering people, it's your sovereign government that's probably going to kill you. If you plainly respect the soverign government, the people die. I'd rather take down a man made notion of government than let masses of innocent people die.

So, why are you getting down on all fours and kissing Chinas ass, instead of invading them? After all, they have killed alot of their own citizens. And when Taiwan plans to have the ultimate form of democracy, a referendum, on whether to become a independent nation or not, you tell them that they can't do that. But I thought you supported democracy??

Re:No connection

[horza]

The US government DID invade a soveriegn nation. It did so without international support. It did so in violation of international law. The means, especially in this case, do not justify the ends.

I shall respect your own personal opinion, but stating things as fact doesn't make it so. America maintains that the existing UN resolutions gave them the right to invade, and the existing text seems to support the US position. How did they violate international law then?

Phillip.

Re:No connection

[not_a_member_of_parl]

Immediately after 9/11, the Bush administraton made it clear that they would "drain the swamp." Iraq is currently being drained through force. Through various means, the drain plug is currently being tugged on in Iran and Syria (and by proxy, Lebanon).

They also said it would take years and years to achieve their goals. They're not going after those directly responsible for 9/11, but rather forcing a change in the political structure of virtually the entire world. This is a phenomenally complex task and is frought with bewildering complications. Regardless of what happens in November '04, this head-on engagement of America's enemies will continue for years after the Bush administration is gone.

A question: is taking on a task that is as uncertain and complex as knocking over Iraq the hallmark of an Administration that is exceptionally foolhardy or brave? The airwaves and blogs are jammed with this debate, however the correct answer will be printed in my great-grandchildren's history texts.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

What he did do, however, is say that "if you dare terrorize us again, we'll annihilate another one of your countries" to the arab world. Personally, I think it's working.

It is amazing how you fail to see how this is completely playing it to the hands of dozens of terrorist organizations that have spurred up since 9/11.

In fact, they are probably counting on the very fact that you continue to think that the current approach is working.

Do you really think they need "one of their countries" to drag a dirty bomb somewhere to cause havoc? Or are you, in fact, making it all the easier for them to do this?

Re:No connection

[Bob The Cowboy]

We shouldn't rejoice in their rejoicing? You're right, its a shameful thing that a cruel dictator has now been captured. Stop letting your political party dictate your every thought. Can't you let yourself be glad for one moment that a man responsible for the lives of millions of innocents has been captured?

Re:No connection

[anthony_dipierro]

Keep in mind folks that this has absolutely nothing to do with September 11.

It does though. If it wasn't for September 11th, we never would have been able to do this.

Iraqi citizens may rejoice, but there is no reason for us to do the same.

Saddam's capture will probably mean that we will be able to get out of Iraq sooner. For that, I rejoice.

Re:No connection

[borgboy]

No way you deserved a Troll mod for that comment.

Re:No connection

[phoenix.bam!]

The first war was not started by "the father". The First war was started by Saddam invading a Soverign nation. After LOSING the war HE started, Saddam was supposed to abide by UN resolutions demanding weapons inspections. He began ignoring these resolutions. The UN did not stand behind its own resoultions and the USA invaded. This conflict has been going on since 1990.

Re:No connection

[rossz]

The US government DID invade a soveriegn nation. It did so without international support. It did so in violation of international law. The means, especially in this case, do not justify the ends.

You are so wrong. There were more countries involved (33) with the invasion of Iraq than there were with the original Operation Desert Storm/Shield (only 23). We also had a UN resolution that said to Saddam, "submit to inspections or we invade". So what if a few countries such as France and Germany weren't in on it. They are not important and can be ignored. We now know why the Axis of Weasles countries were so against invading Iraq. They were making huge amounts of money selling banned weapons to Saddam and didn't want their pie upset.

Re:No connection

[Chainsaw Messiah]

telegraph.co.uk

wow, i wish i could have such a simple minded view of the world like you, this thinking for myself bit is such a strain

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

What fucking proof you moron? The fact that they keep claiming it? That isn't proof -- that's tired unsupported rhetoric.

The furthest I've ever heard as supporting Iraq having anything to do with 9/11 is that some terrorists lived in Iraq. Well guess what - a shitload of terrorists lived in the US, and still live in the US. Hell, the US should be bombed for 9/11!

Re:No connection

[ergo98]

The Iraq war was a completely separate war from the war in Afghanistan. I suppose the "Iraq=9/11" propaganda sank pretty deep into your psyche and you find this hard to separate now.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realize how little credibility US "Intelligence" has on the world stage? They have shown themselves, along with their British puppy dogs, of fabricating whatever fits the rhetoric of the day. US intelligence releases are as valid as East German releases during the cold war.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

There is international law. The US refusing to sign and pretending it isn't there does not count. Saying it over and over does not make it false.

Re:No connection

[Anonymous Coward]

There are limits to the U.S.'s military abilities. Clearly we can't attack China. Even you should be able to see that. So what action could we do? Realistically, economic interaction with China looks like our best chance of opening it up to Modernity and encouraging some type of democratic processes there.

What are your ideas to help the Chinese people?

Re:No connection

[gfxguy]

So, why are you getting down on all fours and kissing Chinas ass, instead of invading them? After all, they have killed alot of their own citizens. And when Taiwan plans to have the ultimate form of democracy, a referendum, on whether to become a independent nation or not, you tell them that they can't do that. But I thought you supported democracy??

Good questions, all... I supported the "invasion" and I personally don't support trade with China and I do support an independent Taiwan. I don't understand our government at all...

After the "spyplane" incident, I don't see how we can deal with them with straight face. I've told my representative as much. Not that it'll do any good, but at least I have done something. I do avoid things "made in China", but that'll only get you so far.

But I agree. Invading China is probably a bad idea, but that doesn't mean we should deal economically with them. North Korea is right out, we should just take them out now - but we can't because we're too busy elsewhere. We'll get to them, though.

Re:No connection

[stanmann]

IT was more like 102%...

Re:No connection

[elemental23]

I love it when people say that tired old line: "This has nothing to do with September 11".

Bullshit.

Please explain, in detail, the connection. I'll wait.

Server Too Busy

[Jason Munster]

When I clicked the video link, a "Server too busy" error returned. Does that mean that we /.'d Microsoft's servers til they couldn't handle the load?
It'd be great if we did.

Like he deserves one...

[Moth7]

Did he give the people who he committed atrocities against a fair trial? Go figure.

Re:Like he deserves one...

[Blue Master]

Did he give the people who he committed atrocities against a fair trial? Go figure.

Ah, so I guess we should all follow his brilliant example then...

Re:Like he deserves one...

[Anonymous Coward]

but, do we even have any proof he did all of that?

Good news for people suffering from bastard

[masouds]

It is really good news. Funny, I was listening to an Iranian soldier, seriously injured by chemical weapons during the 8 year war between Iraq and Iran. He (and others like him) can sleep well tonight (OK, not well, just a little bit better)

Psychology

[Saint Stephen]

(I'm American.)

It amazes me to see so many Westerners fundamentally misunderstand the psychology of the Middle eastern male population.

I never see any proper treatment of a man as a full man: cruel, craven, proud, smart, base, spiteful, avaricous, simple. Just a man.

We're so used to hollywood, they're just men. I'm a man. I know how they think.

The one thing you have to remember: power is everything.

Re:Psychology

[Anonymous Coward]

The one thing you have to remember: power is everything.

Yeah, but marketing is everything.

So I guess power associated with marketing is everything.

Good. So?

[Ringel]

Capturing Saddam is a good thing. He's a Very Bad Man(tm).

The fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with...
Al-Qaeda,
making America safer,
the War On Terrorism,
WMDs,
or any of that other stuff aside, yes, he's a Very Bad Man(tm).

Bush &c. will get an approval bump out of this, right up until the next terrorist attack, when it is plainly shown that the whole Iraq boondoggle was an expensive distraction so that W could feel like a man, and so that people wouldn't ask questions about the actual problem.

Get back when you have real evidence

[Hannes Eriksson]

I would not jump with joy before serious evidence is put forward that this really is THE Saddam Hussein.
The Real Saddam is known to have many impostors for security.

Re:Get back when you have real evidence

[Zapdos]

I think the DNA tests qualify.

Re:Get back when you have real evidence

[Hannes Eriksson]

So, you get a DNA sample from me and you can say that it really is me. How do you know that it just isn't from a known impostor?
Pardon me for being sceptic. I have my reasons for wanting to see Saddam taken from his throne, so I am eager to see it be The Real Saddam.

Re:Get back when you have real evidence

[spitzak]

I really doubt any imposters could fool close scrutiny with the ability to do arbitrary tests (like DNA, or just checking various historical medical conditions, did Saddam have any operations?). The imposters were only to fool photographs.

Re:Get back when you have real evidence

[Entrope]

Got your tin foil hat on, I see.

Nobody has heard anything lately about his two sons, who were reportedly killed months ago. Specifically, there is no plausible suggestion that the real Uday and Qusay escaped but left impostors behind.

I assume the US military had the two brain cells necessary to take DNA (and probably lots of other) samples from those bodies. By comparing that DNA, you can be reasonably sure whether or not the three men were related in the necessary ways. If they are, you know you either have the Hussein family or an entire family of impostors.

One could do further DNA testing on the Hussein clan in Tikrit and its environs; that would further restrict it to being a family of impostors related to the real Husseins. It all depends on how paranoid you want to be about the moon landing^W^Widentities.

This person's captors also have the advantage of having a person who can speak: they can compare his speech patterns with recordings of Saddam Hussein. I imagine that the US is already doing this, but may withold an announcement until there is some serious question about his identity.

RIAA is getting the $25 million reward

[b3x]

word is that Saddam was tracked down by the RIAA after he downloaded the latest eminem album ...

My wish

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish there was a way for me, as a Christian, as a human being, to sit down with some of you and have a pleasant, civil discussion without bitterness or sarcasm. I don't force people to believe what I believe. I don't mock others with different beliefs. I hope I can find the words to explain myself, as my life goes on. I hope I can help people to see.

Tikrit Taxi

[Anonymous Coward]

I sent for a taxi 8 hours ago. Where is he??

-- Stranded in Tikrit

It was the RIAA

[harriet nyborg]

According to an RIAA spokesperson, "we caught him downloading copyrighted material from his a cellar in Tikrit."

"And we hope with his capture this will bring an end to all illegal downloading."

Re:It was the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't that be al Illegal? :)

Re:It was the RIAA

[iamatlas]

Saddam: Ok, I tell you; the chemical weapons are located right next to-

RIAA: Cut the crap. You downloaded three songs. We estimate the damage done to be worth $750,000.00.

Classic misdirection

[Faust7]

While I am thankful that Saddam Hussein was captured, my foil hat -- which has been tuned to "non-paranoid" mode -- can't help but think that it serves a dual purpose for the Bush administration.

Were we able to find Osama bin Laden? No. The war on terror, originated in Afghanistan, was in danger of stagnating, with a conclusion that lacked the novelistic roundless of rounding up the enemy leader.

The focus of the war on terror was thusly shifted to Iraq. "There are connections," they said, which meant the war would really be over when Hussein was taken.

Now he has been. He, not bin Laden, will be at the forefront of millions of Americans' minds, seen as a defeated figurehead for terrorist activity -- despite the fact that he was not responsible for 9/11.

And this means re-election.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

Were we able to find Osama bin Laden? No.

You could have said something similar about Saddam yesterday.

The correct statement (with proper tenses) is: "Have we been able to find Bin Laden? Not yet.".

Bin Laden isn't tied to a single country as was Saddam. His operation has been greatly hindered, and he'll go down...eventually.

In the meantime, don't mistake the fact that this is a great victory for the coalition and President Bush, and a major psychological blow for the Baathist resistance. :-)

Re:Classic misdirection

[dewke]

While I am thankful that Saddam Hussein was captured, my foil hat -- which has been tuned to "non-paranoid" mode -- can't help but think that it serves a dual purpose for the Bush administration.

Were we able to find Osama bin Laden? No. The war on terror, originated in Afghanistan, was in danger of stagnating, with a conclusion that lacked the novelistic roundless of rounding up the enemy leader.

The focus of the war on terror was thusly shifted to Iraq. "There are connections," they said, which meant the war would really be over when Hussein was taken.

Now he has been. He, not bin Laden, will be at the forefront of millions of Americans' minds, seen as a defeated figurehead for terrorist activity -- despite the fact that he was not responsible for 9/11.

And this means re-election.

While I agree with some of what you say, I seriously doubt that anyone believes that the "war on terror" will be over until we capute bin laden. I don't think even his capture will end it.

Do I think that we moved on iraq for political reasons? Yes. Still, the failure of the US to capture Saddam, coupled with the continuing failure to capture bin laden, made the US look like they dropped the ball. This is a big event, I just hope that this is better handled than the rebuilding has been.

In any event, the economy has turned around. That means re-election.

Re:Classic misdirection

[leviramsey]

Bin Laden's probably dead in some cave somewhere.

Re:Classic misdirection

[line.at.infinity]

Also to the supporters of war It would make the democrats look bad for not doing anything about Hussein's crimes that was committed more than a decade ago.
"To the supporters of war" is the key, though.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Rostin]

I hear(read) this this argument made pretty often. The underlying assumption is that you (the person making it this time) are somehow a great deal more clever/less misled than the average person, and are able to pierce the veil to see what the real motives of the Bush Administration are. The rest of us, like sheep or cattle, whatever your preferred metaphor, are so grossly ignorant as to believe that the capture of Saddam Hussein heralds an end to terrorism. Sorry to burst your bubble, but no one I know personally (and I live in a small Texas town, which in most people's minds means that my friends and neighbors are about as ignorant as you can get) believes any of that, regardless of their political affiliation or who they voted for.

Re:Classic misdirection

[BFKrew]

The 'War on Terror' cannot be won by capturing anyone! You can only 'win' by solving the problems that only serve to create more and more terrorists.

Re:Classic misdirection

[leerpm]

In any event, the economy has turned around. That means re-election.

Not exactly. While output is back on track for strong growth, employment has not bounced back nearly as strongly as most economists say it would have in a normal cycle. So it really depends on how voters are going to react. Are they going to vote believing the economy really has turned around? Or are they going to see that there hasn't been much in the way of significant job creation and vote accordingly? ..

Re:Classic misdirection

[RazzleFrog]

That may or may not be true but you bring up a good point. Saddam had to stay in Iraq to lead his people. If he ran away then he would have lost control and respect and probably in his mind honor. Osama has no home country and can move throughout the Muslim world and be helped and hidden.

There is also a strong feeling among many Muslims that Saddam brought undo focus on the Muslim world even back early in his regime. They were just powerless to do anything about it. While they would never want the US in there instead they, for the most part, would never protect him either.

Re:Classic misdirection

[eyeye]

No but I bet they believe Saddam and terrorism are linked, and all the other false memes that are put out.

The day when all of Iraq celebrates will be when the US invaders leave.

Re:Classic misdirection

[the_2nd_coming]

Sod Binladden is running al quada now out of Iran.

Re:Classic misdirection

[nyseal]

Jesus....leave it to this crowd to downplay a monumental event in history. You freakin' people make Saddam sound like a damn saint.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

mmmm ethnic cleansing

Re:Classic misdirection

[dendogg]

While I'm happy and all that he was captured, I agree that it's more of a diversion from the war on terror than anything else. There are lots of dictators in the world; some actually seem to have nuclear weapons (North Korea).

In this case, it's great that he's captured, but I am more worried about what happens next for Iraq. To Quote Edmond Burke from his opinion of the French Revolution:

" I should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government; with public force; with the discipline and obedience of armies; with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue; with morality and religion; with the solidity of property; with peace and order; with civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things too; and, without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into complaints."

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

The 'War on Terror' cannot be won by capturing anyone! You can only 'win' by solving the problems that only serve to create more and more terrorists.

Exactly. An excellent way to begin solving many of those problems is to create a strong, stable democracy in place of a brutal dictatorship, in a pivotal Middle Eastern country.

Historically, as people worldwide have been exposed to democracy, they've wanted it for themselves. It's happening in Iraq right now.

Plenty of partying in Baghdad tonight! =)

Re:Classic misdirection

[thenextpresident]

The 'War on Terror' cannot be won by capturing anyone! You can only 'win' by solving the problems that only serve to create more and more terrorists.

By problem you mean terrorists, right? Because their is no excuse to go around being a terrorist. They may have legitimate gripes, but a violent retalitation is usually not a solution.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one hope that Bush is never re-elected. He is the scariest man in power since Stalin.

Re:Classic misdirection

[lowmagnet]

His operation has been greatly hindered, and he'll go down...eventually.

What about Fidel Castro? Everyone's been saying the same about him for years. He's a despot! He tortures his people!

Rule number one in international relations: Make your enemy du jour out to be less than human. Only then will you be able to turn the people your way.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Because their is no excuse to go around being a terrorist.

Exactly. Accordingly, I expect you to condemn the Boston Tea Party with the same vehemence.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans need to stop thinking of everything in terms of "democracy". The cause of Islamic terrorism is primarily Arab nationalism. No "democracy" will change that.

Re:Classic misdirection

[thelaw]

not at all - it's a perfectly human (albeit depraved) thing to kill thousands of people with airplanes. people have done it with less sophisticated plans.

my question to you is: does the fact that saddam or osama or bush or cheney or clinton or delay or daschle or gus hall is human make you less inclined to resist him? if so, why? shouldn't we be resisting institutionalized evil regardless of its form?

jon

Re:Classic misdirection

[Craig Maloney]

Somehow I think the past four years will prove that we've been the unwitting accomplices to the worlds largest and most expensive re-election campaign.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

In the meantime, don't mistake the fact that this is a great victory for the coalition and President Bush
Hook, this is party line, Party Line this is sinker.

and a major psychological blow for the Baathist resistance. :-)

Well, has anyone asked these Guerillas if they are former Baathists? Im thinking not... IM thinking they are probably, simple Iraqi Natinonalists, Muslim Jihadists and maybe some Socialist Baathists....but your language is trite and farmiliar....too much FoxNewsChannel rhetoric to make any real sense of what you are saying.... empty, shallow propaganda does not equal informed, reasoned opinion.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

There were no causalties at the Boston Tea Party. Your analogy is worthless.

Re:Classic misdirection

[arevos]

What problem could we have solved that would have prevented Osama Bin Laden being a terrorist?

Are you joking? The US had a large hand in training much of the resistance force in Afghanistan, including Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), of which Osama was the head. Osama later split from MAK and established al-Qaida. So the US's efforts gave a lot toward Osama's current terror regime. It's also hard to be friendly toward a force that uses you to fight for them. The Afghanistan rebels were useful to the US as long as they fought the Soviets. When they didn't need them anymore, the US left, leaving Afghanistan in ruins and paving the way for the Taliban and worse.

According to Wikipedia, Osama's main beef with the US is it's support of Saudi Arabia monarchy, which, if you'll pardon a cliche, was largely supported due to it's oil reserves. Osama is, of course, a psychopath, but that doesn't mean that the US didn't have a hand in the creation of the terrorist leader we know today.

9/11 didn't occur because of something we did, it happened simply because of what we were. A successful, free, secular society.

Almost all modern terrorism is due to US foreign policy. It is not because terrorists "hate freedom". That is, franky an extremely naive view of the world, seperating people into blank and white views of "good" and "bad".

This War on Terror can be won and will be by acting decisively and crushing them all.

Even more naive. By "acting decisively and crushing them all" you only incite more people to harm the US. As a UK citizen, I've seen what happened when terrorism was tackled by force. It increased. Whilst terrorism must not be tolerated, a "War on Terror" is going to be as successful as the US "War on Drugs".

Are you a troll, or just incredibly uninformed?

Re:Classic misdirection

[zandermander]

His operation has been greatly hindered, and he'll go down...eventually.

I agree with all of your statements - even that his operation has been greatly hindered - but don't think he can't elude capture/death/cream-pies-in-the-face for quite a long time.

Pol Pot was responsible for the death of something like 30% (more?) of all Cambodians. Despite the horrid acts he committed, Pol Pot died of old age in a rural village in Cambodia.

Re:Classic misdirection

[arevos]

By problem you mean terrorists, right? Because their is no excuse to go around being a terrorist. They may have legitimate gripes, but a violent retalitation is usually not a solution.

I think you're missing his point. Terrorists should be brought to justing, yes, but the root problem is not the terrorists themselves, but the environment of US resentment that breeds them. Any "War on Terror" cannot be won by strong arm tactics, guns, tanks and bombs. It is won by solving the problems that create the terrorists in the first place.

Re:Classic misdirection

[the_mad_poster]

The point, I believe, came screaming straight in at your head, then hopped right over it. ;)

The mentality among terrorists and terrorist recruits is that it IS ok to violently retaliate against innocent people. That attitude needs to be changed and open dialog needs to be institued. Until people who feel they are being repressed (Python jokes notwithstanding) are given the opportunity to make their cases heard and convinved that discussion is the best way to resolve issues, we can capture all the terrorists we want. For every one we capture or kill, we'll help them recruit 2 more. Fighting is a stopgap necessity. Hopefully we can get rid of the ruling tyrants which will give us the opportunity to install venues for open communication.

That said, I hope that people don't let this divert them from the real objective - Bin Laden. While it's wonderful for the Iraqi people and Iraq's neighbors that this psychotic butcher is captured (I hope - mind you, they haven't completed DNA tests yet), he's not our main objective and he wasn't really much of a threat to us. Now we need to get the guy that really pissed everybody off in the first place - Bin Laden. Let the IRAQI people celebrate this one and be happy for them. The U.S. and it's buddies still have a job to do.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Toddlerbob]

Now he has been. He, not bin Laden, will be at the forefront of millions of Americans' minds, seen as a defeated figurehead for terrorist activity -- despite the fact that he was not responsible for 9/11. And this means re-election.

Actually, it's a little too early to mean that, since the American Memory Hole (R) tends to wipe out anything older than a month. On the other hand, some real paranoid types think the US knows exactly where bin Laden is. So let's see if he appears in chains next summer.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Bin Laden isn't tied to a single country as was Saddam. His operation has been greatly hindered, and he'll go down...eventually.

Bin Laden's wealth combined with the devotion of his followers and, as you mentioned, the fact that he isn't tied to a single country suggests that he is more likely to be taken down by old age or his reported kidney ailment as American-friendly forces. You have to keep in mind just how loved and respected he is in many parts of the muslim world. Saddam was hated almost everywhere in Iraq except Tikrit and look how long he was able to hold out.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

What about Fidel Castro? Everyone's been saying the same about him for years. He's a despot! He tortures his people!

Sure, but Castro had treaties with the Soviets, who (in theory at least) would have backed him up with nuclear weapons.

While it's too bad the U.S. has neither the resources or the international good will ;-) to take on every evil dictator around the world, the occasional win should be savored to the fullest. :-)

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Were we able to find Osama bin Laden? No.

Geez, man. Where have you been? The consensus of opinion among those in the know--meaning not those with weblogs or time on TV news networks--is that Osama bin Laden was killed along with thousands of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the Battle of the Tora Bora Mountains in November, 2001. Why were his remains never found? Because either he was blasted to atoms by ground-penetrating ordinance dropped from B-52's out of Diego Garcia, or his corpse was buried when the cave he was holing up in collapsed under the bombardment.

Osama bin Laden has not been seen since by anybody, as far as we know. This is significant, because before Tora Bora he was sending al Jazeera videos every couple of weeks. He has not been heard from since, as far as we know. The various audio recordings allegedly from him have been determined to have been not-particularly-good forgeries. The guy on the last tape, the one about Iraq, didn't even speak with the same accent as bin Laden. He has not given any orders since, as far as we know. We know this because we know a thing or two about signals intelligence. And, most importantly, he hasn't tried to get to any of his money since, as far as we know, and we know that very well because we're really good at following money.

Osama bin Laden has been dead for over two years now. You people are starting to sound like Elvis freaks. The King is alive, man! He's alive and well and working the night shift at a 7-11 in Memphis!

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, has anyone asked these Guerillas if they are former Baathists? Im thinking not...

You transposed two words there. What you should have said was, "I'm not thinking."

Ever heard of the Fedayeen Saddam? They were sort of a Baathist militia, except they had this big thing about getting worked up into a suicidal frenzy. They were organized by Odai Hussein in 1995 (when it became evident to everybody that the war would sooner or later come to its inevitable conclusion, with U.S. troops in Baghdad). They got training and had uniforms and everything.

Who's conducting these attacks? Random nobodies? Ordinary citizens? No, you dimwit. They're being conducted by uniformed cadres of the Fedayeen Saddam.

Do a little reading before opening your big fat mouth next time, okay?

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody got hurt at the Boston Tea Party. Well, I seem to remember something about one of the Mather twins getting a splinter from a rough-hewn tea crate, but that's as far as it went.

Terrorism: the deliberate targeting of civilians with violence for the purpose of inspiring fear, and by so doing affecting political change.

We do not include tea in our definition of civilians.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

The mentality among terrorists and terrorist recruits is that it IS ok to violently retaliate against innocent people. That attitude needs to be changed and open dialog needs to be institued.

1. That attitude is being changed. If you, as a head of state, support terrorism, your country will fall and you'll lose everything you ever had. That's a great attitude-changer. If you, as an individual, conduct or aid in the conduct of acts of terrorism, the wrath of the United States military will rain down upon you like so much damnation, and the last sensation that reaches your brain will be the sunlight glinting off the GPS guidance kit of the bomb that ends your life. Also a great attitude-changer.

The days of a proportional response to terrorism are over.

2. Not everybody deserves open dialogue. The worst thing that can happen is for us to send the message that the way to buy yourself a seat at the bargaining table is to detonate a few of the faithful on a few of your enemy's street corners. Acts of terrorism are doomed to utter and complete failure; the only result of an act of terror is the further entrenchment of your enemies against you.

That said, I hope that people don't let this divert them from the real objective - Bin Laden.

3. There have been no signs of life from Osama bin Laden since November, 2001. He's dead. Give it up.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, a major victory. If you think this is going to change any of the resistance in a Iraq, if you think less Americans are going to die in that horrible place because of this... you are an idiot. This was a powerplay by the Iraqis, Saddam was found because they no longer needed/wanted him. The resistance in Iraq is diverse, so you will be eating crow the minute another terrorist sets off a car bomb in Iraq.

It is so sad that people like you are so easily blinded by the obvious. It is people like you that elected Bush, and without even knowing you, I hate you.

There was no justified reason to invade that country. Saddam's capture is completely meaningless to the safety of the world. This is just the same as another "Mission Accomplished" banner for Bush. Just because he was captured does not justify the war.

You delusional moron.

Re:Classic misdirection

[JFMulder]

Should we invade the US then? ;)

Re:Classic misdirection

[waltmarkers]

The correct statement (with proper tenses) is: "Have we been able to find Bin Laden? Not yet.".

In other news, we have not yet been able to prove the current cold fusion devices work. We also have "not yet" completely drained our new filling station of oil, but we have pumped it pretty well for propaganda value.

Re:Classic misdirection

[johnjay]

"Not yet" is good, optomistic thinking, but it seems that there has been a lot more energy spent tracking down Baathists in Iraq than tracking down the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. There are several good reasons for this. There are more troops in Iraq. Also, Bin Laden could be in a country the US doesn't have complete control over, like Pakistan or Iran.

I really had the feeling that capturing Saddam was a matter of time (especially after Uday and Qusay), but getting Bin Laden isn't such a certainty. Will be great if they do get him, though.

Re:Classic misdirection

[starcraftsicko]

The 'War on Terror' cannot be won by capturing anyone! You can only 'win' by solving the problems that only serve to create more and more terrorists.

Almost all modern terrorism is due to US foreign policy. It is not because terrorists "hate freedom". That is, franky an extremely naive view of the world, seperating people into blank and white views of "good" and "bad".

Pardon my lumping your statement with one of the replies, but they are along the same lines....

Exactly what problems do you think are available to be solved in Iraq and the rest of the middle east? I suppose we could turn the Germans loose and let them exterminate the Jews... let them finish the job. And I suppose that we could all bow to Mecca... even the athiests among us... My point is that the problems in that part of the world are not available to be solved, or at least not solvable by any means that would satisfy a squeemish slashdotter.

Perhaps you believe that poverty is the problem? Certainly the American and European Press has been trumpeting this for a couple of years; perhaps you've bought that line? Poverty has never been "solved" anyplace. In Socialist Euroupe, and even in the United States, millions are fed and housed by the government, but this does not prevent people from being poor or impoverished. Poverty cannot be "solved"... at best it can be somewhat reduced or mitigated, and then only by a constitutional government (IE a government run according to rules rather than according to whim).

The US, or Euroupe can not solve "poverty" by simply giving out free food... such solutions breed resentment and create havoc when that aid is withdrawn. OTOH, the people in that part of the world seem resistant to the establishment of any sort of constitutional government.

Give an Iraqui a fish, and he eats for a day, teach an Iraqui to Fish and eats for the rest of his life (or until the UN bans fishing in his river). But the Itaqui insurgency resents our fish, and is uninterested in learning how to fish... Do you see the problem?

As for American foreign policy, the problem many Europeans, Chicoms, and Arabs have with it is that it exists. I suspect that The world preferd the Isolationist America of 1906 or 1936 to the Gulliver Unchained of 2003. Sleeping America came when called and could be counted upon to kill however many Germans were required... Problem is that Sleeping America did not return to sleep after 1945, and has been acting in what it views as its own self interest ever since.

If the Saudi Monarchy was toppled tomorrow, do you believe that anything better would replace it? Would it be in the US interest to see that Monarchy toppled today? Would it be in Euroupe's interest?

The problem in the middle east, with Arabs and Muslimsand all others is that there is a widely held belief that "terrorism" is a legitimate, and even laudable form of political expression. I see no solution to this.

Give a muslim some fire and he'll be warm for a day. Dip him in pork grease and light him on fire, and he'll be warm for all eternity.

Re:Classic misdirection

[JuggleGeek]

Now he has been. He, not bin Laden, will be at the forefront of millions of Americans' minds, seen as a defeated figurehead for terrorist activity -- despite the fact that he was not responsible for 9/11.

Thanksgiving day, I was talking to my girlfriends brother-in-law. He claimed that Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, and still believed he had WMD's. He had very strong feelings about it. It was yet another reminder that for a lot of people, facts/evidence/truth have no bearing on what they believe. I suspect the guy has spent a bit too much time listening to Rush Limbaugh.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

Right, a major victory. If you think this is going to change any of the resistance in a Iraq, if you think less Americans are going to die in that horrible place because of this... you are an idiot. This was a powerplay by the Iraqis, Saddam was found because they no longer needed/wanted him.

This was a power play by "the Iraqis"? Many Iraqis were out in the street celebrating today...what of them?

The resistance in Iraq is diverse, so you will be eating crow the minute another terrorist sets off a car bomb in Iraq.

Not at all...I don't expect this to completely end the resistance. It will die off over time, though, particularly as a legitimate, democratic Iraqi government assumes power. After that, we'll leave.

It is so sad that people like you are so easily blinded by the obvious.

Heh, "blinded by the obvious". I think of it as "persuaded by the facts".

It is people like you that elected Bush,

Yes it is. You had to consider the alternative. Sometimes the two-party system (one of my favorite pet peeves) gets ugly.

and without even knowing you, I hate you.

You, sir, have achieved the first step towards becoming a terrorist. Congratulations.

I, on the other hand, can only pity you and your weak mind.

There was no justified reason to invade that country.

I already posted a fine response to that particular silliness.

Saddam's capture is completely meaningless to the safety of the world.

I disagree. WMDs have been eliminated (one way or the other - that is unless they're now in Syria, Iran or some other terrorist hotbed). Terrorist training camps have been shut down. And, regardless of anywhere else, the Iraqi people are much safer than they were while Saddam was in power.

This is just the same as another "Mission Accomplished" banner for Bush. Just because he was captured does not justify the war.

BTW, the first "Mission Accomplished" banner was fully justified - the first mission was taking down the Hussein government.

As you've probably already figured out, I feel the war was perfectly justified, if a war ever is.

You delusional moron.

Pot, kettle, black. :-)

Re:Classic misdirection

[lordholm]

I found the post to be very insightful, but there is one thing I must disagree with: "I suspect that The world preferd the Isolationist America of 1906 or 1936 to the Gulliver Unchained of 2003."

This is plainly not true. I am a European and I know how the debates went here, when Bush was elected. The big problem was that he withdrew the US from the international arena; especially the Israeli-Palestine conflict. The gripe when Bush became interested in foreign affairs after 9/11 was not that US invaded Afganistan, most people in Europe agreed with this. The opposition is always the loudest though.

The real critique came when Bush decided to invade Iraq. The reason people generally opposed this in Europe is (I asume) that Saddam had made no real agressive moves, and thus the US/UK conducted an unprovoked aggression against Iraq.

Of course, while a lot of European voices were raised against the invasion, a lot of voices were raised for it as well.

If viewed from as a state to state matter, a lot of things in the decision to invade are discussable. However, when viewing the invasion from a moral and philosophical point of view, there really isn't much to discuss. Ayn Rand said: "The evil of the world is made possible by only the sanction that you give it"

Oh well, enough ranting!

Re:Classic misdirection

[the_mad_poster]

Mental giant here....

1) Oh, yes. I forgot that in this New Bush World Order, bombs going off and killing U.S. soldiers in Baghdad is proof of how successful we are. Obviously, then, the fact that there are still plenty of people rushing into terrorism is evidence that we're changing their attitudes.

2) You're an idiot. You can't just rip free speech away from people because you don't want to listen to them. Why the fuck do you think these people are so easily swayed to terrorism? Gee... because NOBODY LISTENS TO THEM OTHERWISE. And whether you act on their demands or not, at least now you're listening when they go about blowing up innocent people, so it must be at least partially effective.

3) Ok, Holmes. Brilliant deduction. We haven't seen him, so he must be dead. He couldn't possibly be hiding or simply evading us. No, he MUST be dead. It doesn't matter that there's no body, people who claim to spot him, and nobody who's stepped up to say he is, in fact, dead. Nope, despite all these things, he MUST be dead.

And, seeing as you're an AC posting totally illogical nonsense, you'll get exactly NO further responses from me. Night!

Re:Classic misdirection

[antiMStroll]

First, what coalition? Second, catching Osama achieves nothing. Another Osama will pop up, and his followers will be driven by the fire of the first Osama the Martyr. The US capture of bin Laden will swell the ranks of al Queda. Great victory? Through his acts America is in greater danger now than when Bush took office, as are your civil liberties.

Re:Classic misdirection

[thenextpresident]

I think you're missing his point.

No, in fact, I understand his point completely. His point is that these Terrorists have problems with certain things, and while they shouldn't be terrorizing, we should be solving these "problems".

I understand that completely. But you say that we should solve the problems that create the terrorists in the first place. While that is a fine thought, it's not realistic. The terrorists are wrong in what they are doing, regardless of their motive. Killing innocent people is wrong. We should NOT negotiate with terrorists, for the very reason that giving in to them would be to admit that violence is indeed the answer.

It's a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation.

We need to strike back against the terrorists, obviously, while solving the problems. To not strike back is to invite more terrorism. "Look, if we terrorize the US, they will give in to our demands!" is what I don't want to hear.

I found that the previous poster (who I was responding to) was practically defending the terrorists by saying that it's the US's fault that these terrorists are attacking and killing innocent people.

It's the same type of reasoning people use when they say Music or Movies caused these people to commit violent acts. The terrorists are doing wrong, it's as simple as that.

Re:Classic misdirection

[proverbialcow]

Yes, it's true we haven't been able to find bin Laden yet. It took us eight months to find a guy who's been living in luxury for 35 years, surrounded by people who were responsible for his safety so he wouldn't have to be.

How long do you think it will take to find someone who's been on the run most of his adult life?

Re:Classic misdirection

[BFKrew]

I am a Brit and have been in Manchester when we've been bombed by the IRA, who incidentally received a lot of funding in the US. I can absolutely assure you it's scary when you know poeple from school who get scarred for life from flying glass. Of course it is wrong and immoral to blow up innocent people and I cannot understand their mentality. However, they do NOT see it as wrong! We went for years where we used to increase the agression in pursuing them IRA and Loyalist terrorists. We were more brutal, we policed harder, we vowed never to give in. They tried to blow up our Government, we stepped up the patrols and made life harder. We killed people who protested sometimes and sometimes killed people at checkpoints. Still the attacks continued. The only thing which has helped the situation is by talking, engaging and starting to dismantle the reasons which fire their anger and aggression. If you think that bombing and hunting people solves the problem I can tell you from our experiences that you bettre get used to facing years and years of terrorist actions.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

No "democracy" will change that.

Hi, Anonymous! You've been busy today! ;-)

Democracy will change that - through freedom of speech, and freedom of thought. You'll see...

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

Ah, I see the "overrated" thought police are out again. Nice to have some enemies, it keeps the mind sharp!

If y'all want a piece of me, let's set up some RTCW/ET action - I certainly wouldn't mind having you in my sights... =)

Now, back to football, cold beer and a cigar or two...time to celebrate today! =)

Oh, and by the way, Merry Christmas!

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, then, the fact that there are still plenty of people rushing into terrorism is evidence that we're changing their attitudes.

So... what? Love-in?

You can't just rip free speech away from people because you don't want to listen to them.

"Open dialogue" is not the same as "free speech." Moron.

Why the fuck do you think these people are so easily swayed to terrorism? Gee... because NOBODY LISTENS TO THEM OTHERWISE.

That's like saying that the poor boy next door only murdered those little girls because he wanted somebody to love him.

Before 9/11, terrorism guaranteed that you wouldn't get listened to. Now, after 9/11, terrorism guarantees that you won't get listened to, and also that you'll find yourself at the wrong end of the most powerful military on earth.

And whether you act on their demands or not, at least now you're listening when they go about blowing up innocent people, so it must be at least partially effective.

What do you mean, at least now we're listening? Nobody's listening. Nobody gives a flying fuck why you (the third-person you here) blew yourself up on a city bus.

We haven't seen him, so he must be dead.

Well, basically, yeah. When the leader of a worldwide organization who takes an active, day-to-day role in commanding that organization is in a place where we drop a couple million pounds of ordinance, and thereafter he's never heard from again... yeah. Fucker's dead. Let's move on.

It doesn't matter that there's no body

Blasted to atoms.

people who claim to spot him

No such claims have been made. Except possibly in your imagination.

and nobody who's stepped up to say he is, in fact, dead.

That's because all the people who witnessed his death were busy being blown apart themselves, you dimwit.

And, seeing as you're an AC posting totally illogical nonsense, you'll get exactly NO further responses from me. Night!

Outstanding. Whatever it takes to shut you the fuck up. Plus, the fact that you ended your post with "goodnight" when it's noon in the United States tells me that you're probably a fuckin' left-wing Europeen shitwit anyway, so I couldn't give less of a damn what you think about the weather, much less global military matters.

Re:Classic misdirection

[love2hateMS]

Who modded this insightful?

All modern terrorism is the result of U.S. foreign policy? What a ridiculous statement. Terrorism is a result of ignorance, poverty, and manipulation by self-interested powermongers and idealogical wackos. What does U.S. foreign policy have to do with Basque terrorism in Spain, for example? Can you somehow stretch your hatred of America to blame them for that? I suppose we are causing the inter-tribal bloodshed throughout Africa?

Re:Classic misdirection

[Software Cowboy]

How on earth is "almost all modern terrorism" due to US foreign policy? Are you nuts or a troll?

Chechens are driven by US foreign policy? Northern Ireland is driven by US foreign policy? Tamil separatists are driven by US foreign policy? Kashmir terrorists are driven by US foreign policy?

What the hell are you talking about and what morons think you're insightful?

Re:Classic misdirection

[focitrixilous P]

And this means re-election.
I hope not. A victory in a war that was justified by what now seem to be mostly lies shouldn't win re-election.

Re:Classic misdirection

[LauraScudder]

I totally agree. Most Americans don't understand the longterm consequences of foreign policy decisions. Even worse, most never acknowledge that some countries have good reasons for disliking us. We usually write those people off as crazy, since why would anyone sane dislike our policies? Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that those policies fuck some people over bigtime.

Bush walking all over our allies to get this war to happen is just another example of the shortsightedness of this administration.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think that WMDs are the size of a pencil that can be carried in your pocket?? WMDs moved to Syria/Iran and the satellites could not see anything?? I recall Mr. Powell presenting back in february satellite images showing exactly "highly dangerous" Iraqi WMDs!! You saw them then but you could not see them being loaded into trucks, driven across the country and crossing the border??? It seems that you are reading only the official statements of the White House in order to keep yourself informed!!

Re:Classic misdirection

[ejungle]

...and a major psychological blow for the Baathist resistance.

...and the democrats.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Gogl]

Your logic is good but there are a few facts you're missing. Namely, we have been looking for Saddam pretty ardently for awhile, but we have essentially given up regarding Osama, deciding that he's "out of the picture".

http://www.proles.net/archives/000385.html

As such, the correct statement (with proper tenses) is: "Have we been able to find Bin Laden? Nope, we've given up."

As Bob Graham says, he's become "Osama Bin Forgotten". Too bad Osama is a much more significant issue than Saddam, since we know he has multiple times masterminded attacks on the U.S., and could potentially still be doing so (while Saddam was likely doing little to nothing).

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the press has forgotten about Bin Laden, doesn't mean the US govt. has forgotten.

Re:Classic misdirection

[geekee]

" The 'War on Terror' cannot be won by capturing anyone! You can only 'win' by solving the problems that only serve to create more and more terrorists."

And a free Iraq without the fear of Hussein, with access to the world's media instead of a dictator's myopic view that the US and Israel are evil, would be a good start if it's achieved.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

By your argument, gun makers are responsible for convicts that use guns to kill people, because they made it possible.

Bad decisions by the administration may have made it *POSSIBLE* for the wrong people to obtain the power they needed to commit the horrible acts they did, but utltimately it was *THOSE* people's decision to commit the horrible acts and *THEY* are responsible for them, not the administration.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

Do you think that WMDs are the size of a pencil that can be carried in your pocket?? WMDs moved to Syria/Iran and the satellites could not see anything??

Hi Anonymous, back again I see! ;-)

No, WMDs are not "the size of a pencil". However, they are the size of a 55 gallon drum (or smaller if needed) and easily moved in trucks. How many trucks do you suppose crossed the Iraq border with either Syria or Iran in the weeks preceeding the war?

Answer: Plenty.

How many ships left Iraqi harbors before the war started?

Answer: Plenty.

How is it that the U.S. was supposed to interdict all those vehicles before the war started, exactly?

Awaiting your response...

Re:Classic misdirection

[Gogl]

Read the link. A US General actually said that "Saddam was out of the picture". The press has forgotten *and* the US govt has forgotten (or perhaps more accurately, given up).

Re:Classic misdirection

[Barraketh]

While I wouldn't say that "most modern terrorism is due to US foreign policy", I definitely agree that much of the hostility towards the US is due to US foreign policy and culture. I will now quote Neal Stephenson's exellent thoughts on the subject:

"It is obvious, to everyone outside of the United States, that our arch-buzzwords, multiculturalism and diversity, are false fronts that are being used (in many cases unwittingly) to conceal a global trend to eradicate cultural differences. The basic tenet of multiculturalism (or "honoring diversity" or whatever you want to call it) is that people need to stop judging each other-to stop asserting (and, eventually, to stop believing) that this is right and that is wrong, this true and that false, one thing ugly and another thing beautiful, that God exists and has this or that set of qualities.

The lesson most people are taking home from the Twentieth Century is that, in order for a large number of different cultures to coexist peacefully on the globe (or even in a neighborhood) it is necessary for people to suspend judgment in this way. Hence (I would argue) our suspicion of, and hostility towards, all authority figures in modern culture. This is the fundamental message of television; it is the message that people take home, anyway, after they have steeped in our media long enough. It comes through as the presumption that all authority figures--teachers, generals, cops, ministers, politicians--are hypocritical buffoons, and that hip jaded coolness is the only way to be.

The problem is that once you have done away with the ability to make judgments as to right and wrong, true and false, etc., there's no real culture left. All that remains is clog dancing and macrame. The ability to make judgments, to believe things, is the entire it point of having a culture. I think this is why guys with machine guns sometimes pop up in places like Luxor, and begin pumping bullets into Westerners. When their sons come home wearing Chicago Bulls caps with the bills turned sideways, the dads go out of their minds.

The global anti-culture that has been conveyed into every cranny of the world by television is a culture unto itself, and by the standards of great and ancient cultures like Islam and France, it seems grossly inferior, at least at first. The only good thing you can say about it is that it makes world wars and Holocausts less likely--and that is actually a pretty good thing!"

Neal Stephenson, In The Beginning Was The Command Line. If you haven't yet, read this essay - it is long but extremely insightful and covers a lot of different (seemingly unrelated) things.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

As Bob Graham says, he's become "Osama Bin Forgotten".

Osama will be "forgotten" about as soon as we forget about Pearl Harbor.

You should look up the definition of "disinformation", I'm sure it applies... :-)

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

What happened with the parent post? It was +5 Insightful...with no negative moderations it appears Slashdot is directly censoring me...shame, shame... :-p

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

9/11 didn't occur because of something we did, it happened simply because of what we were. A successful, free, secular society.

I notice you put that, quite appropriately, in the past tense.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

That is, franky an extremely naive view of the world, seperating people into blank and white views of "good" and "bad".

Sept 11th -- good or bad? Palenstinians blowing themselves up on buses -- good or bad? Yassar Arafat making himself a billionaire off of oil taxes while his 'people' starve -- good or bad? Saddam torturing his own citizens -- good or bad? Iraqi people now free to speak their mind -- good or bad?

I suppose you like to look at things with a more 'worldly' view of "well that might be good ... but" which is easy to say from your safe suburban home that has never known war.

Re:Classic misdirection

[starcraftsicko]

I found the post to be very insightful, but there is one thing I must disagree with: "I suspect that The world preferd the Isolationist America of 1906 or 1936 to the Gulliver Unchained of 2003."
This is plainly not true.

Perhaps I overstated my case a bit... but not as much I think. Certainly the Arab states are resentful of American foreign policy. Any American foreign policy. (Why? Because we are infidels. Infidels arend supposed to have any influence anyplace, but especially not in Arabia.)

Western Euroupe likes the US when the US does what it is told, and when you think about it, that makes sense. France resents that the US had to come over and liberate its ass, and Germany doesn't like it when the US preaches about "tolerance"... (Not that the US tolerance record is that great BTW, but Germany has a particularly black mark on its record)

The problem for these nations is that the USA, at least militarily, can do just about anything it wants... Gulliver Unchained... and they simply can't. It is not happenstance that The large European Nations want to unify into a supernation; free trade is not the only factor. It is not happenstance that France and Germany are trying to plant the seeds for a European Defense Force... You should view it as an Army of Europe.
The big problem was that he withdrew the US from the international arena; especially the Israeli-Palestine conflict. You overstate your case here. Bush's response to the Palestinian problem pre 9/11 was a simple reaction to the collapse of the talks in 2000. Lest we forget, Clinton, desperate to repair his legacy with a foreign policy victory, managed to convince Sharon to offer Arafat a Palestinian State with a capital in Jerusalem. Basically everything he had asked for. And Arafat refused. And then the recent "troubles" began.

Bush, by his inaction was giving Israel a degree of freedom to act to resolve this themselves. The Palestinians had rejected American involvement, and the Israelis did not appreciate the American Hand of Restraint in the wake of renewed violence.

[As an aside... as an American... I saw on TV the celebrations in Gaza City and the West Bank at the WTC (9/11/1) attack. IMO, the proper US policy toward the conflict should be the unilateral napalming of Gaza and the West Bank. If a Tax Increase would ensure more dead and wounded, I would GLADLY PAY.]

The other big pull back after the Bush election was from the Kyoto treaty... This was not a surprise for anyone here. Americans hate being told what they MUST do... and in my experience, Libertarians alone detest this more than Republicans. Republicans see this as a poorly disguised attempt to put a chain around Gulliver.

The real critique came when Bush decided to invade Iraq. The reason people generally opposed this in Europe is (I assume) that Saddam had made no real aggressive moves, and thus the US/UK conducted an unprovoked aggression against Iraq.

Saddam had been making trouble for US and UK no-fly enforcers for over 10 years... and who can blame him (If Canada and Mexico Were enforcing no-flys over the US (don't laugh), we'd be pissed too).

Bush (HW) stopped short of toppling Saddam to preserve a hard won Arab/Muslim consensus and alliance. Clinton squandered that victory; by the time Bush (W) came along, there was no real working alliance in the region... Clinton should have acted decisively when Saddam kicked out the UN inspectors. Instead he fucked around in his office. Literally. Pre-9/11 Bush (W) sought to preserve the status quo. Post 9/11, the status quo was unacceptable. No-flys and trade embargos were going to continue for the foreseeable future. US foreign policy could tolerate Saddam's sons no more than Saddam. France and others were helping Saddam turn food-for-oil into money. The plight of regular Iraqis was worse every day... WMDs were a pretense to do w

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, when you figure out how to prevent people from becoming evil, don't forget to tell the rest of us, OK?

Re:Classic misdirection

[Gogl]

You should actually read the link I'm referring to. It shows that Osama *has* been forgotten by the military and government. And if you look at the media you'll see he's largely been forgotten by the public as well.

Re:Classic misdirection

[MisterMook]

A better way: Stop relying on Middle Eastern oil, stop funding their wars of jihad at the gas pumps, and basically marginalize them again. There are plenty of evil bastards in Africa too, but we generally are allowed to not give a shit because there's nothing in Africa we want and Africans can't afford flush toilets much less intermediate range missiles.

Re:Classic misdirection

[StarTux]

"The real critique came when Bush decided to invade Iraq. The reason people generally opposed this in Europe is (I asume) that Saddam had made no real agressive moves, and thus the US/UK conducted an unprovoked aggression against Iraq."

And people still discuss "if only" about Britain, USA and France taking action against Hitler in the 30's...Makes for interesting discussion, but thats all passed now.

"If viewed from as a state to state matter, a lot of things in the decision to invade are discussable. However, when viewing the invasion from a moral and philosophical point of view, there really isn't much to discuss."

Morally, if sanctions had been removed and he was allowed to continue on his merry way to re-armanent (and morally, scanctions would have had to have been removed at some point) as he would have done (before anyone says how do you know that, go and live in a country that lives under a real dictator, I mean live, not just visit as a no-nothing tourist, then you will get a greater appreciation of the psyche of dictators, the saying, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is so true and then they become delusional), what would he have targetted? Israel for a biological/nuclear attack, and if Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries had not rallied to his "saladin" side they too would have been attacked (arguably he could have attacked Saudi Arabia/Kuwait at the same time as Israel to try and neutralize the allied threat). You never mentioned any side to the argument on moral or philosphical grounds, apart from the the juicy quote :).

Re:Classic misdirection

[rhuntley12]

Terrorism is increased when it is tackled by force? Then your not laying down the proper force. Go in, humble the population, etc, and it's not going to increase when you start slaughtering everyone who even reads the word terrorism. I'm not advocating that, just saying.... Look at The Soviet Union, at it's height of power did it have much terrorism?

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

You should actually read the link I'm referring to. It shows that Osama *has* been forgotten by the military and government.

You should actually look up the definition of "disinformation". If you were to do that, you'd find that the fact that the government has disavowed interest in finding Osama is not relevant.

I hope this helped... :-)

Re:Classic misdirection

[Gogl]

Mmhmm, so you really think there's a conspiracy at work here? That's a pretty unlikely theory, I'm afraid, especially considering we're talking about actually bringing troops home from Afghanistan.

I suggest providing actual sources and reasoning for your views, rather than just "could be's" and other conspiracy theory views. Technically, your assertion is unfalsifiable: that is, it is impossible to prove wrong and as such is unscientific and can't really be logically discussed (much like assertions regarding the existence of God, or conspiracy theories regarding all sorts of things). So yeah, I'd suggest shaping up on that. My initial response to you praised your logic, but it seems like I may have been mistaken.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Glock27]

I suggest providing actual sources and reasoning for your views, rather than just "could be's" and other conspiracy theory views. Technically, your assertion is unfalsifiable: that is, it is impossible to prove wrong and as such is unscientific and can't really be logically discussed (much like assertions regarding the existence of God, or conspiracy theories regarding all sorts of things). So yeah, I'd suggest shaping up on that. My initial response to you praised your logic, but it seems like I may have been mistaken.

I appreciate your regard for logic...however in the intelligence business logic is often trumped by tactics. All I can say is what I believe, that the U.S. gummint (with all that implies;) is still hot on the trail of OBL despite evidence to the contrary.

I apologise if I have failed you in some way. If you're so inclined, drop me a note here if you'll be in the Southeast portion of the U.S., I'd be happy to buy you a beer or other beverage of your choice. :-)

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you joking? The US had a large hand in training much of the resistance force in Afghanistan, including Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), of which Osama was the head. Osama later split from MAK and established al-Qaida. So the US's efforts gave a lot toward Osama's current terror regime. It's also hard to be friendly toward a force that uses you to fight for them. The Afghanistan rebels were useful to the US as long as they fought the Soviets. When they didn't need them anymore, the US left, leaving Afghanistan in ruins and paving the way for the Taliban and worse.

You're the one that has got to be fucking kidding. You make it sound like the Afghanis would've just spread their legs and welcomed the Soviet invasion but for US interference. The US didn't provide the training, we just funneled money through the Saudis and the Pakistanis. If anything, it was the US's lack of direct involvement that allowed the Saudis and Pakistanis to sponser the worst elements in the fight against the Soviet invasion. The repressive jerks that would eventually become the Taliban already hated the West--but that didn't stop them from accepting US help in fighting for their country. The Soviets killed about 1.3 million Afghanis, drove 5+ million people from their homes and it's the United States that left Afghanistan in ruins? Bullshit. It's not like the Afghanis would've welcomed a US presence after the Soviets retreated.

According to Wikipedia, Osama's main beef with the US is it's support of Saudi Arabia monarchy, which, if you'll pardon a cliche, was largely supported due to it's oil reserves. Osama is, of course, a psychopath, but that doesn't mean that the US didn't have a hand in the creation of the terrorist leader we know today.

Actually Osama's main motivation was that the US had stationed troops on holy Muslim soil--Saudi Arabia specifically. That's not creating Osama; that's providing the fucker with motivation. That was the stated motivation he gave when he bombed the WTC the first time around and when he bombed the USS Cole. The only hand the US had in creating Osama was not demanding that the Saudi's stop spreading their hateful brand of Islam: Wahhabism. That is the twisted version of religion and reality that Osama's working from. And just because Osama is a psycho doesn't mean the US created him. Blame Sheikh Muhammad ibn ?Abd al Wahhab who came up with the shite Osama believes in.

Almost all modern terrorism is due to US foreign policy. It is not because terrorists "hate freedom". That is, franky an extremely naive view of the world, seperating people into blank and white views of "good" and "bad".

You have really got to be fucking kidding me here. The Europeans fucked-up the Middle East long before the US became a major global power. Hell, the Euros fucked much of the world over through their colonies (although the Brits actually left a decent legacy in some of their colonies). It was the Brits that put the Kurds, Sunni's and Shiite in the same country. It was the Brits who led the formation of Israel and split India and Pakistan. It was France that tortured and killed millions of Muslims in Algeria. It was the Soviets that invaded Afghanistan. It is the leader of each and every Arab Muslim country that is destroying their own country through depotism, kleptocracy and ineptitude. The US is culpable to the extent that it's providing aid to those countries but those countries would be worse off without it. If anything, those terrorists are fighting for even more reactionary brands of Islam and governance (Al Qaeda, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jemaah Islamiah, etc...) -- that means they do hate 'freedom' and all it represents. Iran went from a corrupt but western oriented Shah to the Mullahs (nearly everyone in Iran now wants the Mullahs gone). The only possible way that you can mean that the US is responsible for all modern terrorism (I guess the US are the ones fucking over Chechnya) is its support of Israel (France was happy to be Israel's main weapons dealer/benefactor till the 70's). See, the world is way too complex to simplistically blame all its troubles on the US you ignorant slut.

You're an incredibly uninformed troll and the idiots that modded you insightful are just as uninformed.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Gogl]

Heh, you're welcome to believe the "gummint" is hot on the trail of OBL, but as I said such an assertion is simply unfalsifiable. You can take it on "gut instinct" or "tactics logic" or something like that if you want, but I tend to try and operate under a more academic version of logic myself though.

That said though, if we can agree to disagree on that, then I guess we don't really have any issue here. I suppose you're welcome to hold whatever belief you want regarding pursuit of Osama, even if it does contradict with public statements by the military and such (after all, they could just be engaging in disinformation, even though there's no proof of that). I think I'll avoid harboring a conspiracy theory on this particular topic, though, as god knows I tend to harbor them (not always wholeheartedly, but still somewhat) regarding plenty of other things.

So, no hard feelings then, and I doubt I'll ever be down in the southeast but I certainly wouldn't mind drinking with you, heh. Alcohol can overcome all ideological differences, I have found.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK OFF, YANK. You're almost as obnoxious as Eric Krout when he did the whole 'A Proud American' thing -- you know, annoyingly right-wing gun-toting Bush-loving patriotic kinda guy. Excessive smileys. But he was just doing it to wind people up.

Re:Classic misdirection

[mark2003]

Work's well in Isreal/Palestine doesn't it. Also worked really well in Northern Ireland.

The only time that this kind of approach has ever worked is when people like Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, several Roman leaders etc. wiped out entire populations - women and children as well. If you try using force you better kill every single person that may have a reason to fight back, otherwise one will.

If you are suggesting this approach then you are either one sick and twisted individual or a complete idiot.

Re:Classic misdirection

[BiteMeFanboy]

Jesus christ. It's not a real suprise that we can't find Bin Laden. The piece of shit is dead. He was on his last legs regardless and without a dialysis machine wouldn't last long at all.

He's buried somewhere in an unmarkekd grave dug by his supporters so he would "never be caught". Or just as likely we caught him, killed him, and made no mention of it so that he doesn't become a martyr.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Cymage]

Almost all modern terrorism is due to US foreign policy.

You're trolling, right? Let's see if I can name some terrorist groups that have nothing to do with US:

IRA (you did say you lived in UK, right?)
Basque Separatists
Chechnians (yes, I know the russians invaded first, but they are still blowing up buildings)

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Even more naive. By "acting decisively and crushing them all" you only incite more people to harm the US. As a UK citizen, I've seen what happened when terrorism was tackled by force.

Yeah, but you brits are pussies and don't even know what force is. Your idea of force is a joke.

Re:Classic misdirection

[quax]

As a European who was not in favor of this war, I can assure you that Europeans would have been much less opposed to this war if the US administration had stated clearly what this war is all about. The WMD issue was and is simply not believable. Nobody likes to be fooled. Nobody likes to send soldiers into harms way for foolish reasons.

If they would have argued from the very beginning that this is only about removing Saddam from power to bring prosperity and freedom to Iraq they would have found more support in Europe.

Re:Classic misdirection

[arevos]

As the insightful AC points out, it was a slight typo. What I meant to say was that: Almost all modern terrorism against the US is a result of US foreign policy.

Re:Classic misdirection

[arevos]

Iraqi's killed in bombings to aid the overthrow of Saddam -- good or bad? The power vacuum left in Afghanistan after the Taliban -- good or bad? The end of the Taliban compared to the tyranny of local warlords -- good or bad? The fueling of anti-american fires by prolonged stay in Iraq -- good or bad? Israelis taking Palenstine land for proclaimed national security -- good or bad?

Many issues are very morally difficult to solve. As nice as it would be to have a world of blacks and whites, there's an awful lot of greys.

Re:Classic misdirection

[arevos]

You're trolling, right? Let's see if I can name some terrorist groups that have nothing to do with US:

An unfortunate typo :/ - I meant all terrorism against the US.

Oh, and the IRA did get a lot of it's money from US sources. But you are correct in that quite a lot of terrorism has zip to do with the US.

Re: Classic misdirection

[Black Parrot]

> Exactly. An excellent way to begin solving many of those problems is to create a strong, stable democracy in place of a brutal dictatorship, in a pivotal Middle Eastern country.

> Historically, as people worldwide have been exposed to democracy, they've wanted it for themselves. It's happening in Iraq right now.

And of course... Iraq was a democracy as recently as a couple of generations ago. Since then they've enjoyed a military coup and rule, rule by the Ba'ath party, and rule under Saddam's dictatorship.

Installing a democracy where its roots don't run deep is not going to be an easy task. The Bush Administration would be well advised to look at where it has historically worked and where it hasn't. (Of course, they don't want to hear it, because the short answer is that success correlates strongly with international involvement and an occupation force in proportion to the population about four times what we've got over there right now.)

But I'm skeptical that the USA has any intention of installing a true democracy there now anyway, since our only consistent message to the Governing Council has been "you can do anything you want, so long as it's what we want".

And given the factional nature of the country, it's doubtful that any government can hold it together without becoming as brutal as Saddam was. Democracy in Iraq is a Bush fantasy, or more likely a cynical yarn to get the US public to support the invasion.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Black Parrot]

> Of course it is wrong and immoral to blow up innocent people and I cannot understand their mentality. However, they do NOT see it as wrong!

The human mind is remarkably flexible when it comes to justifying one's own actions and vilifying the actions of others. We probably killed more innocent Iraqi civilians in this war than al Q has killed Americans in total, but by the American value system "collateral casualties" are a sad but necessary side effect of necessary regime changes. Some Iraqis, OTOH, probably see it as no different from poping a bomb on a bus full of schoolchildren. (Or rather, a lot of buses, since the best guess is that several thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed so far.)

You certainly don't have to agree with the other side, but until you take the trouble to understand them you will never be able to get along with each other.

> We went for years where we used to increase the agression in pursuing them IRA and Loyalist terrorists. We were more brutal, we policed harder, we vowed never to give in. They tried to blow up our Government, we stepped up the patrols and made life harder. We killed people who protested sometimes and sometimes killed people at checkpoints. Still the attacks continued. The only thing which has helped the situation is by talking, engaging and starting to dismantle the reasons which fire their anger and aggression. If you think that bombing and hunting people solves the problem I can tell you from our experiences that you bettre get used to facing years and years of terrorist actions.

Yes, unfortunately the hardliners on both sides have been calling the plays recently. (In Israel/Palestine as well as in the USA's relationship with the Arab world.) People forget that the goal isn't to 'win' as in boxing, but to 'win' by getting the two sides to quit throwing punches.

And of course, so long as both sides claim a right to get the last swing in, a simple inductive argument shows that the conflict will never stop.

What the world needs is politicians (and voters) who are willing to give the other side some of what it wants. Certainly not everything the Osamas and Cheneys of the world want, but enough to undercut the grassroots support for murder as a legitimized tool of international politics.

Re:Classic misdirection

[Anonymous Coward]

Read it again, I wasn't suggesting it.

And Israel/Palestine isn't the same thing as I was suggesting with the Soviet Union. Funny that their satellite states still had people living.

He's not in my deck

[AndroidCat]

My king of diamonds is Darl, who's still at large along with Al Ralsky and others. If only Darl would STFU and go into hiding...

GOOD JOB TO US TROOPS, PRISON TO THE US GOVERNMENT

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you and your anti-anti-war comment you idiot. Perhaps if you really knew what the invasion was REALLY about you'd have second thoughts regarding the intent of the US government invasion of security-threat-level-WORTHLESS target like Iraq...

Good News

[Phoenix666]

for the Iraqis, maybe not so much for Bush. Unless all the attacks stop, flowers bloom in the desert, and sheep lie down with wolves. His buddies at Halliburton are still gouging the American taxpayer on the no-bid contracts they got. Unemployment is still really high in the US, fewer and fewer people have health insurance, and on and on. Bush will probably get a small bounce in his popularity, but not for long. The people that want him out of power won't change their minds because of this.

Re:Good News

[bigjnsa500]

You are complete wrong. You should really research stuff before post falsely. But alas, you Dems are just hate mongerers.

First, Halliburton was awarded the no-bid contract by your favorite pal in 1999. Previously their WAS a bid process and Haliburton lost in 1997. Then Slick Willie did away with the bids and just gave it to Haliburton. Yes, that's right CLINTON!

Secondly, Halliburton didn't overcharge the taxpayers, their subcontractor for fuel supply charged THEM that amount.

Thirdly, I will never understand why people think the economy is in the power of the president. Does he hold your hand when you buy stuff? Does he tell you what to buy? Uh.. NO! Get real.

Fourthly, health insurance. It costs a lot because of the malpractice suits and drug costs. You want health insurance? Go back to school and get a real education, then a good job. But I refuse to pay for healthcare of low-lifes happy in their burger flipping career.

Re:Good News

[jimmy_dean]

Thank you, it is so good to see someone thing independently for once as opposed to being brainwashed by the Democrats. You are absolutely right on all of your points in your post. Yes liberals can express their views but they'll still always be wrong. We don't want a social democracy in this country. If you want that Democrats, go live in Europe or Canada. This country is all about the freedom to choose and if you assign healthcare to all, this takes away from that freedom. It doesn't give healthcare companies freedom, it doesn't give drug makers freedom, and it doesn't even give citizens the freedom to choose whether to have healthcare or not. Right now, if you want healthcare, go get a job that has healthcare. Employers are hiring again, now's the time to get a good job.

Re:Good News

[nyseal]

As far as the contract bids, please explain to me WHY countries that provided no support to this operation (right, wrong or indifferent) should be able to prosper from the end result? An old quote: 'To the victor go the spoils'. The coalition fought the battle and lost the lives, fuck the people who now feel offended because they can't make a dollar from it.

Re:Good News

[gaj]

I was right there with you until your comment about burger flippers. Anyone working is helping, to some degree, to keep the economy flowing. Does that mean they should get health care for "free"? no. But a person is not a "low life" for working a menial job.

If you really think that, then all I can say is "dude ... stop being on my side".

Re:Good News

[gangien]

But alas, you Dems are just hate mongerers.

If you read my posts you will see that I am fairly conservative, especially since I post on a site like /. and go to college.. But this is as ridiculus as saying republicans are war mongerers. Both are completly false and believed by idiots. The fact is there are very smart people on all sides of politics, and for good reasons, even if they do turn out to be the wrong reasons.

Good post tho :)

Re:Good News

[markprus]

> This country is all about the freedom to choose and if > you assign healthcare to all, this takes away from that > freedom.

I could not have said it better myself. The government must not be in the business of healing people. Why is it so hard for people to get it through their heads that the time to get sick is when they're working.

Now I just wish I was given back the right to kill people. This country is all about freedom after all!

You, sir, have made me sad today, very sad.

Re:Good News

[Happy go Lucky]

As far as the contract bids, please explain to me WHY countries that provided no support to this operation (right, wrong or indifferent) should be able to prosper from the end result?

Even more to the point: Most of these contracts are to be funded by the US Government. AKA the US taxpayers, all 280 million of us. I resent the shit out of paying Social Security payroll tax for my own fellow citizens. Why the hell should I cough up for a foreign corporation?

Re:Good News

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is the "we" who don't want a social democracy?
You can only speak for yourself.

Re:Good News

[CGP314]

Slick Willie? Now that's something I haven't heard in a while. Forgot about that nickname. : )

But anyway, George Bush makes Slick Willie look like superglue.

Re:Good News

[jimmy_dean]

Oh come on, what a rediculous argument. You know what I was saying and it was not that we should get the right to kill or just any right. Why on earth should the government provide healthcare for all. Have you not taken (or understood) your basic macro-economics. The government will never be more efficient at distributing healthcare than a free market will be. It's not just about freedom and rights - it's just about basic common sense. As for making you sad, I'm sorry. But it's people like you who ignorantly and blindly put faith in government to do things like universal healthcare that makes me want to puke.

Re:Good News

[Anonymous Coward]

Great point, buddy! Who cares about those low-lifes who are working as burger flippers? Screw 'em, I hope they get sick and die! It's their own damn fault they didn't get a better job. So what if they work forty hours a week to provide us our food, they deserve no pity! In fact, they deserve our scorn! I think the US would be much better served by having a massive lower class that worked for peanuts and received no health-care or social services; they could cook our food, clean our clothes, wash our cars, and wipe our educated butts! Dumb, lazy poor people. I just have never understood why these people choose to be poor. Are you with me, buddy?

Re: Good News

[Black Parrot]

> Fourthly, health insurance. It costs a lot because of the malpractice suits and drug costs. You want health insurance? Go back to school and get a real education, then a good job. But I refuse to pay for healthcare of low-lifes happy in their burger flipping career.

I'm curious about your sense of entitlement for heathcare that burger-flippers don't have access to. Did you acquire that entitlement by birth? By better luck in your career? Do you suppose that burger-flippers would perversely refuse to trade jobs with you if they had the chance, because the prefer crappy jobs with low pay and no health insurance?

Re: Good News

[bigjnsa500]

Sure, people are entitled to healthcare, but I for one will not pay for somebody else's healthcare if they don't want to improve their situation. I have never liked welfare and now your asking working american's to pay for somebody else's healthcare. Nope, sorry won't happen.

Just for kicks, take this into consideration, really take this into consideration. You guys wanna spread the wealth, every social program is paid for by tax payers. You increase taxes on the rich. Sure this is find and dandy, but what you don't see is that what's the point of being well off? What's the point of knowing the more you make the more it goes back into some social program.

What are you trying to say?

[CrystalFalcon]

You seem to have something interesting to say, but I fail to make any sense out of your post.

You are suggesting that something should be viewed or treated differently. Could you explain in more detail? It sounds interesting.

Re:What are you trying to say?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's just an educated stupid academic. I'd rather have a macadamia nut than an academic nut.

Re:What are you trying to say?

[Saint Stephen]

We in the west are kind of neutered and dickless. In the mideast they still have a pair of balls, but they're struggling to "bring themselves up" to a higher intellectual plane.

A lot of shit "dickless" people expect to be the case doesn't hold true in that mindset. But they're also plagued with self-doubt: Am I good enough? Are they laughing at me?

It's like, you can't go into a low-class bunch of people and start acting all upity. They'll break a fucking bottle over your head.

(Bottle over head == Bombs).

You have to treat them with respect but also kick the shit out of them, but be buds too. It's a junk-yard dog thing.

Re:What are you trying to say?

[IM6100]

Well, how about you just wander off into the woods for your Iron John retreat.

Have fun.

Re:What are you trying to say?

[Saint Stephen]

Another example of being out of touch.

Just think about the type of person you're describing vs. the type of person I'm describing.

Those are two different people.

Not worth mentioning?

[Moth7]

I was surprised when I didn't see this scrolling down the page when I first got up. Maybe it would have got more attention if Darl Mcbride buried himself in a cellar and was captured under a ransom of $699? Funnily enough, /. readers are human and it is perfectly relevant to us that a major human rights criminal has been captured. (For clarification: I mean saddam not Macbride)

HEY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Deja vu!1 (I don't know how the accents are anyway, I'm lucky Slashdot doesn't allow them ;))

What? Why did they capture Rudolph?

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is a lot like the Rudolph case, where he turned up exactly where they'd been looking for him."

Sheesh! What ever happened to the holiday spirit? Why did they have to go after Rudolph? Did his red nose being used in flight break FAA regulations?

Re:What? Why did they capture Rudolph?

[raider_red]

Yes, the red light is supposed to be on one of the wings, not the nose.

Who's next?

[Dylancable]

God i hope America doesn't need a sudden surge of Kangaroo meat who know's how long our two dud submarines from Russia and our 1000 strong Army reserves will last...

Fake?

[AmVidia HQ]

Hussein uses body doubles. How do we know it's not a fake? How much can we trust the Iran news source? How do we know it's not a conspiracy, or really, a PR move?

Re:Fake?

[BenjyD]

The BBC is saying the US did DNA tests to prove it was really him.

Re:Fake?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that. Where do you get the DNA to compare against? From a double of his son?

Re:Fake?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did they get the DNA to compare against? It's not like everyone's dna has their name written on the base pairs (yet, give Rumsfeld a chance).

Re:Fake?

[arobas]

Maybe Donald collected it himself?

Re:Fake?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, how about from one of his dozens of palaces which have been under coallition control for months? Any bedroom pillow would have done the job for finding hair samples for DNA matching.

"Arrested"

[Anonymous Coward]

What did he do? What did he do?

Re:"Arrested"

[Anonymous Coward]

Operating a taxi without a license.

offtopic

[koi88]

this story is clearly offtopic. where can i rate ist so?

first I heard about it...

[dtl]

11:50 -!- GF|Flu_Hungover changed the topic of #zx to:
'[08:10] [@Saddam_H] brb,someone at the door | [08:16] * [@Saddam_H] (SHussein@wmd.ir) Quit (Ping timeout: 480 seconds)'

Miller Time!

[Bob-o-Matic!]

Not to take away from the grief of the Iraqi people caused by Hussein, but I for one am glad that there is one reason for US forces to keep their bags packed. I only deployed once to Prince Sultan Air Base, in spring of 1998 with Compass Call as a linguist. But it wasn't so simple-- we came back early from an exercise in the Pacific in fall of 1997, were on telephone standby over Thanksgiving, actually went to the processing line (last step before leaving home station for combat) just before Christmas. Finally we left in Febuary, arriving on St. Valentine's day. Suffice to say, the holidays weren't at all normal for any of us.

I thought that my ordeal was distressing, until I arrived in Saudi Arabia, where I had seen that some units had been deployed there continuously since Desert Shield! I could only try to imagine the frustration felt by airmen who spent more than two-thirds of every year living in tent city there.

Re:FP IN 100 comment topic

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsmax beat Slashdot. CBS, ABC were the laggarts on the web, CNN and FOX were a (pun intended) virutal tie...

NPR and Le Monde have black borders of mounring at news of the capture of this great patriot.

maybe now

[unitzero]

maybe now that they've caught saddam, they'll be closer to ending this rediculous war. imho, the sooner we're out of Iraq, the better, and this seems like the best excuse yet for us to call it quits. unfortunately, I can see the Bush administration using this as an "example of how the war on terror is being won" or some other such bull. I want them to find osama, not because I want the war to drag on, but because it will leave them with nothing else to do but end the war, or look like idiots if they don't.

Search for WMD continues

[wackybrit]

President Bush has ordered the search for WMD to continue called with the help of Saddam Hussein.

It's funny people, laugh.

Re:Search for WMD continues

[IM6100]

translation:

'It's scary, Democrats, and French/German collaborators, laugh nervously.'

Re:Search for WMD continues

[wackybrit]

For what it's worth, I consider myself (as a non American) to be more a supporter of Bush and the Republicans, than the Democrats.

European humor can revolve around mocking that which you believe in, and parading that which you believe is false. I like Bush and appreciate his policies, but have no qualms in ridiculing him!

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Antity-H]

Accordinf to a french reporter, the USA haven't signed some La Haye agreements which would enable USA citizen to be judged by an international tribunal. Therefore an american citizen has to be judged by an american tribunal. How ever it seems that if this is true they can't ask the international trubinal of La haye to judge Saddam
If this is true, then saddam should be judged in Iraq.
well I don't know if it's true, I haven't been able to find the agreements the reporter referred to. International law is not too well documented for the comment nerd.

Those pictures

[Imperator]

Look at those pictures of him before being shaved. It's no wonder it took the US so long to find him--he was hiding on the set of Planet of the Apes.

Seriously though, this is great news. Not so much for Iraqis, who were already rid of his rule, but for people living under other dictators elsewhere in the world, even ones the US is currently propping up. It will remind them that even if the US is currently supporting their dictator (e.g. Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia), one day there might be a US president in a political bind who invades their country and allows them to form a democratic government.

Seriously though, it will be a great day when Hussein stands before an international tribunal and is tried for his innumerable crimes.

Re:Those pictures

[IM6100]

They could put him in a lineup with Fidel Castro and accidentally shoot them both.

Whoops.

Losing Face?

[Moblaster]

>Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the
> coalition troops, and the US can pull out
>and let He didn't fire a shot or fight back at
>all, according to the news. That's the best
>part. According to a report on NPR, that's going
>to decimate his standing among the populace
>who used to fear him. Now he's just seen
>(according to the Al Hayat reporter on NPR)
>as a coward.


No, actually the brand dilution of showing up in a beard instead of a mustache is what's really gonna kill him.

Nintendo has new GBA spokesman

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Saddam can give a testimonial:

"I was playing Return of the King on my GBA in my spider-hole when I was arrested."

"Those bastards, I had almost unlocked Faramir."

If only...

[deepvoid]

Ohhh...What I couldn't do with a wall outlet, a spool of ni-chrome wire, salt, and Saddam Hussain.

Re:If only...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Ohhh...What I couldn't do with a wall outlet, a spool of ni-chrome wire, salt, and Saddam Hussain.

Work for the CIA I suppose. They do like people who can spell.

Slashdot rulez again!

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

If they hadn't posted this, I never would have known!

Re:BUSH IS A CRIMINAL, YOU FUCKING IDIOT

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the idiot, and I'll kick your fucking ass

hippie

There is no American imperialism

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no American imperialism. You have no examples of it. The retaliation against Saddam's aggression was based on the facts, and it was to stop Iraq's imperialist aggression against Israel and other countries.

"Your blind loyalty to America regardless of her actions is what most people dislike about your country."

The dislike of America is based on ignorance of the facts. I am loyal to America because, especially under the Bush administration, it does good things for the world.

Re:There is no American imperialism

[Anonymous Coward]

No examples of American imperialism? What about the Phillipines, S. Korea, the Panama Canal, Germany, Cuba...Jesus fucknut, what are you smoking? If it weren't for the price of tea we'd by up the Queen's ass enough to point at a whole lot more and that doesn't mean that we and the Brits haven't been incestually linked at the waist since we got over our last war.

Under the Bush administration we've have NOTHING good done for the world, since we've been destroying wholesale American freedoms enough to make Stalin blush and appeasing the ignorant sheep masses like yourself with pretty pictures on CNN of blowing up goat farms and weddings in Afghanistan. Fuck all, healer heal thyself. If Americans aren't free then what the fuck business do we have claiming any sort of freedoms for the rest of the world? "You're free now, except for our own diminishingly free rule and Oh, you have to do what we say."

Why don't we just get more idiotic about it and make a fucking reality tv show about it, "Who Wants To Illegally Invade A Country" or "Arrest Your Neighbor".

Subliminal message in CNN dateline.

[EyesOfNostradamus]

He, not bin Laden, will be at the forefront of millions of Americans' minds, seen as a defeated figurehead for terrorist activity -- despite the fact that he was not responsible for 9/11.

Just saw this dateline under the CNN story reporting the news:

Sunday, December 14, 2003 Posted: 9:11 AM EST (1411 GMT)

Hey, how much more in-your-face can you get?!? (Incidentally, 9:11 am was also the exact minute when Dylan was born, but I digress...)

Re:Subliminal message in CNN dateline.

[Anonymous Coward]

9:11 am was also the exact minute when Dylan was born
I knew it: Bob Dylan was a terrorist! Get him arrested!

Re:Subliminal message in CNN dateline.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he meant this Dylan...

Darl captured

[close_wait]

So, after 9 months during which the alleged Weapons of Mass IP Infringment failed to materialize, they finally got him. I hope they string him up.

Just out of curiosity, why *was* Darl in Tikrit?

Re:Darl captured

[Scrameustache]

Just out of curiosity, why *was* Darl in Tikrit?

The sweet aroma of open sewers...hmmmmHMMMmmmm...
Reminds him of home.

Re:Darl captured

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad thing is many Slashdotters critize SCO for attacking Linux for IP infrigement without proof, yet conviently ignore Saddam and the WMD/terrorism connection.

Re:Darl captured

[holzp]

Darl? I dont know if you've seen the pictures but it looks a lot more like another figure I know of...

Saddam & Kaczynski

[wowbagger]

Did anybody else think that Saddam, before he was shaven and cleaned up, looked a lot like Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber?

Re:Saddam & Kaczynski

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but my wife immediately said he looked like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the photos that went out right after his capture. Unfortunately I'm not turning up those pics, only the ones where KSM was less unkempt.

Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[PFactor]

Isn't that reason enough?

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you talking about Bush or Hussein?

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[akepa]

No, because it isn't the reason Bush started this war. Mass-murdering dictators are a dime-a-dozen, unfortunately - there are many others besides Hussein. And the US doesn't hesitate to support them if it suits some politically expedient purpose(Saddam Hussein was supported by the US back in the 80's). China has been committing genocide in Tibet for decades and executes more people than the rest of the world combined - many of them "guilty" of nothing more than criticism of the state. Yet China enjoys "most-favored nation" trading status with the US.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[Sven The Space Monke]

Apparantly not - if it was, China, North Korea and many African countries would follow suit.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[IM6100]

You are right that it would be a mistake to not continue to watch China and hope that we can make a difference there, eventually.

One thing we most definitely should do is vigorously investigate any links between funding of political interests in this country, donations from Chinese interests, and any 'deals' that may have been arranged. If anybody in the Bush administration is as culpable as the Clinton and Gore people are and were, something needs to be done about it.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[darco]

Are you implying that we should revoke this status, and perhaps even cut off all trade with China all together?

This would help nothing. China is far too large to be treated like a small third-world country. Our best bet to turning that country around is by trading with them, not isolating them.

It is not my place to decide if this war was legal or not. I honestly though that WMD's would have been found by now. I'm sure Bush thought the same. Hell, I'm sure Saddam thought the same thing as well.

I do not consider myself an "ends justify the means" person, but it is hard to for me to believe that any reasonable person would look upon the capture of such a brutal dictator as anything but a "good thing".

In the end, it is quite possible that many lives have been saved by this action(the war), although the truth is that we will never know.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[Anenga]

No, because it isn't the reason Bush started this war. Mass-murdering dictators are a dime-a-dozen, unfortunately - there are many others besides Hussein. And the US doesn't hesitate to support them if it suits some politically expedient purpose(Saddam Hussein was supported by the US back in the 80's). China has been committing genocide in Tibet for decades and executes more people than the rest of the world combined - many of them "guilty" of nothing more than criticism of the state. Yet China enjoys "most-favored nation" trading status with the US.

Fair enough. However, China is insignificant in terms of the War on Terror. Sure, they have nukes and they're a dictatorship. But the chinese didn't attack us on 9/11, Arabs did. The middle-east is the birthplace of Terrorism, not China. So thus the strategy to make the middle-east into a democracy would curb the terrorist threat facing the U.S.

Besides, you don't just storm into a country that has Nukes. Not unless you want to have countless casulaties. You can use sanctions and containment for those types of countries, which Reagan did to win the Cold War. (No, the Soviet Union didn't "just collapse") For Iraq, intelligence showed they had Nuclear programs but no nukes, thus you could invade and not risk casulaties. That's not to say the U.S. government didn't think he had bio/chem weapons, as there were all those drills where the troops had to put on their gas masks.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[EvanED]

"Fair enough. However, China is insignificant in terms of the War on Terror. Sure, they have nukes and they're a dictatorship. But the chinese didn't attack us on 9/11, Arabs did."

No, a small portion there of, based mostly out of our ally Saudi Arabia and Afghanastan did. Iraq was not--repeat after me, NOT--involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001 in ANY WAY, SHAPE, or FORM. If the invasion was *truely* about terrorism, Saudi Arabia would have been a higher target.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[Beatbyte]

actually between 1988 and 1992 over a quarter of a million kurds alone were killed by Sadaam.

All this speculation why the war was started but not 1 good reason why not to remove him.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[StevenMaurer]

But the chinese didn't attack us on 9/11, Arabs did.

Actually, religious fanatics attacked us on 9/11. Therefore, your logic shows that we should go killing religious fanatics. Maybe starting with John Ashcroft...?

Bush always intended to go after Saddam. That much is clear. President Clinton told Bush on his exit interview that Osama Bin Laden was the most dangerous man to the U.S., and Bush replied that Saddam was. Two days after 9/11 - before we even knew who did it - his administration started telling our intelligence agencies to "build a case against Iraq". The war in Afghanistan was a war on terror. The war in Iraq was intended to intimidate Arabs, but will only serve to strengthen the power of al-Qaeda.

It will also serve to increase the number of deranged autocracies with nuclear weapons. Don't think for a moment that the lesson of North Korea is lost on the world. Kim Song Jong Ill, who has let eleven million of his countrymen starve to death, is able to directly threaten the U.S. with nary a peep from this administration. Why? Because, unlike Saddam, when he promised to get rid of nuclear weapons, he lied.

Bush has made it unsafe to be in America's bad graces without a nuclear weapon. Therefore, everyone will get one.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should we attack a armored truck on a rural road, steal all the money and valuables, and destroy the evidence?

Why not?

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[PFactor]

"Iraq was not--repeat after me, NOT--involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001 in ANY WAY, SHAPE, or FORM"

So what? Booting that evil bastard was still something worth doing. See Pres Bush's strategeryic '48 hour ultimatum' speech for details.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/ 20 030317-7.html

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you talking about?

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[Talence]

No matter how much of a bastard Saddam is (nobody disagrees with that), there is still NO evidence that he was in any way responsible for it. If anyone is to blame, it's most likely Saudi Arabia's very lax attitude to OBL and friends. If you want to blame Saddam, blame him for things he did do and don't confuse it with others issues.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[PFactor]

I blame him for killing over 61K people, which is why I started this thread. I take issue with people who say that we should not have taken his regime out solely because we have not found any WMD's. WMD's were never the point...unless you are in the media or a democrat.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just as soon as it treats people like dirt, and kills hundreds of thousands of them, i'd take the excuse of "they stole a peanut butter and jelly sandwich" as a good enough reason to put a bullet in it's gas tank.

Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...

[Talence]

Very, very few people will not appreciate the fact that he got taken out. What many people have an issue with, however, is feeling that they are lied to about the actual reasons for it. The whole issue was NOT about "let's free an opressed people", but more about "for our own security, we will attack Saddam". In that light, it is strange now it turns out that he was more about big words than an actual threat. Bush and Blair came with the "we must take him out because soon he'll have nukes!" argument many times as a justification for this war. So yes, it's great that Saddam is gone and honestly, I do feel it paves the way for much constructive development, but you'll have to understand that people have a hard time standing behind a cause about which they have been lied to.

In custody

[vandelais]

Jermaine Jackson said he was mistreated....

oops, wrong story.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect case to be tried before the World Court. Oh wait .... USA doesn't recognise it, how convenient.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[joely]

No, the US will want him tried in Iraq since only there can he receive the death penalty.

The US doesn't exactly supply the international criminal court

There is American imperialism

[Anonymous Coward]

America was founded on imperalism. America is the only true whore of Israel. Bush is a puppet of the Pentagon. Buy a clue, fuckwit.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[arkanes]

Sadly, the US won't permit the creation of that kind of tribunal (because it won't give US soldiers blanket immunity), so we'll probably just try him in US court, like we do with all foreign leaders that piss us off.

Good

[macdaddy]

Now there are no more major bits of "good news(tm)" that can come out of Iraq. Now we can get back to concentrating on the lies and spin surrounding the war. This should be an excellent moral boost for our men and women over there fighting. Good for them.

Re:Good

[macdaddy]

Oh look, another Troll has moderator points again. *sigh*

My second thought on the capture is about the upcoming election. This might be too much of a good thing and might help make Bush no longer look like the dismal failure that he is. That is a bad thing because we need his ass out of there. I hope this doesn't help him in the polls.

<conspiracy theory mode>
Wouldn't it make a great conspiracy if the administration knew where to find Saddam the whole time and waited to capture him until they needed it most or would do them the most good? Ie, before the holidays or before the election to boost Bush in the polls. It's an interesting idea. Surely it's not possible though. If Saddam gets a slap on the wrist then that might be why. Interesting....
</conspiracy theory mode>

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[gnu-generation-one]

"Would it not be logical for his ultimate trial to be held in the form of an international war crimes tribunal, a la Nuremberg?"

A la Milosovic?

Seriously, it depends on whether you want to stand up for justice and the rule of law. It looks like people have a decision to make, whether to use the "we'll do as we like" laws passed for just this situation, and to have a court of US military officers, or whether to actually use the international war crimes courts (also set up for this very purpose).

There are no Bush lies

[Anonymous Coward]

" hope that GW is next for his lies to the US people"

Bush has told nothing but the truth, especially in regards to Iraq, terrorism, and domestic policies such as taxes. You have him confused with Bill Clinton, who tended to lie most of the time.

Re:There are no Bush lies

[Anonymous Coward]

As a lifelong republican, I will vote against Bush no matter who is running against him. I will have a tough time voting for Al Sharpton, but W has to go. Maybe I would feel different if I were a significant Halliburton stockholder.

Euro ant-war crowd is pro -terrorist ...Enemy

[Anonymous Coward]

Collecting money to fund the Iraqi resistance.
I will grant you that most of the Deanie Babies here in the USA aren't pro -terrorist.There hatrd of our President is so great they are gleefull at any whiff of a set-back in the War on Terror.

Re:Euro ant-war crowd is pro -terrorist ...Enemy

[the_2nd_coming]

are you serious? the Euro anti-war movment is actualy helping to fund the gurilla fighters? how is that not illegal?

Trial

[Czernobog]

Well. I just hope he gets a fair and open IN Iraq.
Then the world will see the US, British, French and Russian governments for what they are. Looters of the world's resources.
Remember. The Brits are responsible for setting the political background in the whole middle eastern area. A background that allowed people like Hussein to rise to power. The Yanks that sold him military equipment and weaponry to stay in power. The French for getting the contracts for the country's infrastructure. The Russians for the oil trade with Iraq...

Fair trial my ass. He will be silenced as quickly as possible. There's even talk of the trial being able to hand out a death penalty.

I guess I can just keep on dreaming for these things to come out.
I guess I can keep on dreaming that Iraq will not be the operations centre of the Yanks' greedy fingers getting into the Syrian, Lebanes, Kuweitian, Saudi and Persian pies....

One other thing. What's with the cheering by those people allegedly being journalists. Are there no real journalists coming out of the US anymore? Or have they been deprived of their right to speak out because they are "unpatriotic"?

Re:Trial

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmmm... Persian pies...

Re:Trial

[Anonymous Coward]

If Ignorance is Bliss, I'm glad you're so Happy.

Re:Trial

[aerojad]

Hey there. I agree wholeheartedly with what you said, and I added a little to it in a post on the matter on my board. You can take a look at the specific thread.

Thanks again for having the guts to speak out.

Re:Trial

[Czernobog]

Hi there. Thanks for your words. I checked your site out briefly; further surfing pending.
As far as my comment is concerned, I have to admit I was mildly irritated for receiving such moderation. On the other hand it is the most convenient, to humans, response, to block what they don't like. That, naturally, does not mean that my comment deserved exposure by default. There are comments out there that are indeed "Insightful" and some of them have even been moderated as such.
What is boils down to is this: There may be thousands disagreeing with, in my opinion, very valid point of view I expressed. What comforts me is what Aristotle said. Just because they are the majority, it doen't mean they are right. Just that they are more.

Re:Trial

[NDPTAL85]

You have to admit 8,000 people killed is a very small number for a WAR. This latest incursion into Iraq may very well be the most humane war we've ever fought. I understand you are upset at even 1 person getting killed but most people's thresholds aren't that low and 8,000 for a war is within most people's tolerances, especially considering the lingering residual anger over 3000 Americans dying on Sept. 11th.

PRO-SADDAM IS PRO-AMERICA

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were a Reagan-ite fucking idiot back in the 80's. Buy a clue, dicksucker. Reagan was Saddam's fluffgirl. It's all Reagan's doing. Crucify Reagan along with Saddam.

You are being out of context

[Anonymous Coward]

He talked about "closure for the Iraqi people," not closure to the entire situation in Iraq. The US command and governing council both acknowleged that this is not over yet.

He won't be tried in the USA

[PFactor]

So our definition of "fair trial" won't apply. You know, that whole "sovereign nation" thing...

There is NO American imperialism

[Anonymous Coward]

"America was founded on imperalism. America is the only true whore of Israel. Bush is a puppet of the Pentagon. Buy a clue, fuckwit."

So is every older nation. America grew out of it. America is indeed allied with Israel, because Israel is the only beacon of civilization in a sea of savagery.

And you have the last part wrong too. Bush controls the Pentagon through his cabinet appointees.

Iraqi information minister's response

[understyled]

Saddam has not been captured. He did not bury himself in a cellar. The infidels are committing suicide at the gates of the great fortress in which he resides. No worries.

See no evil, hear no evil...

[WIAKywbfatw]

1. "Hundreds of thousands" might be a slight exaggeration.

2. All that went on with the blessing of the US, UK and the most of rest of the world.

Lest you forget, it was left to organisations like CND to point out that Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons on Kurdish settlements whilst countries like the US stuck their collective fingers in their ears, repeatedly chanted "la-la-la, I'm not listening", and pretended that the whole thing never happened.

You see, back then Saddam Hussein was a Good Guy (TM), because he was fighting those nasty Ayatollahs in Iran that gave the US such a bloody nose at the start of the 1980s. That he was a brutal dictator didn't matter then because he was the West's brutal dictator.

Perhaps you should switch off Fox News, pick up a history book, and ask yourself why it took the Gulf War and this latest War on Terrorism to bring his activities to your attention. For bonus points, find out where else this kind of oppression is going on and how long it's been ignored by the Western world.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[NixterAg]

1. "Hundreds of thousands" might be a slight exaggeration.

Latest estimates put the numbers from mass graves, that's just mass graves, at 300,000.

2. All that went on with the blessing of the US, UK and the most of rest of the world

Hardly. It went on, but most certainly neither the U.S. or the U.K. put their blessing on such an event. By the standard you seem to hold, the fact that hit happened meant it went on with the "blessing" of ALL of the world.

You see, back then Saddam Hussein was a Good Guy (TM), because he was fighting those nasty Ayatollahs in Iran that gave the US such a bloody nose at the start of the 1980s. That he was a brutal dictator didn't matter then because he was the West's brutal dictator.

You accuse those who disagree with you of simplifying the issue ("Perhaps you should switch off Fox News, pick up a history book, blah blah...") when you do the exact same thing. Saddam was an ally of convenience. In spite of your assertions, the United States only provided Saddam with around 1% of his armaments during the period from 1973-1992.

He was not placed in power by the U.S. and the U.K. and he helped turn back the Ayatollah and, ultimately, the spread of Soviet influence in the Middle East. It was thinking just like yours that got us into the situation with Iran in the first place. Jimmy Carter, whose good intentions and blatant idiocy virtually destroyed our intelligence gathering capabilities during his presidency (gasp! We had dealings with unbecoming people!), got us into that mess in the first place.

For bonus points, find out where else this kind of oppression is going on and how long it's been ignored by the Western world.

Then what should have been done? Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have done anything in Iraq because bad things are going on elsewhere? I really don't why you take the position you have. It would be logically consistent to instead be petitioning for the removal of other murderous regimes such as in Sudan and Zimbabwe instead of bitching about the removal of Saddam.

Maybe it is you who should study history a bit better. I'll let Mr. Bush help you:

The roots of our democracy can be traced to England, and to its Parliament -- and so can the roots of this organization. In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster Palace and declared, the turning point had arrived in history. He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people -- their creativity, their genius and their rights.

President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing, that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this organization its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across the world. Your mandate was important 20 years ago; it is equally important today. (Applause.)

A number of critics were dismissive of that speech by the President. According to one editorial of the time, "It seems hard to be a sophisticated European and also an admirer of Ronald Reagan." (Laughter.) Some observers on both sides of the Atlantic pronounced the speech simplistic and naive, and even dangerous. In fact, Ronald Reagan's words were courageous and optimistic and entirely correct. (Applause.)

The great democratic movement President Reagan described was already well underway. In the early 1970s, there were about 40 democracies in the world. By the middle of that decade, Portugal and Spain and Greece held free elections. Soon there were new democracies in Latin America, and free institutions were spreading in Korea, in Taiwan, and in East Asia. This very week in 1989, there were protests in East Berlin and in Leipzig. By the end of that year, every communist dictatorship in Central America* had collapsed. Within another year, the South African government released Ne

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[darkweasel]

All of that doesn't change the fact that the US has propped up ruthless dictators all over the world. They used many excuses, one of which was fighting communism.

However, is that all it takes? The end justifies the means? As long as communism doesn't spread who cares what happens to the people of these countries, because life under a brutal dictator must be better than life under communism.

The life we live in america is a privliged one, built on the death, torture and rape of the countries we exploited.

some times it sickens me to be american.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Seahawk]

He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people -- their creativity, their genius and their rights.

Does this mean that we will be ridden of the US within the next 10 years then?

Because with the current transferring of power from the people to the corperations, I see little respect for the PEOPLE... :)

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[attonitus]

United States only provided Saddam witharound 1% of his armaments during the period from 1973-1992

This graphic seems to get quoted failed often. It's rather misleading in that it focusses on arms transfers by volume. This means that:

1 AK47 = 1 supergun

Money provided to buy weapons isn't taken any account of

Intelligence aid isn't reflected at all

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

You grasp of history leaves much to be desired too. One might want to come up with their own opinions rather than being the poster child for the (right-wing) Republican party.

A party that is conserative (repressive) on personal issues and liberal on economic/foreign policy matters. The party that has all of the southern hicks and card carrying clan members since they were kicked out of the Democratic party.

That being said it is time to get serious for a moment. Maybe in the future it might help to have a little diversity in your comments. Until then fuck off!

Some of your pervious examples:

Re:Not bad. Sunday December 14, @09:55AM Score:2
attached to Saddam Hussein Arrested
Re:See no evil, hear no evil... Sunday December 14, @09:48AM Score:4, Insightful
attached to Saddam Hussein Arrested
Re:Not bad. Sunday December 14, @09:34AM Replies:1 Score:2
attached to Saddam Hussein Arrested
Re:Lots of small donors Friday December 12, @06:44PM Replies:1 Score:2
attached to Disintermediation and Politics
Re:Lots of small donors Friday December 12, @06:05PM Replies:2 Score:2
attached to Disintermediation and Politics
Re:Lots of small donors Friday December 12, @05:48PM Replies:1 Score:1
attached to Disintermediation and Politics
Re:Lots of small donors Friday December 12, @05:44PM Replies:1 Score:1
attached to Disintermediation and Politics
Re:Lots of small donors Friday December 12, @03:10PM Replies:2 Score:4, Interesting
attached to Disintermediation and Politics
Re:Comparing Price Tuesday December 09, @03:42PM Replies:1 Score:2
attached to A Mars Mission's Greatest Challenge: Radiation
Re:Comparing Price Tuesday December 09, @03:25PM Score:1, Offtopic
attached to A Mars Mission's Greatest Challenge: Radiation
Re:Comparing Price Tuesday December 09, @02:56PM Replies:8 Score:-1, Offtopic
attached to A Mars Mission's Greatest Challenge: Radiation
Re:who can stop this? Monday November 24, @05:47PM Replies:1 Score:2
attached to Congress Expands FBI Powers
Re:I got married... Monday November 24, @05:15PM Score:2
attached to How Do You Organize Your Gear?
Re:who can stop this? Monday November 24, @04:48PM Replies:4 Score:2
attached to Congress Expands FBI Powers
Re:who can stop this? Monday November 24, @04:24PM Replies:4 Score:1, Insightful
attached to Congress Expands FBI Powers
Re:South of the Border Friday October 24, @03:18PM Replies:2 Score:5, Funny
attached to The Complete Far Side Archive
Re:AI? Bah! Sunday October 19, @07:44PM Score:2
attached to AI Sues for Its Life in Mock Trial
Re:These people really don't get it. Friday October 17, @10:02AM Replies:2 Score:2
attached to FCC Considers Mandating HDTV Copy Protection
Re:Not THAT tolerant Wednesday October 08, @10:49AM Replies:1 Score:3, Insightful
attached to Could Isaac Newton Get a Faculty Job?
you're kidding...right? Tuesday October 07, @10:20PM Replies:5 Score:5, Insightful
attached to Could Isaac Newton Get a Faculty Job?
Re:Actually... Sunday October 05, @01:35PM Score:1
attached to Review: 'Bubba Ho-Tep'
Joe Landsdale Sunday October 05, @12:51PM Replies:2 Score:4, Interesting
attached to Review: 'Bubba Ho-Tep'
Re:Great Book....But The Censored Book is Censored Thursday September 11, @12:48PM Replies:1 Score:2
attached to Project Censored 2003 Underreported Stories
Re:Adrian Lamo Surrenders Wednesday September 10, @10:48AM Replies:1 Score:2
attached to Adrian Lamo Surrenders

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[thenextpresident]

1. "Hundreds of thousands" might be a slight exaggeration.

It "could" be, but it's not.

2. All that went on with the blessing of the US, UK and the most of rest of the world.

It's nice to know that you support the human rights abuses going on throughout the world. The vast majority of people, however, don't.

Perhaps you should switch off Fox News, pick up a history book, and ask yourself why it took the Gulf War and this latest War on Terrorism to bring his activities to your attention. For bonus points, find out where else this kind of oppression is going on and how long it's been ignored by the Western world.

That is an argument (the Fox News argument) of the uneducated. Rather than present your case, you attack the person. Next time, spend time on your arguments.

As to your Bonus points question, let me ask you this: So, unless we do something about EVERY oppressive regime around the world at the same time, we shouldn't do anything?

Once again, it's nice to know that you support the oppresion throughout the world.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly. It went on, but most certainly neither the U.S. or the U.K. put their blessing on such an event. By the standard you seem to hold, the fact that hit happened meant it went on with the "blessing" of ALL of the world.

The US was supplying Saddam with these nasty weapons before he used them on the Kurds, and continued to do so after he had. The US was loaning him billions of dollars to fight his war. He was a brutal dictator who killed his way to power; "he was a bastard, but he was our bastard". His W.O.M.D. were made in Maryland. You can find pictures of people in the current Bush administration shaking his hand in the 1980s. The only reason why Saddam went from being "good guy" to "bad guy" in the US's eyes was because he went from trying to invade Islamist Iran to trying to invade US oil-well Kuwait.

The US is currently supporting several Saddam-alike dictators in the region. The US is allied with Turkey (!)

Your nationalism is blinding you. The US's involvement with Iraq over the last couple of decades has been thoroughly rotten. None of this "bringing freedom" nationalistic rhetoric changes that.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[WIAKywbfatw]

In spite of your assertions, the United States only provided Saddam with around 1% of his armaments during the period from 1973-1992.

Ignoring all other assistance (intelligence, etc) that's still 1 percent too much, isn't it? If not, what percentage would you consider to be OK before a nation becomes culpable for assisting that regime? 5 percent? 10? 20? It must be nice to be able to pretend that assisting an oppressive regime doesn't matter as long as you don't help them too much.

He was not placed in power by the U.S. and the U.K. and he helped turn back the Ayatollah and, ultimately, the spread of Soviet influence in the Middle East.

So you admit he was used by successive US administrations who were willing to turn a blind eye to his "extra-curricular" activities?

"...In the early 1970s, there were about 40 democracies in the world. By the middle of that decade, Portugal and Spain and Greece held free elections. Soon there were new democracies in Latin America, and free institutions were spreading in Korea, in Taiwan, and in East Asia..."

Just what does the fall of General Franco in Spain, etc have to do with your argument? Are you suggesting the conversion of Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc to democracies had something to do with US intervention? Was Franco killed by an exploding CIA cigar? I think not.

As for those "new democracies in Latin America", please, don't make me laugh. The US's record in Latin America is laughable, such as the 1973 CIA-backed coup in Chile that overthrew the democratically elected President President Salvador Allende in favour of a facist dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, who then proceeded to tortured and murdered tens of thousands. If that's the kind of example you want to bring up of how the US helps bring self-determination to the world then perhaps you want to think twice.

The facts are clear: when Saddam Hussein was murdering his people, the West stood by and watched, happy in the knowledge that he was being just as brutal towards Iranians as he was to his fellow Iraqis.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Richard_at_work]

Hardly. It went on, but most certainly neither the U.S. or the U.K. put their blessing on such an event. By the standard you seem to hold, the fact that hit happened meant it went on with the "blessing" of ALL of the world.

We sold him the weapons, weapons that we had a great understanding about and thus cannot plead ignorance. I would say that goes some way to putting their blessing on these events.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[WIAKywbfatw]

As to your Bonus points question, let me ask you this: So, unless we do something about EVERY oppressive regime around the world at the same time, we shouldn't do anything?

No, but we shouldn't use the suffering of the Iraqi people as an excuse for settling old debts when our first excuse (WMDs) is exposed as being paper-thin.

If the US really is interested in human rights and alleviating the suffering of oppressed peoples then I can think of plenty of other places to move onto once its activities in Iraq have been concluded. Unfortunately, not too many of those other places are sitting on massive oil reserves.

Do you really believe that this war was about terrorism or WMDs? Or that American money and lives were spent so that Iraq could become a democracy? Are you really that naive?

(PS. Funny how Afghanistan has been all but forgotten, isn't it? In many ways, Afghanistan is worse now than it was pre-invasion: in many areas, schools that were previously opened are now closed, medical supplies are harder to come by and democracy certainly isn't on the horizon.

Didn't the US pledge to help rebuild that country too? Where are the billions being poured into that nation? Please point them out because I seem to have missed where they were itemised in the last US budget. Oh look, they don't exist...)

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[CausticWindow]

Then what should have been done? Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have done anything in Iraq because bad things are going on elsewhere? I really don't why you take the position you have. It would be logically consistent to instead be petitioning for the removal of other murderous regimes such as in Sudan and Zimbabwe instead of bitching about the removal of Saddam.

He is simply pointing out that the assertion from the US administration that the main motive of this war was to free the Iraqis, is patently false. After their baseless WMD and terrorism claims fell through, this have been their mantra.

If it was true, then why Iraq? Why now? Where next? No? Didn't think so.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has only been a global power for about 50 years. The vast majority of the mess in the world today is the result of 500 years of European imperialism. We cannot fix the world overnight but we are making damn good progress. Also, in the process we may have to temporarily tolerate some things we would really like to stop. Get used to it; the world is a harsh place filled with bad people.

If you feel sick being an American, please feel free to leave.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[gnuLNX]

How about you fuck off you fog headed prick. The man made a point and backed up his point with arguments...all you can do is cite his past responses. What an ignorant person you have portrayed yourself to be.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[gnuLNX]

Thank you for the insightful post. Nice to know that there as some "Americans" around here.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

The US is currently supporting several Saddam-alike dictators in the region. The US is allied with Turkey (!)

While Turkey is not a shining democracy (certainly not in the Kurdish zones at any rate), comparing it with Saddam's Iraq is a bit extreme.

Among others, Turkey has free elections (most of the time). The "Islamists" who won the last ones would be considered as diehard atheists in comparison to just about any US president in history - well, at least in their external behaviour.

For any practical purpose, Turkey is more democratic than most of the world's countries - again, with a major exception : the Kurds. The big glary spot on an otherwise acceptable face.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Snaller]

Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have done anything in Iraq because bad things are going on elsewhere?

He is suggestion that WE do something, not just american deciding to break international law and do what ever they want when the rest of the majority of the world says Don't!

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Keebler71]

You are clearly some pimply faced punk-ass teenager or possibly college student because it appears you have a learned a revisionist view of history, probably second-hand from some liberal college professor. There is no way you could claim that the US and UK "blessed" Iraq's behavior in the 80's if you had been old enough to watch anything other than Sesame St or Voltron back in those days.

Perhaps you should switch off Fox News, pick up a history book, and ask yourself why it took the Gulf War and this latest War on Terrorism to bring his activities to your attention. For bonus points, find out where else this kind of oppression is going on and how long it's been ignored by the Western world.

blah... blah... blah... more brainwashing by your college professors... Try thinking for yourself sometime... I suggest beginning by watching ALL the news broadcasts (both left and right) and more importantly asking yourself why is it that they present the news differently. Why is emphasis placed on different parts of the same story? That is where you will you will learn more than the actual content of the news...

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[sbjordal]

>The US is currently supporting several Saddam-alike dictators in the region. The US is allied with Turkey (!)

And which dictators would that be?

Turkey is the only muslim country with a truly democraticly elected secular government. They have come to understand the importance of NOT mixing religion with politics. Yes, no country is flawless, and the Turks' defiant stance on Kurdish rights is less than impressive. But don't make the mistake of incuding Turkey in your rant and labeling a european democracy a dictatorship

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[PorkNutz]

If "the rest of the majority of the world" realizes that something must be done, but still says "don't", then there is no "WE" is there?

Who then is ignoring the wrondoing that was occuring in Iraq, essentially giving the acts their blessing? "The rest of the majority of the world" thats who.

Quit being a bunch of pussies sitting around watching the bad things happen, protesting in the streets of your own country telling your leaders "something must be done!" but not allowing anything to actually be done.

Saddam and his like don't give a rats ass about your protest signs and chants that you raise in the streets of your own country. You people must realize that sometimes force must be applied to affect change. War is sometimes the only means to acheive peace.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Mordac the Preventer]

1. "Hundreds of thousands" might be a slight exaggeration.

Yes, it might be, but stories like this one suggest not.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Wateshay]

So, what should have been done by the U.S. ...

a) from the very beginning of Saddam's reign?

b) in recent times, given that things happened the way they did (since you can't change history)?

Furthermore, given what has happened up to today, what should the U.S. do now?

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree -- Most people come to slashdot to hear what their fellow nerds are thinking, not some guy who posts one-liner Bush trolls.

If you want professional political net kooks, you know where to find them. (K5, FreeRepublic, Salon, etc)

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[SphynxSR]

You see, back then Saddam Hussein was a Good Guy I don't think we can say we saw Hussein as a good guy merely a lesser of two evils. Which is what every country in the world does everyday. We also assumed we could control him. And we know assumption is, the mother of all fuckups. The big difference between us and them is that we have the capacity stop, they(Terrorist) don't. A great thing about history is that it judges actions much better than people living through it ever will.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it include this list of biological materials US exported to IRAQ while well aware WMD were used in Iran-Iraq war?

RIEGLE REPORT, CHAPTER 1, PART 2 (http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/report/r_1_2.html)

Included in the approved sales are the following biological materials (which have been considered by various nations for use in war), with their associated disease symptoms:

Bacillus Anthracis: anthrax is a disease producing bacteria identified by the Department of Defense in The Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Contress, as being a major component in the Iraqi biological warfare program.

Anthrax is an often fatal infectious disease due to ingestion of spores. It begins abruptly with high fever, difficulty in breathing, and chest pain. The disease eventually results in septicemia (blood poisoning), and the mortality is high. Once septicemia is advanced, antibiotic therapy may prove useless, probably because the exotoxins remain, despite the death of the bacteria.

Clostridium Botulinum: A bacterial source of botulinum toxin, which causes vomiting, constipation, thirst, general weakness, headache, fever, dizziness, double vision, dilation of the pupils and paralysis of the muscles involving swallowing. It is often fatal.

Histoplasma Capsulatum: causes a disease superfically resembling tuberculosis that may cause pneumonia, enlargement of the liver and spleen, anemia, an influenza like illness and an acute inflammatory skin disease marked by tender red nodules, usually on the shins. Reactivated infection usually involves the lungs, the brain, spinal membranes, heart, peritoneum, and the adrenals.

Brucella Melitensis: a bacteria which can cause chronic fatique, loss of appetite, profuse sweating when at rest, pain in joints and muscles, insomnia, nausea, and damage to major organs.

Clostridium Perfringens: a highly toxic bateria which causes gas gangrene. The bacteria produce toxins that move along muscle bundles in the body killing cells and producing necrotic tissue that is then favorable for further growth of the bacteria itself. Eventually, these toxins and bacteria enter the bloodstream and cause a systemic illness.

In addition, several shipments of Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) and genetic materials, as well as human and bacterial DNA, were shipped directly to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.

The following is a detailed listing of biological materials, provided by the American Type Culture Collection, which were exported to agencies of the government of Iraq pursuant to the issueance of an export licensed by the U.S. Commerce Department:

Date : February 8, 1985
Sent To : Iraq Atomic Energy Agency
Materials Shipped:

Ustilago nuda (Jensen) Rostrup

Date : February 22, 1985
Sent To : Ministry of Higher Education
Materials Shipped:

Histoplasma capsulatum var. farciminosum (ATCC 32136)
Class III pathogen

Date : July 11, 1985
Sent To : Middle and Near East Regional A
Material Shipped:

Histoplasma capsulatum var. farciminosum (ATCC 32136)
Class III pathogen

Date : May 2, 1986
Sent To : Ministry of Higher Education
Materials Shipped:

1. Bacillus Anthracis Cohn (ATCC 10)
Batch # 08-20-82 (2 each)
Class III pathogen

2. Bacillus Subtilis (Ehrenberg) Cohn (ATCC 82)
Batch # 06-20-84 (2 each)

3. Clostridium botulinum Type A (ATCC 3502)
Batch # 07-07-81 (3 each)
Class III pathogen

4. Clostridium perfringens (Weillon and Zuber) Hauduroy, et al (ATCC 3624)
Batch # 10-85SV (2 each)

5. Bacillus subtilis (ATCC 6051)
Batch # 12-06-84 (2 each)

6. Francisella tularensis var. tularensis Olsufiev (ATCC 6223)
Batch # 05-14-79 (2 each)
Avirulent, suitable for preparations of diagnotic antigens

7. Clostridium tetani (ATCC 9441)
Batch # 03-84 (3 each)
Highly toxigenic

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[philg]

Um, when invalidating someone's arguments due to inconsistency, try to be consistent yourself.

(BTW, I'll go with "hundreds of thousands." Saddam was/is a bastard.)

2. All that went on with the blessing of the US, UK and the most of rest of the world

Hardly. It went on, but most certainly neither the U.S. or the U.K. put their blessing on such an event. By the standard you seem to hold, the fact that hit happened meant it went on with the "blessing" of ALL of the world.

So, what constitues a blessing? I take it you support the near-unilateral US action in Iraq. (Tony Blair: "And I helped!") Would abstaining from such action have been excusable? We are talking here about a war that was waged because of something a person might be capable of doing. Killing Kurds, by contrast, was something Saddam demonstrated he could do, and do remorselessly. In fact, the explicit message he was sending the Kurds was that he would do it again. Yet the West (led, as always, by the US) stood idle.

If we were not morally obligated to intervene when the Kurds were massacred -- and everyone agrees that the Kurds were killed by Saddam -- then why were we morally obligated to intervene when Saddam might have had WMD's -- an assertion that was vigorously disputed at the time, and an assertion which looks doubtful today?

In that light, either silence implies consent (in which case, yes, the US "blessed" the death of the Kurds by the lack of reprisals) or it doesn't (in which case there should have been no rush to commit troops to an unprovoked war).

You can support Gulf War II and accept that the US condoned the massacre of Kurds. You can condemn the US role in the Kurdish massacre and also condemn GWII, which was international interference on a much thinner pretext. You can't condone Western non-interference in the Kurdish massacre and still support GWII without hypocrisy, unless you can throw some more variables into the equation.

In spite of your assertions, the United States only provided Saddam with around 1% of his armaments during the period from 1973-1992.

From which we are, presumably, meant to infer that the US role in supporting Iraq, especially in its most critical period of the Iran-Iraq war, was minor. To rebut:

Even the United States...did not shy away from supporting the Iraqi war effort. In February 1982, Baghdad was removed fromthe US Government's list of states 'supporting international terrorism', thus paving the way for a significant boost in US-Iraqi trade relations. Three months later, as the mullahs in Tehran were deliberating the invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Alexander Haig strongly warned Iran against expanding the war.

In December 1984, merely a month after the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, the newly opened US Embassy in Bashdad began supplying the Iraqi armed forces with much-needed military intelligence. At the same time, Washington nearly doubled its credits for food products and agricultural equipment from $345 million in 1984 to $675 million in 1985; in late 1987 Iraq was promised $1 billion credit for the fiscal year 1988, the largest such credit given to any single country in the world. [Karsh, Ephraim. The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988. Osprey Publishing, 2002. pp 43-44]

So in 1987, Ronald Reagan gave Iraq a larger credit line (of that type, at least) than Israel. More importantly, Iraq was no longer branded a "nation that supports international terrorism". (So Saddam had contritely renounced international terrorism? How nice.) This permitted considerable investment by companies that also did business in the United States, which, in turn, permitted Iraq to maintain a thriving economy in the early years of the war.

He was not placed in power by the U.S. and the U.K. and he helped turn back the Ayatollah and, ultimately, the spread of Soviet influence in the Middle East.

Saddam Huss

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[randyest]

No, it wasn't ever just about WMD, nor can you back up your claim that it ever was supposed to be all about WMD.

It's about this.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[randyest]

No, it wasn't about WMD, nor can you back up your claim that it ever was supposed to be all about WMD.

It's about this.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

Money provided to buy weapons isn't taken any account of

For that matter, neither is money that is not provided to buy weapons.

There is no such thing as "humanitarian aid" or "military aid" if you are talking about money. Money is fungible. (Look it up.)

Assume this budget for Banana Republic:
$400M guns + $400M butter = $800M, $400M in guns.

The poor Bananics are starving, and crushed under the heartless oppression of a military dictator who spends way too much on his army.

Evil warmongering empire comes along and gives them "military" aid:
$400M guns + $400M butter + $100M guns = $900M, $500M in guns.

Kindly supportive international effort comes along and gives them "humanitarian" aid. El Presidente makes a little adjustment:

$500M guns + $300M butter + $100M butter = $900M, $500M in guns.

Same net effect. You can't tag dollars with what they can be used for.

The "supergun", of course, never got built, and was a pretty widely speculative idea anyway. It's like counting the artist's conception animations of the Orient Express or Hypersoar as part of the US defense budget.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[CausticWindow]

I didn't claim it was just about WMD, now did I? I did say that these claims were baseless, but even if they are not it doesn't change the fact that this war is not an altruistic act like so many Americans believe.

If it really was, then why Iraq? Why now? And what next? No, this war like so many conflicts before it are based solely upon national interests. If the Iraqis were freed in the process, then that is a bonus, but claiming that the main goal all along was to help the Iraqi people is a blatant lie.

And why do you figure that I'm disappointed that Saddam is captured? I haven't seen anybody else who've said that either (not that it matters for my argument here). You must be one of those that argue that the president is above criticism in a 'time of crisis'.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

The schools that are currently open in Afghanistan are now open to women. I have not forgotten Afghanistan and I actually see information on it reported in the mainstream press quite often.

I don't really want to argue any of the other statements you are making. Here is why: your whole tone is rude and argumentative. Rather than using evidence to support your argument, you call people naive. You use sarcastic tones like "Oh look, they don't exist." It's just a very childish way to go about making a point. I know that you'll completely ignore this comment and continue to behave as you will but it would be better for your viewpoint if you learned to be a bit more tactful in your comments. You're not helping your cause.

[And there's no need to comment on my .sig. It's humor. In fact, there's probably really no need for you to reply at all. If you reply in the manner in which I expect you to, I won't reply. I look for polite conversation and debate - not sarcasm and insults. Have a good day.]

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Solandri]

In spite of your assertions, the United States only provided Saddam with around 1% of his armaments during the period from 1973-1992.

Ignoring all other assistance (intelligence, etc) that's still 1 percent too much, isn't it? If not, what percentage would you consider to be OK before a nation becomes culpable for assisting that regime? 5 percent? 10? 20? It must be nice to be able to pretend that assisting an oppressive regime doesn't matter as long as you don't help them too much.

So your reasoning is that if a country has ever done the tiniest wrong in the past, it can never be praised for "seeing the light" and doing the right thing? Congratulations, you've just defined a world in which countries can never move from evil to good, and can only move from good to evil.

Contrary to what you seem to think, the world is not a simple black and white place where you can pick and choose to support only countries that are perfectly good. Any country which tries to do that would have to become more reclusive than North Korea. Sometimes you have to support the lesser of two evils, and sometimes you're going to make the wrong decision as to which of the two is the lesser.

What's important is that a political process exists which can learn from and improve upon past wrong decisions so that future decisions are less likely to be wrong. What's not needed is the attitude that the smallest past transgression condemns you to being a bad guy for all eternity.

The facts are clear: when Saddam Hussein was murdering his people, the West stood by and watched, happy in the knowledge that he was being just as brutal towards Iranians as he was to his fellow Iraqis.

Exactly! And when one country in the West decided enough was enough, let's get rid of Saddam, people like you who criticized that country for supporting the guy turned around and criticized that country for opposing the guy. It's no wonder the US tends to ignore world opinion and does whatever is in its own best interests. It's damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. Since you damn it either way, is it any surprise it ignores you?

The basic fact is this: Saddam is/was bad. It was wrong for the U.S. to support him. It was right for the U.S. to support deposing him. The methods the U.S. used to depose him may not have been optimal, but what's done is done. You should be happy that he's been captured. Instead, the fact that you're using his capture as a springboard for more criticism of the U.S. would indicate that you don't really give a damn about the Iraqis, you just see this as another opportunity to criticize the US.

And if you're curious, I opposed the war on the basis that sidestepping the UN set a bad precedent for future police actions. But I'm overjoyed that Saddam has been captured. We can argue about whether the ends justify the means in this case. But the fact remains that a world in which the US fought a quasi-legal war with Iraq and captured Saddam is a better place than a world in which the US fought a quasi-legal war with Iraq and didn't capture Saddam.

Re:See no evil, hear no evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "bloody nose" you mean snatching up a bunch of embassy workers (read: average people) then yes, they sure showed us something!

& yes, you are an idiot.

Re:FP IN 100 comment topic

[Anonymous Coward]

BBC beat the lot of 'em :)

Will it change anything?

[abhikhurana]

Even the US army officials conceded that he wasn't controlling anything. In fact there were hardly any people protecting him. The people running the resistance are different. Saddam wasn't controlling them. What it does though is that probably it will remove the fear from people that what will happen to them if he comes back to power, but frankly, that was only a remote possibilty to say the least. Anyway, I am happy that a rutheless dictator like him as been captured. But I am unhappy that this will make Dubya win the next election. I mean why only Saddam? What about North Korea and Mayanmaar, which are also dictatorships? North Korea declares that they have WMDs and Mayanmaar is involved big time in drug trafficking, but China won't let US come so close to it. So why these double standards? I mean happy as I may be at Saddam's capture, the point still remains that the basis of the war was still wrong.

Re:Will it change anything?

[will_die]

In the case where you are running for place to place you are far better off having a small group instead of the many people. The more people who have the more chance that someone will talk, which is probably what happened here, unless some patrol happened apon him by accident which from the reports is not the case.
As for will this stop anything probably not, alot of people doing the new stuff are going for a revenge or power play for themselves. What it does do is make is easier for the average person who no longer has that worry that saddam has a major backing of people they will scare out the combined forces and retake control.
As for why not North Korea or other nations, mostly because they have not attacked the US and local nations and the US are working on other ways. If we worried about drug trafficing we would be attacking columbia and other south american countries.

As for the point it was to enforce rules that put a stop to the last major conflicts in this war, but were then ignored and for many years allowed to be ignored as saddam attacked US and colilition forces but then nothing was done. During a multi-year period he had time to hide them, like they have done with air craft and other conventional arms. As for thier not being WMD mention some people or organizations who firmly believe that they did not have such weapons and who do not a an interest in not having them found.
I have france,Germany, Russia and others saying that they existed and still do.

Oh my God!

[debilo]

Funny how he was caught living in an earth hole like a hobbit, with Return of the King starting in a few days.

Coincidence? I think not.

New Slashdot poll...

[Pollux]

If he could choose, who would Saddam really wish he was captured by?

a. Americans
b. British
c. Iraqi police
d. Russians
e. Canadians
f. the French
g. CowboyNeal

Re:New Slashdot poll...

[ericspinder]

f. the French, because they would give him another loan, for his "Freedom Fighting" efforts.

Timing a coincidence?

[Bananenrepublik]

When I took a glance at the world beyond my tinfoil hat, I made the following observation: Saddam basically sits in an earthhole not moving, waiting to be captured. Now he gets captured and fills all the news when the Gilmore comission reports on the effect post-9-11-paranoia had on the constitutional rights. Bad coincidence?

Re:Timing a coincidence?

[Paleomacus]

Convenient eh? I just added some tinfoil wings to my tinfoil hat. I'm going to go fly to the moon now!

Iraq gets first claim

[Anonymous Coward]

The largest body of Saddam's death and destruction was visited upon his own people. I see no reason why they shouldn't get first crack at him.

The world governmental and judicial systems are subservient to individual nation states, not the other way around.

BWHAHAHA!!! YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pentagon manufactured the "intelligence" for invading Iraq, and Israel FUCKING OWNS congress and Dubya. Israel is the very model of savegry, and owns the evangelical Christian influence in America (vital for election purposes). Fuck you, Zionist. Israel rules all, eventually. If you aren't a Zionist, you are a pawn. Face it.

... breaking news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hussein's brother, another S. Hussein, has also been arrested.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[k98sven]

Considering the crimes Saddam Hussein has committed against people of several countries, would it not be logical for his ultimate trial to be held in the form of an international war crimes tribunal, a la Nuremberg?

Yes it would. There already is such a court, the International Criminal Court..
The problem is, the USA opposes it.

This was not always the case; Funny you mention Nuremburg, where the american procecuter Robert Jackson expressed a desire to create such a permanent tribunal.

I feel that is the America the world admired and respected.
Todays unilateral foreign policy is a shame on America, and the ideals America is supposed to represent. And it is the reason why the USA no long commands the same international respect.

America screwed over?

[Leffe]

I read on one of the news sites that he will be tried in Iraq, by Iraqi's, which would be best IMO.

Not for the current administration. While his guilt is certain, if he is given anything less then a showtrial in which he is gagged and without a real lawyer he could have a field day embarrassing the US, and in particular reaganite members of the current Bush administration. Imagine for a second that we've got to where they are charging him with gassing the Kurds. At this point, assuming his lawyer has any clue, he'll supoena major members of the Bush administration to come and reread their own words in defending Iraq's "right" to gas the Kurds, both when they went to UN and vetoed the resolution to punish Iraq for it, and when they went to the Senate and successfully stopped the "Prevention of Genocide Act" the senate was trying to pass against Iraq for the gassing. He'll also likely bring up other things. For instance when the charge of trying to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons comes up, he'll pull out the records showing how the now Bush Jr. serving members went out of their way to provide him with high quality US chemical weapons, samples of Anthrax and other bio weapons and the supplies needed fast track his own bio weapons program, and over $1 billion dollars in components for nuclear weapons and delivery systems for the above weapons (which is where Iraq's scary SCUD missles all came from). From that a defense lawyer could easily paint a picture that the administration at the time (and of whom many now serve under Bush) fully supported Saddam in using those weapons (Iraq had already been declared a terrorist nation years before, so it's not like they thought he was nice at the time).

Re:America screwed over?

[andih8u]

which is where Iraq's scary SCUD missles all came from Umm, SCUD missiles are modified Soviet weapons. Please get a clue before spouting off crap.

Re:America screwed over?

[JFMulder]

Thanks for writing in a coherent way what I was thinking all along.

The Bush administration doesn't want a real PUBLIC trial to take place, because Saddam could reveal everthing the Bush Senior administration told him during the Gulf War, everything the US, France, Britain and about every other country did for Irak and him WHILE he was in power and known to be a dictactor. This isn't going to look good at all for a lot of countries if this guy gets to speak publicly.

I wouldn't be surprised for a second if they pulled a "Lee Harvey Oswald" and have Saddam conveniently killed or "suicided".

Re:America screwed over?

[swillden]

None of which will help him in the slightest when the trial turns to the torture and murder of his own citizens. The prosecutor can just display a slide show of the mass graves and the torture chambers, toss in testimony from a few survivors and rest his case.

It's not necessary to even bother trying him for the other stuff.

Re:America screwed over?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, idiot! I did not write this, I just copied it from some forum for free karma, mine has been going a bit low recently ;)

-Leffe

Re:America screwed over?

[danila]

I would absolutely love to see that. The Bush administration deserves to be taken down and I would prefer for this to happen in flames and with 100% certainty after Saddam's speech at the trial (or after Saddam commits "suicide" in the cell).

Saddam did a lot of evil things, but
1) at least he maintained a reasonably well-off, modern and secular state in such a complex region with the explosive mix of nationalities and tribes
2) he is not as corrupt and hungry for power as Bush and bushites (yeah, I know, not even Kim Chen Ir (sp?) is)

Sadly, with all the incompetence of the US government, chances for such an eye-opening trial are very low. :(

Re:America screwed over?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the United States is directly responsible for the existance of said mass graves. Not only did they not attempt to stop it, they incited the Kurdish uprising and prevented the UN from intervening.

Chew on that for a while.

Re:America screwed over?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do the mass graves around Baghdad have to do with the Kurds?

Re:America screwed over?

[Wateshay]

I'll believe Bush is more currupt and power hungry than Saddam when he refuses to give up power in '05 or '09. (note: I don't think that will actually happen)

Re:America screwed over?

[frostman]

You're right, but I expect they'll cut a deal.

Something along the lines of Saddam getting a moderately comfy cell in which to spend his days in quiet contemplation, maybe writing his memoirs or somesuch, in return for cooperation and not trying to push for a "real" trial.

Because a real trial would be highly embarrassing to Rummy et al, but would probably also end up with Saddam with a blindfold and one last cigar. The guy's evil but I don't think he has a death wish.

Re:America screwed over?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Coherent" and "what you were thinking" do not belong together. If the trial is done in an Iraqi court under Iraqi law, why would the court admit or consider any comments by foreign leaders of state or government?

The problem with liberals is not that they claim to be open minded: it is that it is literally true. Things go in one ear and out an arbitrary orifice, traversing a vacuum in between.

Re:America screwed over?

[Anonymous Coward]

I must say i'm surprised you were not modded up in this forum, I guess there is still hope that slashdot is not completly blinded by hatred for the USA.

Re:America screwed over?

[Michalson]

Above post is stolen from another site, specifically from a comment made by me. Last Post [gamedev.net] on the page. Posted 9:12AM (9AM when you take into account that GD.net clock is fast)

Re:America screwed over?

[Anonymous Coward]

2) [Saddam Hussein] is not as corrupt and hungry for power as Bush and bushites

You could quite possibly be the dumbest fuck on the planet.

Re:America screwed over?

[slutdot]

So far, this comment is perhaps the dumbest comment I have ever seen on Slashdot and that's saying an awful lot. The fact that you put in a "but" after writing "Saddam did a lot of evil things" is quite an eye opener. Your parents should be sterilized.

Re:America screwed over?

[bar-agent]

If the trial is done in an Iraqi court under Iraqi law, why would the court admit or consider any comments by foreign leaders of state or government?

His contacts with the United States could come up in questions of motivation or supply for his war crimes. His defense could try out the argument that Hussein was a patsy for the United States and other countries.

Don't forget, it's not like Iraq likes the U.S.

Re:America screwed over?

[danila]

Thanks, but I know I am not.

Saddam was not corrupt. He simply was a leader in a dictatorship, like Stalin or Mao. Saddam was a tyrant and he spent a lot of money on palaces for himself, but this does not mean corruption. Corruption is starting a $200bn war to provide a friendly corporation with a $10bn contract on which they can get $2bn of profit, from which they can pay $5mln in campaign contributions, from which Bush can steal $1mln. That's what I call corruption.

As for hunger for power, well, may be I exaggerated a bit too much, but then may be not. Yes, Saddam wanted power over his small country enough to decide not to run fair elections and remain dictator. But Bush wanted power over the most powerful country enough to cheat in elections. And now he wants the power over the whole world. Who is the warmongering power-hungry maniac now?

Re:America screwed over?

[Anonymous Coward]

12 years ago, now president Bush went to Iraq and personally killed all of those people, then he dressed up like Saddam and raped the statue of liberty. I haven't heard that story told by the liberals so I figured I'd throw it out there before someone else did. France killed more Iraqis by helping Saddam than we (USA) have, yet no one mentions that.

Re:America screwed over?

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen all you democrats, you FUCKING LOST! It's been 3 damn years and you can't give up the fantasy. Let's look at your choices, Clinton who caused 9/11, he had 4 years to stop it and didn't. Bush was in office for 9 months before it happened, if he could stop it in 9 months (you crackpots will say) then why didn't Cliton (didn't misspell) stop it in 4 years? Cliton thought a blow job was more important than 3000 lives. The only democrat I could even think of voting for is Liberman at least he has some balls. Before you spout off about the "dittohead" thing, I voted for Clinton twice and then Gore, I'm thankful Gore lost or we'd have to pray to allah at 5pm everyday or get our heads cut off. By that I mean that Gore would just bend over after 9/11 and we would be taken over.

Re:America screwed over?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Watch out for the men in suits coming to your house.

Re:America screwed over?

[sheldon]

and when they went to the Senate and successfully stopped the "Prevention of Genocide Act" the senate was trying to pass against Iraq for the gassing.

The "Prevention of Genocide Act" sponsored by Senators Pell, Gore(yes, that Al Gore) and Helms passed the Senate quite handidly the day after it was introduced.

The Republicans were able to halt it in the House of Representatives with threats that President Reagan would veto it.

Yes, you're correct. GW Bush doesn't want any of this history to become known. Dick Cheney was a Congressman from Wyoming when that bill was introduced, and it's unclear what role he might have played.

Re:America screwed over?

[StarTux]

Why are these getting moderated so high?

Its no secret that Saddam recieved aid from many countries, don't just pick on the US and Britain, in fact the ones to most fear more public scrutiny are Germany and France, but especially France as they supplied much more military gear to the Iraqi's. Indeed during the '91 Gulf War most French Mirages had to be used to patrol well away from the frontline as they gave out the same radar signature (and emitted same radar patterns) as the Iraqi Mirages.

But, lets take the years in CONTEXT, not with 20/20 hindsight. The Cold War was still very much going on, and many countries became the battle ground and only now are we paying the cost for the fall out of this.

Doubt many countries would really fear anything he revealed about past relations, but more about rhetoric as in returning to power, or maybe some message to his followers to make more attacks, perhaps this time with some WMD's.

And before people wonder where they are, keep an open mind as really who knows whether or not he ever had them.

"I wouldn't be surprised for a second if they pulled a "Lee Harvey Oswald" and have Saddam conveniently killed or "suicided"."

And Martyr him? Its a hard choice, keep him alive and risk terrorists trying to capture hostages for his release, or have him executed and have many die for his name. Personnally I hope he is kept alive on a place such as St. Helena, that way he can spend the rest of his life in isolation to ponder on the things he has done.

StarTux

Re:America screwed over?

[JFMulder]

Its no secret that Saddam recieved aid from many countries, don't just pick on the US and Britain
Well, I'm going for the obvious ones here, I mean. Didn't I say France in my previous post? Sorry if I didn't cause I definitely wanted to put that in. Anyway.

And Martyr him?
I meant killing him to shut him up. (For the record I don't have an opinion on the Lee Oswald case, I'm just citing it as a possible scenario)

Re:America screwed over?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were so worried about what he would say he wouldn't be alive right now. The orders would have been to shoot on sight, no questions asked.

Also, it's not like Saddam hasn't ever had a public forum to explain himself. Why didn't he make these accusations before?

Re:America screwed over?

[jrumney]

I read on one of the news sites that he will be tried in Iraq, by Iraqi's, which would be best IMO.

Not for the current administration. While his guilt is certain, if he is given anything less then a showtrial in which he is gagged and without a real lawyer he could have a field day embarrassing the US, and in particular reaganite members of the current Bush administration.

Sounds like the perfect reason to have him tried by an Iraqi court. A bit like keeping "illegal combatants" in Cuba, or extraditing Canadian citizens to Syria, at a safe distance from those annoying Western concepts of a fair trial and humane treatment.

Re:America screwed over?

[danila]

Dumbest comment? Get lost.
Or rather check out Time's polls - they asked people all around the world which country they thought was most dangerous to the planet, most unpredictable, etc. And BBC had a great very in-depth program about how the world views America. For some reason, most people think that the US is a bigger threat to the world than Iraq. Doesn't that suggest that although Saddam is no angel, he is still better than Dubya?

Re:America screwed over?

[slutdot]

I saw that BBC program. I also so another little clip the other day that asked what the American public thought of the "special relationship" between the US and the UK. Of all the places that the BBC decides to interview Americans, it chooses a Harvard coffeehouse. You probably couldn't get a more left-leaning slant unless you went to Amhurst or Berkley. The fact that they chose this location to get their idea of what America thinks about the UK had BBC slant written all over it. Time magazine does the exact same thing. Take this recent cover story for example...

I was in the first Gulf war and spent quite a bit of time in Kuwait as part of a medical detachment with the US Army. Believe me when I tell you that Hussein was the closest thing to Hitler the world has seen. By comparing him to Bush is an astronomically stupid and irresponsible thing. Bush does not hang people from light posts and allows his men to rape children. President Bush has done more for democracy by invading Iraq than France, Germany, Canada or Russia has ever done in their history. The day that Hussein is removed from this planet is a great day for humanity.

Re:America screwed over?

[danila]

Interesting post, thanks. As for Hussein, as far as I am aware of, Americans have killed more (or at least a comparable number) of civilians in Iraq then Saddam did. Add to that the deaths due to sanctions for which the US is indirectly responsible.

As for comparison with Hitler, it is plainly wrong. Definitely Pol Pot was worse than Saddam. And Stalin was. And Kim Chong-il is. You want to know why I compare Saddam with Bush? Because they used to be friends and partners in crime. Why should not I compare them?

You say Saddam hangs people from light posts, I say that Saudis cut hands and beat people with stones. As for raping the children, please. Of course they would tell you that. A little brainwashing can improve morale a great deal. Doesn't mean that was true, though. And don't even get me started on GI's "sexual adventures" in the countries where you go.

President Bush has done more to destroy democracy than almost any other American president. By invading Iraq he did a lot to destroy international stability and the system of international law, that's what he did.

Re:America screwed over?

[slutdot]

Who's the brainwashed one? I saw evidence of rape with my own fucking eyes. It's real nice to be safe sitting there on the sidelines behind your monitor isn't it?

I won't argue the merits of who's worse. You bring up some pretty valid candidates so I'll happily concede that point to you. I'm basing my judgement upon what I have seen up close and personally. While I was lucky enough to not be around during the Holocaust, I have studied enough of it to recognize evil when I see it. Hussein's actions against his own people and neighbors warrant that comparison.

Can you please provide any evidence supporting your accusation that Bush and Hussein were "friends and partners in crime"? Or is it another wacked out conspiracy theory born out of hate for the President? I often hear this theory but have yet to see any concrete proof other than some lib foaming at the mouth. By the way, Michael Moore, Paul Krugman or Howard Dean's sayso does not constitute concrete proof. This reminds me so much of the Clinton haters who bring up Vince Foster to anyone that listens that I have no choice but to ignore this type of nonsensical rhetoric. Lemme guess, Bush had advance knowledge of 9-11 and didn't do anything because Haliburton had an opportunity to profit off of the rebuilding of the WTC as well as the value of their holdings in coffin companies would skyrocket right?

Maybe you should reassess your definition of democracy. The way I see it, the Kuwaitis, the Iranians, and most especially the Iraqis are free to live in peace now that Bush and the great men and women of the US military have arrested Hussein.

You mention GI rape in other countries. That's a bit of a low blow considering it's not the norm. These bastards in Okinawa and other areas that commit crimes against those they are assigned to protect should be punished to the fullest extent of that country's law when they are found to be guilty. Just remember that it's a very large military that we have deployed and the actions of a few deviants should not be the cause for an indictment against GIs around the world. A very large majority of those deployed truly care about helping the people they are assigned to protect. It's an all-volunteer military and those that don't want to be there are usually sent home.

As far as the Saudis go, they should be next in line for a liberation.

Re:America screwed over?

[slutdot]

By the way, I thought about my previous post and I take back what I said about France. Their support to the colonies during the American Revolution grants tbem a second place showing for the defense of democracy.

My apologies to any French that might be reading this. Your country's leadership today is an embarrasment however.

Re:America screwed over?

[danila]

I don't doubt your words about rape, only the interpretation. Did you see the evidence that Saddam himself permitted his men to rape a child? This is doubtful to me. And even if that is true, how Saddam is different from some Latvian (or was it Lithuanian) politicians who were IIRC arrested for child abuse? How is it different from France with their rumoured love for kids among the elite? How about Vatican, do you want the US to attack it? BTW, I do. As cynical as that may sound to you, isolated incidents do not mean much on a grand scheme of things. Several raped children do not make Saddam evil (even if he did it himself) as a country leader (as a person, may be).

As for me sitting behind the monitor, indeed, it is nice to be safe. This makes me somewhat less informed, but may be more objective.

Regarding the evidence, I thought there was plenty of evidence that the US supplied biological and nuclear materials for Saddam's weapon programs, that the US gave a green light to attack against Kurds and that all this was done to further American goals in the region, including oil and weakening of Islamic states.

9-11 might have not been done by Bush, but there are some hard facts, which are also hard to ignore. Hard fact 1 - there are a lot of shady aspects (fighters on the ground, Bush mentioning a TV broadcast, etc., etc.). Hard fact 2 - several investigations into 9-11 were hindered very much (by Bush administration).

I like my understanding of democracy, thank you very much. It's the Americans who have to constantly reassess their definitions, so that the US still conforms to it. To an outsider your system of legalised corruption (campaign contributions) looks horribly undemocratic. Not to mention the two-party system, where only 10% of the seats in Senate are competitive. The scale of election fraud can rival Uzbekistan and the prevalence of groupthink will soon put North Korea to shame. (exaggerating a bit)

Iraqis are not free to live in peace. I hope they will manage (with the help of American and international forces), but the reality is that different factions there are not accustomed to democratic process. This can lead to a situation similar to Afganistan (in the bad case). To an American it always looks very easy from the outside. Just come to a country, change everything the American way and everything will be fine. It just doesn't happen that way. Not all countries can be easily reformed (Westernised). And it's not like most Iraqis did not live relatively well under Hussein (ignoring the sanctions for a moment).

These bastards in Okinawa and other areas that commit crimes against those they are assigned to protect should be punished to the fullest extent of that country's law when they are found to be guilty.
What about bastards who drive over young girls in their Humvees? But I agree with your point about it being a deviation among the soldiers. The attitude (overall) of the command is in question, though.

Saudis should be next? Doesn't look like it from American relations with them. I wonder how the targets for "liberation" are selected... If it was according to the biggest need, it would mostly be done in Africa. But for some reason it looks very much like oil plays a role (even according to White House officials).

Overall the most interesting problem is the problem of perception. Why is it that Americans perceive themselves as liberators and people in other countries don't. I mean, the French government may be evil, German people might be stupid, Russian might have dealings with Saddam, but why people in practically all countries and most governments (excluding the UK and a bunch of miniscule states) oppose the war? What do they see differently?
I sincerelly hope that things will go well in Iraq, but I suspect it might be not so much because of American intervention as despite it. Though I don't really know how to explain this to Americans...

Re:America screwed over?

[slutdot]

As much as I'd love to continue this debate, I cannot due to the fact that you defend Hussein as though he's a victim and the United States is at fault for his actions. My conscious will not allow me to continue a discussion with someone who follows these lines of thinking. You have a paranoid delusions that's either driven by hate for America or hate for Bush.

In your eyes, Americans don't understand why the world hates them. Whether it's unilateralism or some other complaint, we're just evil and Bush, Rummy, Rice, Powell (now that he's gone along with the war in Iraq), Cheney, Ashcroft (I might agree with this one), and Ridge comprise of the seven heads of the serpent. In our eyes, we're doing the right thing and the rest of the world, except those willing to make sacrifices that result in the removal of a stain on this planet, wants to do everything it can to counter the US (see the creation of the EU). I hope you and your family will appreciate your safety tonight when you go to bed.

Re:America screwed over?

[danila]

Thanks for trying anyway. Please realise, though, almost nobody hates the US, most people just strongly dislike the way it behaves, but most still hope that you will grow up and learn (unless Bush usurps power on all elections to follow). Some have reasons to hate you, though, usually after you try to overthrow a legitimate government in order to install a vile dictator. But nobody opposes you just because you are the US, the reason usually is that you do something really wrong.

BTW, in the rest of the world biblical allegories fell out of fashion long ago. Neither are they used to justify attacks on souvereign countries anymore.

As for my safety, yes, I do appreciate the work of Soviet nuclear scientists and engineers who worked on the nuclear shield for my country. Fortunately, the US is still not capable of attacking us. Not that this situation will continue for very long, with you nearly outspending the rest of the world on military forces...

Re:GOOD JOB TO US TROOPS, PRISON TO THE US GOVERNM

[Anonymous Coward]

Untrue, lots of oil to appease the american consumer in Iraq. Oil doesn't look like a WMD or act like a WMD, but I think we all figured out that oil was the WMD that Cheney/Halliburton was looking for.

WTF?

[smoondog]

Fair trial? Are you trolling? As far as I'm concerned, the only fair trial he gets are the DNA tests that prove his identity. I'm not really a supporter of the war and I'm *definately* not a supporter of Bush. But, that man (saddam) ordered the gasing that killed 5,000 civilians of his own people. I don't care how complicated the middle east and world politics are. I hope the trial is a circus, and a good one. And I can guarantee that his end will be too good for him.

-Sean

Re:WTF?

[sethstorm]

You'd probably gas your own people if they were a danger to national security

Re:WTF?

[CausticWindow]

Please don't propagate mindless propaganda. He might have been responsible for gassing civillian kurds and that is certainly an atrocity. But the kurds are not "his own people" anymore than the palestinians are Sharons own people.

The kurds were fighting for their independence with guerilla tactics and the civillian victims are no more than "collateral damage" in Iraqs version of "the war on terror".

If the US administration which is responsible for spreading this propaganda was genuinly concerned about the well being of kurds, they should also have acted when NATO ally Turkey massacered Kurdish villages.

Re:WTF?

[smoondog]

(First of all, calling the kurdish civilians a threat to national security is a stretch. And I'm a little offended by your suggestion. And to suggest that genocidal actions is in some cases justified is apalling on many levels.) But besides that, that wasn't my point. My point was that, like a captain on a sinking ship, Saddam must go down with his ship. Life isn't necessarily fair, and even if he had to do it (which is doubtful) he must pay the consequences. He killed thousands (civilians remember) at his command. It sucked for them, and in my opinion, Saddam killed himself when he killed his people.

On a similar note, I'm beginning to wonder if Saddam is a bit of a coward on a personal level. I'm really surprised that he was captured alive. (Remember his son committed suicide) I mean the guy was hiding in a hole with cash? WTF? We know he is paranoid (given how much he kills) but if he really followed through with his actions and meant what he says, he would be dead. IMO.

-Sean

Re:WTF?

[smoondog]

He might have been responsible for gassing civillian kurds and that is certainly an atrocity.

That was exactly my point. I guess my brain is too small to realize when such an action is justified, no matter what the world political climate is.

-Sean

Re:WTF?

[Homology]

I'm not really a supporter of the war and I'm *definately* not a supporter of Bush. But, that man (saddam) ordered the gasing [bbc.co.uk] that killed 5,000 civilians of his own people.

Interesting to note that US vetoed in UN Security Council a resolution that condemmed Saddams gassing. At that time, Saddam was the Good Guy fighting Evil Iran. And US did provide Saddam with chemical weapons and know how.

Re:WTF?

[CausticWindow]

How many civillians fell due to "collateral damage" in Afghanistan and Iraq? Oh, that's right, the US don't do bodycounts.

I'll restate my main objection with that piece of propganda since you obviously didn't understand it:

It makes the point that the US cares so much about the kurds that it can use it as a justification for an invasion. But when close military ally Turkey slaughters whole kurdish villages, the US don't even care to condemn it. Hypocrisy.

Re:WTF?

[smoondog]

You are correct, the list of embarrasing things on US hands over the 20-30 years is too long to count.

Re:WTF?

[smoondog]

Quote from my original post: I'm not really a supporter of the war and I'm *definately* not a supporter of Bush.

The US is far from innocent in many matters, IMO. That doesn't make the capture and trial of Saddam unimportant. Nor does it make Saddam innocent.

-Sean

Re:WTF?

[CausticWindow]

The US is far from innocent in many matters, IMO. That doesn't make the capture and trial of Saddam unimportant. Nor does it make Saddam innocent.

And did I make any statement to that effect? My only issue was with your mindless propagation of propaganda.

For the right reasons, I could have supported a war on Iraq.

Re:WTF?

[smoondog]

your mindless propagation of propaganda.

Whatever. I just said what I believed, and honestly, I'm not sure which part you think is "propaganda." Who really is more mindless? The person who says what he believes or the one who points and calls him a mindless propagator of propaganda? To perhaps clarify, all I said was: 1) I don't support bush or the war. 2) Saddam killed 5,000 civilians with chemical weapons. 3) I don't care what the nature of Saddam's trial is, as long has he is guilty.

-Sean

Re:WTF?

[sethstorm]

Well, if you look at the US, they've killed plenty of civilians, just that it happened years ago, and with similar methods(read:Vietnam, and to a lesser part, WWII). If it happens that national security collides with a whole culture that wants you and your government gone, he had few other options. Fine if you might call it genocidal, but like the States, as long as you marginalize your critics through any means (including removing their media outlets), it'll be done. I dont know about you, but I'll stand by my guns on this.

Re:WTF?

[Bootsy Collins]

But, that man (saddam) ordered the gasing that killed 5,000 civilians of his own people.

In this comment of yours, you linked to a BBC story about the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja. You may be interested to know that despite the public statements of our President and other major figures of his administration, the U.S. intelligence community suspects that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds in Halabja. See the piece written in the New York Times on January 31, 2003 by Stephen Pelletiere, who wrote:

The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its own citizens is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people," specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.

But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story.

I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.

This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target.

And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle, the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent -- that is, a cyanide-based gas -- which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.

These facts have long been in the public domain but, extraordinarily, as often as the Halabja affair is cited, they are rarely mentioned. A much-discussed article in The New Yorker last March did not make reference to the Defense Intelligence Agency report or consider that Iranian gas might have killed the Kurds. On the rare occasions the report is brought up, there is usually speculation, with no proof, that it was skewed out of American political favoritism toward Iraq in its war against Iran.

I am not trying to rehabilitate the character of Saddam Hussein. He has much to answer for in the area of human rights abuses. But accusing him of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war. There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them.

The piece goes on from there. I encourage you to read it.

Re:WTF?

[smoondog]

Hmm, frankly, thats very interesting. Thanks for pointing that out to me (and the rest of /.).

Re:WTF?

[superyooser]

According to Shia News:

Official Iraqi documents recovered after the fall of Saddam's regime suggest a staggering 5 million executions were made during Ba'ath era alone. Over 10 million were also imprisoned.

Re:WTF?

[Merk]

And it is to stop people like you that the justice system exists. What's your evidence that Saddam ordered that his people be gassed? "The TV told me so"? It shouldn't be hard to prove that Saddam is guilty of numerous nasty things, but this is a time when crossing every 't' and dotting every 'i' counts.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't kid yourself. It'll be a show trial with a pre-determined result. Then it'll be paraded around as propaganda by the US government, possibly securing them another term. God help us all if that happens.

this is a shame

[gustgr]

I belive that the USA infiltrating into Iraq's policy is a shame. Saddam might be evil but he was being evil and killing his people and i think americans don't care about poor 3rd world iraquians ... so ... that damn redneck [bush] should leave Iraq alone and give the government back to Saddam ... fscking stupid monkey [bush].

EI BUSH ... VAI TOMA NO CU!

Re:this is a shame

[Anonymous Coward]

Next I say we bomb your fucking country. We don't care about the 3rd world, we only care about ourselfs, like you only care about yourself. So, this next bomb is on me, I will personally buy a 500lb bomb and ask that it be delivered to your house, you assclown.

Millions of Iraqis care...

[Shivetya]

and while it may be true he wasn't in direct control of guerilla forces I doubt very seriously his continued evasion wasn't boosting their morale. I would also contend that he did have contact with them.

Where he was captured is in no way indicative of his capabilities. Fact is, it was probably a great hiding place, after all, why look at something that doesn't stand out from the background? Classic misdirection.

As with most captures of wanted people, someone ratted on him.

and yes, millions of Iraqis care, both there and worldwide. This is a day of celebration, do not discount them because of your petty views. These people have been living scared for a long time, that is a helluva a yoke to bear.

Bush

[pvt_medic]

Well you know Bush is going to get re-elected now.

Ace of Spades

[Aragorn DeLunar]

How ironic that they found the 'Ace' in the Hole.

Make Saddam Open Source!

[Lieutenant_Dan]

I don't know why, but it just seems like a good idea.

Oh wait, this isn't a nerd topic.

Sorry.

Re:Make Saddam Open Source!

[placeclicker]

None of the wars were either, but this is all "Stuff that matters" wouldn't you say?

Re:Make Saddam Open Source!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, oh come on that was funny.

Re:Make Saddam Open Source!

[lambsonic]

Why do that when you can give him Open Sores?

Re:Make Saddam Open Source!

[Espectr0]

Ironically, he IS open source now!

A bunch of people have access to his source, erm, code... know what i mean?

Sovereign my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Government derives from the people. A brutal dictator cannot hide his murders behind the shield of sovereignty, and he shouldn't be able to. Sovereignty does not trump everything.

It sounds like Iraqis love America more than you do. I would be glad to trade you for one of the peace-loving (and respecting) people of Iraq.

Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

First thing will be a massive increase in suicide bombings against anything that could be used to hold him. Rumours of where he's being held will leak out and that place is going to get nasty.
Next, Iraqi people are going to try him, not a UN warcrime commision (for obvious reasons, would bring too many accusations against BushBlair, and the parading of him DEFINATELY breaks the Geneva convention), but these people who are going to try him are going to need heavy protection for a long time.
Next, there's going to be hostages taken, US/UK/Press in an attempt to either get him released or to get his message out.
Whatever happens, it hasn't ended yet and is going to get a whole lot messier.
Might of been easier if he'd not been captured alive perhaps.

Jyve

From a naysayer.

[jotaeleemeese]

Where are the WMDs?

Oh sorry, I forgot, crimental. or wahtever.

Now it is the war on terror and the good of Iraqi people.

Stoopid me.

Re:From a naysayer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are the WMDs?
Up your hole.

Well This Puts A Hole In the Tin Foil Hat Crowd

[ellem]

If Bushco was really going to "use this" they'd have kept Saddam in a locker until, say, September and _then_ trotted him out.

Re:Well This Puts A Hole In the Tin Foil Hat Crowd

[k_187]

Nah, that's what they're saving Bin Ladin for. I'm torn though, while I think that Bush and company would have thought to keep him, I think they'd jump the gun and wave him around.

Bush: a war criminal?

[tcak]

Hopefully with the arrest of Saddam, the issue of WMD will come up. Saddam will give evidence that there are no weapons of mass destruction, thus causing George W. Bush to be tried as a war criminal by the international community.

Re:Bush: a war criminal?

[Scoria]

Saddam will give evidence that there are no weapons of mass destruction

Shouldn't the United States be attempting to present evidence of WMD? Innocent before proven guilty, yes?

Re:Bush: a war criminal?

[anaesthetica]

You can't be tried for war crimes simply by going to war. Under international law, War Crimes are crimes committed in the prosecution of the war itself (purposefully killing civilians or POWs for example). Going to war is not a War Crime, although going to war may be against the UN Charter's relevant articles. It's a technicaly difference, but still quite important, as Bush cannot be tried as an individual for violation of the UN Charter, whereas if he had authorized or turned a blind eye to committing war crimes he could be tried as an individual. As it is, only the state of America can be sanctioned if a violation of the UN Charter is determined by the ICJ or Security Council.

Re:Bush: a war criminal?

[tcak]

I do not agree with the definition that war crimes are "committed in the prosecution of the war itself".

Take for example, Emperor Hirohito, who is technically considered a war criminal though he was not tried for his war crimes. I would placed Bush's actions in the similar vein as the former Emperor of Japan.

George W. Bush has advocated an unjust war where he knew many innocents would die because of his selfish actions, just like Emperor Hirohito who tried to conquer Asia. Both leaders use wars as a pretext in order to steal the conquered countries' natural resources.

During the Qing Dynasty, China was overrun by foreigners occupying Chinese lands and the opium trade. The Chinese emperor himself wasn't doing a very good job of governing the country. What do you think the Chinese would say if Japan tried to use war as an excuse to liberate China from the foreigners and the Qing emperor?

Re:Bush: a war criminal?

[anaesthetica]

Well you can take up your complaint about the definition of a war crime with the growing body of international lawyers. I didn't define it.

Any perceived moral equivalency between Hirohito and Bush doesn't really strengthen your claim that Bush is a war criminal. Although I don't know the history of the claim against Hirohito myself, but my guess would be that his war crimes were in the conduct of war, not the simple fact of beginning wars.

I would like to direct you to the first modern definition of war crimes (modern being WWII forward). Note that they are differentiated from Crimes Against the Peace. Crimes Against Peace include invasion and agression. War Crimes deal with conduct falling outside the laws of war (some of which fall under Customary International Law, some of which have been codified in treaties like the Geneva Conventions).

You also say that the war begun by Bush was unjust. This doesn't help your argument either, as the justice of war has nothing to do with whether or not it is legal. I think most people agreed at the time that the US war in Kosovo was legitimate and just (even Kofi Annan said as much), but under the UN Charter it certainly wasn't legal.

Before you start making such bold claims you really ought to do some very basic research. If you want to say that Bush has committed crimes against the peace you'll at least make some sort of sense.

So what's next...

[Anonymous Coward]

This was a wonderful thing for the people of Iraq, for Bush, and for all people of the world. While I'm not surprised that we finally got him, I can't believe that he put up no resistence. Granted he was in a 6ft long hole in the wall and probably sleeping at the time, but I thought for sure he was going to go out shooting.

Within the last week "the coalition" has been preparing to set up an Iraqi War Crimes Court, with the intention of trying many top Saddam officials and Saddam in abscentia. There is plenty of interogating to be done, but hopefully he will make it there eventually. His horrific acts have been directed towards the Iraqi people and that is who he should be accountable to.

I have my doubts that Saddam will die as a martyr, because I think he is going to make sure that that punishment will be off the table. He has plenty of information that the US would love to have and if he wants to, I think he will be able to trade a life sentence for it. It seems pretty clear that the Iraqi WMD program was at best in shambles before the war, but it did exist and I am sure there is plenty of materials hidden in bunkers/caves/basements throughout that country that we are desperate to find. WMD materials are certainly the last thing we need on the black market. Not to mention the fact that the US is in the minority of the coalition (and all the "western" world), in its use of the death penalty at all.

As for Bush, this capture will certainly not hurt him. But, in the next few weeks there is going to be an increase in the anti-US insurgency in Iraq, as they will be trying anything to show that stopping the "infidels" has nothing to do with Saddam. (Not that he was doing much for them before, in that hole in the wall.) Expect things to get much worse before they get better.

Im very glad

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I feel really good reading news about dictators captures. This is the way to go, indeed the next target had to be Mr. Bush, I am not going to recall all the mistakes which took and are taking place in Iraq, Nevertheless, I would like to recall almost 10 childrens were killed by the US army during a bomb raid a few weeks ago in Afganistan.My question is simple, isn't this crime so horrible to jugde its responsibles ( i.e: US army, Mr American Way of Life Protector aka Mr Bush), otherwise a bunch of third world children are not so worth if you are fighting for freedom. Im afraid I dont belong to this world, full of this kind of hyprocritism.

Heil Hitler!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yours are the ravings of a neo-nazi.

The Pentagon manufactured the "intelligence" for invading Iraq

Even France claimed there were WMD's there. France is not a puppet of the Pentagon.

and Israel FUCKING OWNS congress

What page of Mein Kampf did you get that from? ...Dubya...

Are you referring to the Arab country of Dubai? Probably. There is no-one called Dubya.

Israel is the very model of savegry

No, it engages in a very measured and moderate response to constant aggression from those who want to exterminate its people.

Fuck you, Zionist. Israel rules all, eventually. If you aren't a Zionist, you are a pawn. Face it.

Zionism is a great idea: the idea that Jewish people (among others) can live without being oppressed by neo-nazis like yourself.

I am not Jewish, but I feel that Jewish people have the same rights to live as others. Something you neo-nazis ("Jews Control the World!") oppose.

The Election's over...

[BTWR]

Well, Election 2004 ended this morning. Like him or not, Bush is the man right now. He accomplished his goal, and a grand victory is always embraced by a leader's people. Dean's whole schtick was anti-war. While there still are merits to being anti-war (men/women killed, cost $$$, no WMD), Dean just lost his biggest stance against the war: that it hasn't truly accomplished anything.

That picture of Saddam in a disgusting non-bathed attire, dirt-filled beard will be remembered forever.

Plus, his trial for crimes against humanity will probably begin just around November 2004 (yeah yeah, cue trolls calling for "America's crimes against humanity, etc...")

Re:The Election's over...

[lateral]

On the contrary, it may strengthen Dean's hand. This is the last of the great symbolic victories that can be eeked out of this war (assuming we were lied to about WMD) and there's still an entire election year to go.

As long as coalition troops continue to die, as long as innocent Iraqis are killed in the crossfire and as long as the US haemorages money on the occupation the worse Bush, his neo-cons and their war will look. All of these things will continue well into next year.

L.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

The election is almost a year away. Although this is a great triumph for Bush right now, there are still nagging problems with the economy and the horrible trampling of civil rights that Bush has used the war on terror to excuse.

I voted for Bush in the last election but I certainly have no intention of voting for him in the next election. The primary reasons involve his contempt for the Bill of Rights and the the elevation of corporate rights over individual rights, NOT his war on terror!

Re:The Election's over...

[BTWR]

Nah, won't happen. You see, bush has a solid 40-something percent of the vote right now. All he needed were those extra 6-7 points to take the cake. This easily did that. And like I said, there are plenty of kudos left for Bush. The capture is great, but a certifiably-guilty verdict in his war crimes will be an even bigger boost. It will display, for the public record, his exact crimes, and for every horrible act, Bush will be given credit (right or wrong) for ending it.

Re:The Election's over...

[BTWR]

I'm the opposite. Voted for Gore, was pissed as hell that Gore lost, but now I think I may vote for Bush (true, as you said - there' still a year to go).

Based on today's events, I feel that Bush is the guy that will protect America (and her allies). If you go after America, we'll get you. Dean has almost declared that he would not pursue military action against an aggressor (he is against going after the Taliban after they protected Osama).

Oh, and you made an intelligent point, so I assume you're too intelligent to try and say "But it's Bush who made them hate us in the first place!" You're way too smart to think that. Yeah, like the terrorists hated the 8 months bush was in office when they bombed New York, or the ~10 months that Clinton was in office in '93, or the few years Jimmy Carter was in office when they killed all the soldiers in Lebanon. They hated us then, they hate us now.

Re:The Election's over...

[Scrameustache]

Like him or not, Bush is the man right now. He accomplished his goal, and a grand victory is always embraced by a leader's people.

Yay! Bush caught Osama Bin Laden and discovered massive stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq! Hurr...what?

Have you ever heard of the sharpshooter's fallacy?
You shoot at a wall and then draw a target around where you hit.

Yeah, Bush "accomplished his goal", he caught *someone*.

Re:The Election's over...

[Scrameustache]

Based on today's events, I feel that Bush is the guy that will protect America (and her allies). If you go after America, we'll get you.

OMG!

When, exactly WHEN did Saddam "go after America"?
When, and how?

Saddam was all cozy in his little kindom, not having any weapons of mass destruction or anything, and Bush decided to go after Iraq, not the other way around. He did it for many reasons: Oil, a distraction from internal scrutiny, a well known villain, but NOT because Saddam attacked America, because he never did.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

At the risk of starting a flame war, I simply have to respond to this:

Oh, and you made an intelligent point, so I assume you're too intelligent to try and say "But it's Bush who made them hate us in the first place!"

No, it wasn't Bush, but they do have plenty of reasons to hate us. For many years during the cold war, various US presidents made the mistake of supporting and aiding oppresive regimes simply because they weren't communist. This includes Saddam Hussein! This also includes the Shah of Iran, whose excesses directly led to the backlash that was the Taliban! and they did it all in the name of protecting freedom around the world. Many of the weapons used against our troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq were stamped "Made in USA", but were intended for use against communists.

Now, that being said, I don't think that different US policies during the last 50 years would have made them not hate us, either. A good deal of the problems in that area of the world are bound up in religious issues and religious issues don't seem very amenable to any rational process.

In the end, Bush was handed all of this when he took office and 9-11 occurred. I think he did what was needed (and needed for a long time). As I said before, my reasons for not voting Bush in the next election do not center around his war on terror; instaed they center around his campaign against the rights and freedoms of the American people!

Re:The Election's over...

[kimota]

>Well, Election 2004 ended this morning. Like him or not, Bush is the man right now.

"Right now" is nearly a year away from the elections themselves. GHW Bush was "the man" in 1991 but still managed to blow the elections in '92.

Things that can still hurt W:

1. another terrorist attack (unless it's so bad that this (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/ 20/185048.shtml) occurs, which may or may not remove W.

2. not finding Osama. If they can get him in August or September of next year, *then* the election is over.

3. a trial for Saddam that brings to light all the dirty stuff the US did back when he wasn't considered the anti-Christ.
You're right, though, it could well start late enough to be a non-issue.

4. more insurgents (despite what country they're actually from) and more quagmire for a supposed "mission accomplished"

5. North Korea

6. An economic downturn, or a rally that peters out

7. what else? I'm curious to hear others' comments.

Frankly, if I were a Macchiavellian bastard who wanted to stay in power, I'd arrange to have several 'necessary' military actions (of the apparently non-quagmire type) going on at the same time as the elections. As long as it's considered treason to question those actions, there will be a majority of people who think a continuity of leadership is necessary, so I know I could be re-elected.

--Kimota!

Re:The Election's over...

[David Price]

"I supported the invasion of Afghanistan and the elimination of the Taliban. I thought that group was a clear and present danger to the United States, and I supported what the President did."

-- Howard Dean, interview with truthout

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

He accomplished his goal, and a grand victory is always embraced by a leader's people.

Tell that to Churchill.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are the moderators?

and tell that to Bush's daddy, too!

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

you think this is clever? the hell you voted Gore.

Re:The Election's over...

[ssstraub]

So I guess having an aggressive, war-prone, president is worth more to you than losing the personal freedoms that America has always stood for.

Geez, I hope there's not many others out there with that kind of thinking. A recipe for 1984, indeed.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the environment and being a corporate whore.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anenga]

Saddam supported al-Qaeda. There's oodles of evidence for that. He even supported a terrorist training camp called Salman Pak that had an airplane where they trained terrorists to hijack airplanes. Sure, there is no non-refutable direct link, but you can't ignore all the amounting evidence.

More came out today, from The Telegraph:

Iraq's coalition government claims that it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist. [...]

"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," he said. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

It's quite silly just to dismiss Saddam as having "no connection" to 9/11. How, exactly, do you know that? Are you saying you have better intelligence than the #1 Government in the world? Give me a break.

Saddam was all cozy in his little kindom, not having any weapons of mass destruction or anything, and Bush decided to go after Iraq, not the other way around. He did it for many reasons: Oil, a distraction from internal scrutiny, a well known villain, but NOT because Saddam attacked America, because he never did.

Ooooooooooillllllll!! It's all about oil!! Our zionist, imperalist thirst for oil! That mantra is so sad it's now became cliche. Nevermind if Bush really wanted oil he could of just lifted the sanctions. Or how about that story from the NYTimes where Saddam offered Bush all his oil if he didn't attack, yet Bush still went forward with Operation Iraqi Freedom? Or why didn't we take Iraq's oil during the first Gulf War? Hmmm?

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

"accomplished his goal"?.. not yet... ...SHOW ME THE WEAPONS.

Re:The Election's over...

[Scrameustache]

Or why didn't we take Iraq's oil during the first Gulf War? Hmmm?

We did.

That was the whole point of the Gulf War! Iraq had invaded Kuwait (a tiny mini state composed of a corner of iraq's coast) because Kuwait was slant-drilling into the iraqi oil reserves and selling that oil wich Saddam said was his.

The coalition forces went in and got that oil back.

Re:The Election's over...

[randyest]

Read news much?

Re:The Election's over...

[JuggleGeek]

If you go after America, we'll get you.

That should be "If you go after America, we'll get somebody."

Re:The Election's over...

[forgotmypassword]

and her allies

Saddam has publically funded terrorism against Israel for a very long time. This is well known.

At one point if you would suicide bomb Israel then Saddam would write a fat check that would support your family for life.

Personally I think that at this point Israel is just as bad as everybody else, but in all honesty the poster wasn't as incorrect as you interpreted.

Re:The Election's over...

[Scrameustache]

Saddam has publically funded terrorism against Israel for a very long time. This is well known.

At one point if you would suicide bomb Israel then Saddam would write a fat check that would support your family for life.

Hmmm, forgot about that one.

Personally I think that at this point Israel is just as bad as everybody else, but in all honesty the poster wasn't as incorrect as you interpreted.

My bad, thanks for the friendly reminder.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

We still have elections?

I thought the Republican Supreme Court was just appointing our leaders now.

Re:The Election's over...

[JeanBaptiste]

"When, exactly WHEN did Saddam "go after America"? When, and how?"

Read and learn something

Re:The Election's over...

[batura]

He accomplished his goal,

Then where the fuck is Osama Bin Laden?

Re:The Election's over...

[WindowsOutTheWindow]

Good arguments! I live in NY and saw 9/11. We were all in a daze. I wonder if we'll ever see news like this about that good old friend of his people (and the U.S). - Fidel Castro.

Re:The Election's over...

[justins]

"When, exactly WHEN did Saddam "go after America"? When, and how?"

Read and learn something [telegraph.co.uk]

Abu Nidal != Saddam. Iraq was harboring him, but if that is to be the criteria, we certainly should have attacked Saudi Arabia.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, bush has a solid 40-something percent of the vote right now. All he needed were those extra 6-7 points to take the cake

Yeah, remember, he only needs 49 percent!

Re:The Election's over...

[Scrameustache]

Well, they just found Saddam AND the hand-written memo that links him to Al-Qaeda, the sept 11th attack, and nigerian uranium? All in one day?

Wow.

I'll refrain from being excited until the document is proven not to be a fake.

Personally, I find memos from mysterious sources that read "Dear Saddam, here is all the info your enemies want, love someone-in-the-know." highly suspicious.

But, even if it does turn out to be true, you cannot use something you didn't know at the time as justification for your actions.

Might as well execute people at random and say "I was right" when it turns out you killed a pedophile or something.

Go to google and check the "sharpshooter fallacy", its fascinating stuff.

Re:The Election's over...

[dr.badass]

Frankly, if I were a Macchiavellian bastard who wanted to stay in power, I'd arrange to have several 'necessary' military actions (of the apparently non-quagmire type) going on at the same time as the elections. As long as it's considered treason to question those actions, there will be a majority of people who think a continuity of leadership is necessary, so I know I could be re-elected.

Congradulations, you've just described "The War On Terror". Someone will by be by to silence you within the hour.

Re:The Election's over...

[BTWR]

Yeah, remember, he only needs 49 percent!

:)

But seriously, when there will likely be a Green candidate snagging ~2-3% of the vote, the true winner could likely win by a margin of like 48.9%-47.6%-3.1% (plus fringe candidates...)

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Someone"? If he caught you for fucking a dog, then that would be "someone". The USA caught someone who killed more muslims than the USA killed and we (USA) deserve the credit.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

And what about what you and all the other Anti-Bush candy-ass whiners are doing?

I think it was just last week I heard someone squealing "Bush can't even find Saddam! What a complete failure!" This week, they find him, so you start whining about something else for him to be a failure over.

I guess if you can shoot the wall and then walk over and paint a target over it, then it's more than fair for Bush, or anybody else to do it too.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

whatever.... bush could cure cancer and you would find something to bitch about that...

Re:The Election's over...

[IM6100]

So for the record, you are asserting here that the oil wells in Kuwait were Saddams and that Iraq was justfied in invading Kuwait?

Wow.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

For many people this is not about honor, or freedom, or a fight against terrorism.

It's about getting 'their guy' elected in 2004.

And it's really a sad testimony to how low they'll stoop to do so.

Re:The Election's over...

[Scrameustache]

No, I'm asserting that the oil wells in Kuweit drill into oil reserve that are under the territory of Iraq and that when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, it was taking controll of all the oil of Iraq. Therefore, when the coalition forces liberated Kuwait from Saddam, they did it for the oil.

Now, if you don't think that Kuwait does drill into oil reserve that Iraq might resonably think of as "their's" on account of they are mostly under their sand, then read up on the subject boy, because they do.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here: Let me spin your troll a little differently:

OMG!

When, exactly WHEN did Adolf "go after America"? When, and how?

Adolf was all cozy in his little kingdom, not having any weapons of mass destruction or anything, just gassing Jews in his own little country, and Roosevelt decided to go after Germany, not the other way around. He did it for many reasons: A distraction from internal scrutiny, a well known villain, but NOT because Adolf attacked America, because he never did.

Listen fucktards because we have to get one thing straight: Oil isn't even in the top 10 reasons why we did this. If we wanted oil we would invade Venezuela, not a country located in the middle of the biggest religious shit storm in a couple of centuries. It would appear that Saddam has been killing his own people and burying them in mass graves for over 15 years. There are reports of up to 2 millions murdered, and videotape of him shooting some of them personally. Fuck WMD's, and whiny liberal sentiment. The people on planet Earth can not put up with this shit. As the U.S. and England are the only ones willing to put there lives and money on the line to keep people safe I would like to respectfully request that the rest of you go fuck yourselves.

Re:The Election's over...

[ChaosDiscord]

Nevermind if Bush really wanted oil he could of just lifted the sanctions.

Erm... no. If the sanctions were lift Iraq would likely have fulfulled existing commitments and agreements with other nations. It was just those agreements with, say, France, that caused lots of people to discredit France's arguments arguments against the war.

By invading and replacing the government the existing agreements can easily be broken. Furthermore, you can argue "to the victors go the spoils" and offer sweetheart agreements for your local businesses.

I'm not saying that this is the case, in fact I don't believe it to be the case. I'm just putting forth that it's plausible.

Or how about that story from the NYTimes where Saddam offered Bush all his oil if he didn't attack, yet Bush still went forward with Operation Iraqi Freedom?

Saddam may not have been a real threat to the United States, but he was darn well a Bad Man who would lie through his teeth to save his own skin. Trusting a promise under duress from Saddam would be stupid, no matter who you are. Furthermore, at that point it clearly looks like extortion, "Give us your oil or we invade." That would never have flown. All in all, it was never a real option.

Or why didn't we take Iraq's oil during the first Gulf War?

Oh, that one's easy. Bush Sr. isn't an idiot. Bush the first gathered a coalition of powerful nations including many in the middle-east to repel and Iraqi invasion. He did his job and stepped away. He understood that the war would get much, much more difficult if we actually counter-invaded. Not only would we be fighting on our enemies terroritory, potentially facing the guerilla warfare we face today, but many of his allies would have condemned the action.

Re:The Election's over...

[liloldme]

There was also the small matter of debts, and whether the countries playing the political game behind the Iran-Iraq war should forgive Iraq's war debt to them:

On 17 July Saddam accused Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates of conspiring with the United States to cheat on oil production quotas and keep the price low. As the situation escalated, Egyptian President Husni Mubarak and Saudi King Fahd arranged a meeting between Kuwaiti and Iraqi officials, in Jeddah on 31 July, to find a peaceful solution. The Iraqi representative, Izzat Ibrahim Ad-Duri, walked out, complaining of Kuwaiti reluctance to forgive Saddam's debt to Kuwait.[3]

According to King Hussein of Jordan (now deceased), the Al-Saud (Saudi Arabia) and al-Sabah (Kuwait) families agreed, in a closed door meeting before the conference, to forgive their debt claims and give $10bn to help repay the rest of Saddam's debt. But on 30 July Kuwait's foreign minister, Sheikh Sabeh Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, the Emir's brother, ridiculed the Iraqi army to Jordanian diplomats and said, "If they don't like it, let them occupy our territory ... we are going to bring in the Americans."[4] At Jeddah the next day, he announced to Ad-Duri that Kuwait was only offering $500m (instead of $10bn). Two days later Iraq invaded.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

Osama was behind 9/11. Any one who thinks that Osama and Saddam were cozy is displaying his cluelessnes about the sectarian politics of the Islamic world. A Wahabi wouldn't even spit on the camel of a so-called secular (sic) Sunni.

As for the alleged "document", what took them so long? Don't they have any forgers left in Baghdad?

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush is the man right now. He accomplished his goal more like he accomplished the 5th change to his goals. "Find and get the person responsible for 9-11" becomes "Find and capture Bin Ladin" becomes "Wage war on terror" becomes "Take down Iraq because of WMDs" becomes "Get Saddam" I don't know that we've made any progress on the 9-11 terrorists. Bin ladin is still wandering aroudn free. Terrorism has not stopped. Iraq's WMDs have not been found and neutralized. Still, bush caught Saddam. Given that 90% of America has the attention span of a commercial they've probably been successfully sidetracked and will vote for bush. I just wish more of them realize that if after 9-11 they were told we'd attack a completely irrelevant country with no real defense against us to oust a dictator who, while admittedly not a good person, had nothing (proven) to do with 9-11 and that bush has completely distracted them with this stupid fulfilment of his own personal agenda.

Re:The Election's over...

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam was all cozy in his little kindom, not having any weapons of mass destruction or anything

Prove it. The fact that the US forces haven't turned up anything yet doesn't mean that he didn't have them. He was funding and encouraging terrorism in the middle east.

and Bush decided to go after Iraq, not the other way around. He did it for many reasons: Oil,

Prove it. About 7% of America's Oil comes from Iraq. If America wanted oil, why didn't America invade Saudi Arabia?

a distraction from internal scrutiny,

Scrutiny about what? An economy that is rebounding? The only people who are negative on bush are the vocal minority in America..the far left.

None of your statements are based on fact, just political dogma and your tinfoil hat.

Re:The Election's over...

[Rayonic]

1) another terrorist attack would get people to rally around him. Ever wonder why there has been no followup to 9/11? They're afraid it'd bolster W's stance.

2) Maybe Osama still being at large gives a good scare-factor, though. Can't really tell.

3) Any "embarrassing" secrets about the U.S. are already out in the open. All he could tell us now is what happened after 1991 or so.

4) more insurgents would be bad, I'll give you that. Though your analysis of the "Mission Accomplished" speech is a little shallow.

5) North Korea... what? What about them? War? That would help Dubya's re-election chances, but I think we'd have more pressing matters to think about.

6) Yep, economic downturn would be bad.

7) You forgot about the finding-WMD issue. The final report of the Iraq Survey Group should help put that to rest, though.

Re: The Election's over...

[Black Parrot]

> But seriously, when there will likely be a Green candidate snagging ~2-3% of the vote, the true winner could likely win by a margin of like 48.9%-47.6%-3.1% (plus fringe candidates...)

Given what happened in 2000 and what's at stake now, I wouldn't be surprised if the lead Democrat adopts a Green for his running mate.

Re: The Election's over...

[Black Parrot]

> 7. what else? I'm curious to hear others' comments.

Very closely related to what you already said, one of his biggest dangers is the risk of playing reverse boy-who-cried-wolf. He will surely trumpet Saddam's capture to the heavens, but if the killing goes on that will ring as hollow propagandistic rhetoric like his speech on the carrier now looks, and like the crowing over the killing of Saddam's sons now looks.

Similarly with the economy: he has been crying the third-quarter numbers to the high heavens, but if too many people are still unemployed or worried about their jobs when the election draws near, all that crowing will make things worse for him than keeping quiet about it would have.

There's no political margin in giving people hope and having it snatched back away from them. And this president is so desperate for positive news that he tends to overspin every little tidbit. He needs to talk less and deliver more results; even minor results would be very welcome to the public if they were real and enduring, and not seen as just another round of political spin.

Re: The Election's over...

[Black Parrot]

> another terrorist attack would get people to rally around him. Ever wonder why there has been no followup to 9/11? They're afraid it'd bolster W's stance.

You're assuming people like OBL don't want conflict. I suspect our invasion of Iraq was the best present anyone ever gave OBL, from his point of view. Fundamentalist extremists will be glad to bolster the hands of their most extreme opponents. Nothing would make them happier than having the USA at WWIII with the Islamic world.

Another buzz about a doppelganger..

[cccemper]

Well I cannot wait to see the photos of this next doppelganger they arrested here... it was just a question of time the Bush' regime needed some more success stories looking forward to the elections... well...

WMD were only a part of the issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

They were never the focus of it.

The press and certain political elements keep repeating it over and over again, usually out of context, to "train" people in believing it was the focus.

Amazing how if you say an untruth over and over how it suddenly becomes something else? It also relies on people to believe the press without actually going and reading the statments made and the context they were made in themselves.

Re:WMD were only a part of the issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Certain political elements" including the President and Vice President.

Seriously....what do they have against him now?

[GillBates0]

This is NOT intended to take sides/figure out who's right or wrong, but to challenge the actions of the US government, as every dutiful citizen MUST do.

What exactly do they have against Saddam now? He didn't have WMDs. The CNN headline says he's a tyrant...but is that really any of our (US's) business? I think it's just a backup line that the government is using since they couldn't justify the primary reason to attack Iraq.

What with the need for oil, the Patriot Law, DMCA, Voting problems, etc....I think the US Government is screwing everybody.

Re:Seriously....what do they have against him now?

[attonitus]

Good point. He clearly can't be put on trial in any international court. Partly because the US doesn't recognise the only one that we have, but mostly because he hasn't committed any obvious war-crimes.

However, he can be put on trial by the people of Iraq. The interesting thing is establishing the legitimacy of a court and fulfilling any punishment imposed.

If he's tried by an Iraqi court, and lets assume that the death penalty doesn't get imposed (because of international pressure from Europe), what on earth is the US going to do when he gets let out at the end of his sentence? Or when a more Arab-nationalist government is elected and frees him. This is assuming it's possible to convict him in the first place.

No.

[jotaeleemeese]

Who is this guy anyway?

Imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of this guy!

Now maybe we can get the hell out of there

[tjstork]

Suddenly the June exit from Iraq plan is looking better all the time.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

[carcosa30]

This is what happens to most tyrants, sooner or later. Or time gets them, and that's inevitable.

The video game Black Tiger said it best (the only thing it will be remembered for):

"4.5 billion years have passed since earth's creation. Many dominators have ruled in all their glory, but time was their greatest enemy and it defeated their reign. And now, a new dominator's reign begins..."

What a great day!

[kyndig]

What a great day to be an American

Rock of the Marne! ( Now we'll never live this one down from 4th ID ;)

Charlie's on the warpath Hoo Ha hah

-Marne Soldier from Operation Iraqi Freedom

Re:What a great day!

[Jesrad]

What a great day to be an American

You misspelt "Iraqi", like many people.

Only for those who ignore evidence.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but even CNN has shown connections between Iraq and the terrorist. Keeping your head in the sand won't make it any different.

The obvious ignorance of /. is evident as they modded you insightful.

Re:Only for those who ignore evidence.

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Sorry, but even CNN has shown connections between Iraq and the terrorist. Keeping your head in the sand won't make it any different.

CNN did? Can you provide links? I've never seen anything, especially from them.

Re:GOOD JOB TO US TROOPS, PRISON TO THE US GOVERNM

[Anonymous Coward]

If only you knew that the US has only used the oil to gain revenue to rebuild Iraq... not to help the US at all.

YOU GODWIN-INVOKING IDIOT

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no "God", whether Jewish, Christian, or Islamic, and "Jews" don't control the world. If you believe the Pentagon then you are a true fool who believes what his government preaches. To be against the crimes of the Israeli government is to be against humanity. Zionism is terrorism, no matter how you cut it. Then again, you are probably some random USian wonk who believes what he is told by big media. So go on, trust what you hear by those with the cash. Go on... Maybe one day you'll see the lie.

Re:YOU GODWIN-INVOKING IDIOT

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe if you would actually explain what you are claiming to be true, one might understand your ignorance

A Perverse Angle

[shadowcabbit]

Let's take a look at it this way. Saddam Hussein is captured, tried, and (hopefully) executed. So what exactly do we need Bush for, now? His job is done, we've made good in the eyes of the world by destroying a major evil in the world. Let's step out from behind the machine gun and to the peaceful podium. I'm not going to let this influence my vote. If Bush can pull out of the warmongering psycho mode before November, he may get my vote. What will influence my vote is the candidate's stand on non-military conflict solutions to the Holy Land thing.

We (America) got fucked on 9/11. No doubt about it. We decided to get even. No doubt about that. We kinda forgot about Osama and took out another world-class pain in the ass. Now can we please get back on track and hunt down the real targets? Preferably by having their own people turn against them? For 2004, my big thing will be "military force as a last resort, not first choice". I don't want to see America dragged down into a self-destructive unwinnable war. I don't want to see our country fight itself to death. We need to pursue peaceful solutions in the future when possible.

Great job, soldiers. No one can discredit your efforts and sacrifice. But I'd much rather we didn't have to have sacrificed at all.

Re:A Perverse Angle

[Anonymous Coward]

His job is done, we've made good in the eyes of the world by destroying a major evil in the world.

You don't seem to understand, the world thinks *American* is the major evil.

Re:A Perverse Angle

[jkantola]

you say

...Saddam Hussein is captured, tried, and (hopefully) executed.

and then you say

We need to pursue peaceful solutions in the future when possible

for once, the subject DID describe the content ...

Re:A Perverse Angle

[Anonymous Coward]

What will influence my vote is the candidate's stand on non-military conflict solutions to the Holy Land thing.

You're never going to find a non-military soultion to the Jewish vs. Muslim landwars in "The Holy Land." These jerkoffs have been smacking eachother around and just generally disrupting world peace for somewhere between two and four millenia; you think that they're sufficiently more "civilized" today? No, they just have better technology to piss on eachother with.

We need to realize that the "Holy Land" has been overrun by zealots and terrorists, and drop a 100 megaton nuke square in the middle of Jerusalem. Nothing makes people work things out on their own like nuclear fallout.

I'm only half kidding. Don't elect me president. After two warnings, the third time there was this "Suicide Bomber - Military Strike - Retailiation" game, the third offense would result in "The Button" being pushed.

Asshats!

Re:A Perverse Angle

[StarTux]

Don't think Osama was ever forgotten...Just he is proving much harder to find. But I am sure if they keep at it, one day they will get him. As if you or anyone else on this board knows anything about the efforts to catch him, Saddam was caught a day ago, but they wanted to make 100% sure it was him first.

I agree, I really hope the US does not start saber waggling anymore than needed.

"But I'd much rather we didn't have to have sacrificed at all."

We all wish that, maybe one day people will find peaceful means to get the changes, or messages across as they want. Guess its about communication on one part.

Nobody asked an important question....

[Anonymous Coward]

What they will do with him now? Put together with Slobodam Milosevic?

There is still something missing....

[pagaman]

We've removed Saddam hussien from power, and we are going to replace him with...... 1)Democracy? No - too unstable, and the countries becoming more unstable. 2)A civil war? No - This would lead to an emergence of another dictator (one so ruthles he could beat the cruft out of the other factions) 3)Another friendly dictator? No - wouldn't look too good, besides he may turn out to be Saddam Hussein Mk II 4)A group of dictators, dressing them up an a council? Yes - We can avoid all the uglyness of making it look like we invaded with no real plan, stop a civil war, and make sure the public can't single out 1 dictator we've imposed on people.

Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germany

[koi88]

Everybody deserves a fair trial. That's what democratic states promise to their citizens, and their enemies.

This basic right used to by highly valued in the US, too. Of course, now suspects are declared "terrorists" and put away to Guantanamo and other places, or left to "friendly" governments for torturing.

The very reason that a few days ago a suspect 9/11-collaborator was set free by the court was a lack of proof against him (likely the US' fault for not allowing an important witness to testify because said witness is "interrogated" by the CIA at an unknown location).
In Germany, at least, people can be sure not to be held prisoner without evidence.

The value of democratic principles can be seen best whan you look at how a state treats its enemies.

Not controlling anything

[dk.r*nger]

IANA(insert favorite apropriate trade) ..Saddam didn't control anything, he just made sure to stay out of the way (and did that quite well...). But if the saddam-loyalists are anything like politicaly minded people anywhere in the world, they have a sense of opportunism - thinking (probably with good reason) that if they help fight the infidels, Saddam will honor them when he returns.

Now that it's obvious that the Baath party has no immediate path back to power in Iraq, many of these people will see no point in resisting the inevitable, and the more clever of them will deny thier parts in the resistance.

While there will be Iraqi resistance for a long time, this should have a significant effect.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[squarooticus]

: no long commands the same international respect.

I assure you the US commands unparalleled strength, even compared to its own history. Perhaps it doesn't command the same amount of friendliness, but the two are entirely different.

Remember what Cicero said: oderint dum metuant ("let them hate, so long as they fear.")

Some of the congratulations may be a bit strained

[tehanu]

While anti-war, I believe Saddam Hussein's capture is a good thing. He was evil and deserves to be punished for his crimes.

However I suspect some of the congratulations from world leaders may be a bit strained. And I'm not sure that all of the members of the US government would really have liked to see him captured alive.

You see the thing is, Saddam had a lot of dealings with various countries like France, Russia and of course the US esp. during the times when he was busy murdering and massacring people. At one point he was a respectable member of the international community and a US ally (incidentally during the same time he was massacring people, but well when has foreign relations ever been about human rights). He could probably tell about some very embarassing things esp. since there are suggestions the trial will be televised. For example he could say "When I ordered the Kurds to be gassed, the US government said nothing to me but Mr Cheny sent me a message hoping that I am successful in pacifying the country and winning against Iran" (to get this, see news about Kissinger's notes to Argentina during their own "dirty war" which involved massive human rights violations) or "Yes, the French *were* selling me weapons on the sly after the Gulf War". Emphatic denials could also kill the Saddam-Osama rumours AND the weapons of mass destruction rumours as well which the Bush administration have used so effectively.

I think the more the Bush administration (and other world leaders like Chirac) think about it, the more they'll realise it might have been better if he had given them a reason to shoot him dead during the capture. That would have been the ideal solution. Saddam would be gone so the morale boost and prestige would still be there. But dead men don't talk.

Re:GOOD JOB TO US TROOPS, PRISON TO THE US GOVERNM

[Anonymous Coward]

yes thats what the puppet on the right hand is saying, just watch out for that puppet on the other hand.

Clearing up your own mess

[nagora]

CIA-hired assassin and supposed puppet-ruler arrested by CIA; public asked to pretend this makes it all alright.

TWW

Aren't you tired of being wrong yet?

[snarkasaurus]

Don't you people ever get tired of being wrong? First there was the "Brutal Afghan Winter", then the WMD attacks on US troops, then the WMDs dissapeared, then there was "The Iraq Quagmire", and now Saddam's capture will make no difference.

Prediction, hell yes it will.

This is the guy who had multiple prisons for four year olds, made doctors cut off thousands of people's ears, fed men into shredding machines feet first, and etc. If you want to spew bile on somebody, why not this guy?

With any luck they will stick him in a wire cage at Guantanamo and make him eat bacon until he dies of old age and boredom. Like that Nazi prick they kept in Spandau Prison for 40 years.

Ding dong the wicked witch is dead! Be happy.

P.S. By the way, nice troll dickweed.

HEHEHE, YOU IDIOT!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do the math, Iraqi oil can't compensate for the cost of USian intervention, not to mention the blood of American soldiers sent to fight an un-Constitutional war. Iraq loses, US loses, the world in general loses.

One step forward, four steps back

[vinsci]

• Karimov in Uzbekistan
• Alijev in Azerbajdzjan
• Nazarbajev in Kazakstan
• Musharraf in Pakistan

Who are these people? They're the latest partners in crime with the U.S. oil imperialism, the next-generation Saddam Husseins, if you will. Just like the U.S. supported Hussein, they're now supporting these tyrants, because the U.S. administration wants to transport oil through their countries.

Of course it's purely a coincidence that the ties to the oil industry from the Bush administration are so close: The United States of Oil. Or you can use Google to find similar stories: Bush administration oil ties

Wouldn't it be simpler, not to support these people to begin with?

Re:One step forward, four steps back

[BoneFlower]

Pakistan was a total shithole with an incredibly corrupt and abusive regime in place before Musharaaf took over. Musharaaf is one of the best things to happen to Pakistan in quite some time.

No spinning necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind folks that this has absolutely nothing to do with September 11.

It has everything to do with September 11. Saddam was a terrorist himself, and we were going to prevent him from doing another September 11.

our government invaded a sovereign nation without international support or a plan for after the initial attacks.

Every bit of that is not not true. The sovereign nation was invaded after it attacked the U.S. and refused to stop. (just like it was legitimate for the U.S. to invade Japan as retaliation during WW2) There was much international support: 50+ nations. There was a lot of planning.

The administration is going to spin this as a wonderful thing for Americans and a sure sign that the administration is tough on terrorists.

Since that is a fact, there is no need for any spin.

This isn't the war on terrorism (as ill-thought as that war is).

It is a great victory in the well-thought-out war on terrorism. There is no way this can be denied.

It's the war on Iraq that was started many years ago by the father and now reengaged by the son.

Technically, it was re-engaged by Saddam Hussein who violated almost every provision of the cease-fire.

Iraqi citizens may rejoice, but there is no reason for us to do the same.

There is reason for just about everyone to rejoice.

Re:No spinning necessary

[sapone]

> It has everything to do with September 11. Saddam was a terrorist himself, and we were going to prevent him from doing another September 11.

Of course he was. He is also the devil in disguise and everything else you tell me without proof.The sovereign nation was invaded after it attacked the U.S. and refused to stop.

> The sovereign nation was invaded after it attacked the U.S. and refused to stop.

Damn, I missed the CNN footage of Iraqi soldiers invading the USA. Maybe it was covered up.
Honestly, I don't know how in what way you think Iraq has attacked the U.S.A.

> It is a great victory in the well-thought-out war on terrorism. There is no way this can be denied.

Actually, I don't see any way how this can be proven. Luckily, the burden of proof lies with you. You have failed to somehow demonstrate a connection between Iraq and terrorism.

Sebastian

Re:No spinning necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, I missed the CNN footage of Iraqi soldiers invading the USA.

Judging from your post, you've missed a lot of things. Education being just one of them.

No Iraqi soldiers were invading the U.S., but there definitely was a connection. You just failed to see it.

Re:No spinning necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam was a terrorist himself, and we were going to prevent him from doing another September 11....The sovereign nation was invaded after it attacked the U.S. and refused to stop.

You're a fucking idiot sheep. People like you are the absolute dream for tyrannies.

Here's a clue, fuckwad -- Saddam was a brutal dictator to his own people, and during the Iraq/Iran war he indeed used a small amount of chemical weapons (we often hear "on his own people", but "his own people" were basically Iranian insurgents). Oh, bad bad Saddam. However Saddam had zero connection with September 11th, had nothing to do with terrorist attacks against the US, but it's absolutely AMAZING how idiot puppydogs such as yourself with parrot this line -- repetition = proof, right?

Of course, who is the world's largest stockpiler of chemical weapons? That would be the US. Who has extensively USED chemical weapons (such as napalm) in contravention of international law? That would be the US. What is one of the world's largest military retailers (stocking up Iraq, Iran, and countless other brutal regimes). Oh, right, that would be the US. What is the nation that time and time again has massive breaches in the security of its nuclear secrets? That would be the US. What nation believes that it is special, and above all international law, and is one of the only nations on the planet to ignore the ICC? That would be the US. What nation tried to assassinate leaders of foreign nations, and once again has sanctioned such activities? That would be the US. Tell us again why the world needs you to show us the one true way, because I'm really confused about who the bad guy is.

There was much international support: 50+ nations. There was a lot of planning.

The "50+ nations" were basically a who's who list of the world's loser nations -- a bunch of sycophant nations trying to earn favours with the US. It's proven exactly true now that the US is doling out bidding to its "Coalition partners" (who overwhelmingly had zero military presence in the "war"), while at the same time asking countries like Russia to forgive billions in loans to Iraq. Fuck that. The US is trying to cash in, while expecting everyone else to suck it.

Re:No spinning necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

What connection? Stop parroting bullshit from Fox news

Forget the politics

[Alex Heagan]

Forget about the political stuff. If you saw the press conference, the reaction of the Iraqi reports was very moving. It doesn't matter what you believe about Bush or America or anything else. To see people genuinely rejoice like those men is an amazing thing. Will this have any effect on the resistance? Who knows? But it is undeniable that this will have a powerful effect on the psyche of the Iraqi people. The Boogeyman is gone. The Iraqi's are now in a position to begin asserting themselves, to further express the amazing pride they have in their people and their country. This is a VERY significant day.

This isn't insightful...

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be true if the "vast majority of domestic Iraqi resistance" are supporters of the Ba'ath party or Saddam Hussein.

In fact, the majority of the resistance is from Sunnis who are both to US colonization and the fundamentalist Islam espoused by the Shiites.

You will not see any dent in the resistance in Iraq, because, frankly, Saddam Hussein was irrelevant to it.

Whoever modded *you* up, sir, was a blind doublethinking patriot.

Re:This isn't insightful...

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, the majority of the resistance is from Sunnis who are both [opposed?] to US colonization and the fundamentalist Islam espoused by the Shiites.

It's the same imported Jihad fundamentalist mercenaries everywhere. Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, ...

An islamic (or rather, what they have been taught is islamic) state and utimately an islamic world is their goal, not something they oppose.

Re:This isn't insightful...

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's the same imported Jihad fundamentalist mercenaries everywhere

Not according to the US Army. It's 90% locals.

Imagine the Democratic Nine!

[Nate B.]

The nine Democrat candidates for president have to be fuming. For them to have even a chance all actions in Iraq need to fail, or at the very least remain a stalemate until late summer 2004. Of course there is no guarantee that things will improve in Iraq. We obviously need to wait a few months to know for sure.

It seems to me that this cannot be spun negatively in any meaningful way prior to the first primary elections without appearing to be totally offbase. This cannot be good news for the Democrat candidates as Saddam's capture will resonate well with the American electorate for some time.

It looks like Howard Dean's longshot just got longer.

Stay tuned.

Re:Imagine the Democratic Nine!

[WildBeast]

How is that? Bush invaded a country under false pretenses, ousted a leader and captured him based on lies. How exactly can that be good?

Re:Imagine the Democratic Nine!

[Nate B.]

Your questions still don't solve the dilema that now exists for the Democratic candidates. Right or wrong, the fear most U.S. citizens have for their own security far outweighs any Consitutional concerns or concern for International law.

That said, it still must be remembered that resolution after resolution was passed by the United Nations from 1991 to 2002 all of which were ignored by Saddam and his regime. Some authorized the use of military force to bring Saddam and Iraq into compliance if necessary.

Are you now saying that those resolutions that spanned three U.S. administrations were all without merit? Are you admitting that the U.N. really has no standing in terms of International law and no priority over any sovereign nation? Would your reaction be the same if these events had taken place four years earlier?

Re:Imagine the Democratic Nine!

[WildBeast]

You have a good point about fear.

Resolution after resolution are ignored by many countries and sure as hell the US ain't doing anything about it. Besides, it's up to the UN to decide wether or not military force is necessary.

Are you telling me that a Bush administration who made it clear from the beginning that they didn't care less about the UN is all of a sudden trying to selectively enforce UN resolutions even without UN's authorisation?

Re:Imagine the Democratic Nine!

[Nate B.]

Of course the U.S. is selectively ignoring U.N resolutions. From what country does the U.N. derive the bulk of it's military enforcement power? Yup, that'd be good ol' Uncle Sam. That the administration is selectively using the U.N. to their own ends is no surprise either. If the U.S. doesn't want to play ball, what's the U.N. going to do about it?

I, for one, would like to see the U.N. neutered and recognized for what it is, an elitist debate society. Perhaps Bush's using of the U.N. is a final step before discarding it all together, but in all likely hood won't be.

All of this still doesn't lessen the rock and a hard place the Democrat candidates find themselves this morning.

Re:Imagine the Democratic Nine!

[WildBeast]

The guy lied his way into invading Iraq because he believes God told him to invade. You don't see anything wrong with that?

The UN can't do shit about it, that's why the superpowers have veto powers. If the superpowers didn't have veto powers in the UN there would be no UN because they'd all leave.

Besides, it's the US who was responsible for creating the UN but Bush doesn't give a damn about his country's achievements nor it's constitution.

I thought the US went there to get the WMD's.

Re:Imagine the Democratic Nine!

[Nate B.]

And the Democrats must still walk a fine line for a reasonable chance of success next November. At least that's how it looks this morning. We all know things can change radically, but with the Dow breaking 10,000 last week, and now Saddam being captured, the news for the Democrats is bleak indeed.

Remember, the same thing that keeps Microsoft a monopoly will get Bush re-elected.

An IRAQI court will try him

[squarooticus]

A court comprising Iraqis in Iraq will try him. Not a US court. Not that abortion of universal jurisdiction, i.e. the ICC. Those who suffered under his rule will mete out proper judgment.

Re:An IRAQI court will try him

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that abortion of universal jurisdiction, i.e. the ICC.

Apparently abortion can be a synonym for "monstrosity." The above is a confusing usage, however -- considering that the poster would probably have us abort any experiment in universal jurisdiction.

I do agree that Iraq should have jurisdiction.

Besides, the US and Iraq (and Iran) are not parties to the Rome statute.

Re:GOOD JOB TO US TROOPS, PRISON TO THE US GOVERNM

[Macgruder]

Oh please.. We'd get more oil from drilling in Alaska than we can from Iraq.

And if we really wanted to take over an oil-rich nation, there's always Venuzuela... Heck of a lot closer, and much weaker.

What the?

[WildBeast]

He can hide his nukes so perfectly yet he can't hide himself? :)

Re:What the?

[StarTux]

WMD's aren't just limited to Nukes :). Seems like many people were expecting a whole hanger full of nuclear weapons, but WMD's are limited to Nuke's, but include chemical and biological weapons, which can be much more easily concealed, in many cases in small glass vials.

Re:What the?

[Rayonic]

I'm sure if he buried himself under 50 feet of sand we'd never find him either.

Let's find out. Scavanger hunt! :-)

First Conspiracy Post

[attonitus]

Turn your foil hat up to ultra-paranoid and you'll understand that it's not actually SH that's been captured. It's a double. The US is lying about the DNA evidence so that they can put a stooge that will say the right things under cross examination on trial.

Meanwhile, the real SH is sitting down to dinner with Bin Laden and GW as they discuss the next steps in world domination...

No invasion == pro Saddam

[tjstork]

You can't say you are against something unless you are willing to do something about it. If you haven't done anything about it, you were by force of action in favor of it.

You cannot be anti-invasion and anti-Saddam, because, by opposing the invasion, Saddam stays in power. So, you could certainly dog on Bush for a lot of things, but, at the end of the day, Bush comes out on top because he was in favor of having one less dictator than you and willing to act on it.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[ahillen]

You can't say you are against something unless you are willing to do something about it.

But with your logic you rule out the possibility that doing something about it might have unforeseable and even worse consequences.

If you are against something and the only thing you could do against it would have even worse consequences, it might be demonstration of your 'against'-ness if you would do it anyway, but you wouldn't suddenly become in favor of it if you would say 'Wait, under these circumstances I will wait until I can come up with something better'.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[malkavian]

I'm sorry, I don't know where you're getting that rather blinkered view that "You cannot be anti-invasion and anti-Saddam"
What happened to the ages old methods of insurgency, funding internal dissention, assassination and a whole host of other, quiet methods.
What happened to actually invading on the correct premise! Hell, what do you think would have happened if the US had said "We're invading Iraq because Saddam is guilty of human rights violations", which is what it's being spun as now, with the lack of discovery of WMD.
Personally, I destest the concept of the acts that Saddam's been performing. Yes, he needed to be held accountable.
There again, there are a goodly many dictators of this style around the world currently. All happily sitting in power.
Do you advocate invading them? Do you understand the consequences of doing this?
Bush was NOT in favour of having one less dictator. He was acting on flawed intelligence (and both he and Blair were warned the intelligence was flawed, but they chose to ignore it and use it as a key document). The whole basis of the war was a forged document. They understood that this was a good possibility, but still went with it on the advice of the gung ho military advisors.
False data leads to invasion of a sovereign nation. Wonderful. Puts great amount of trust in the guys at the top.
And now, the initial fallacy has been carefully swept under the carpet. People are carefully not mentioning WMD, and trying to make out that Saddam was responsible for all the terrorist attacks (incidentally, I'm wondering if that counts the "terrorist attacks" that were committed on US troops that were "defending Iraqis" while in the war, with the Iraqi military forces being branded terrorists.

So, yes, you can say something, even if you're not willing/able to do something about it. After all, there's supposed to be free speech. Or are you saying that should be quashed in the interests of patriotism to a country that's not native to a LOT of slashdot readers?
By your statement that if you've not done something about it, you're in favour of it, I would assume you're also backing North Kora, many African dictators that use exactly the same modus operandi, the spread of aids, disease, poverty and general nastiness. No? Well, what have you done about it? Nothing? Well, please retract your argument.
Bush certainly doesn't come out on top. In fact, he's widely destested outside the US. You read way too much of your internal news. He was not in favour of toppling one more dictator. He was after a political grab, and a high profile.
With a lot of spin, media manipulation, and some sheer luck, it seems he may have made it. The guy's clever, I'll give him that.
But you certainly seem to have fallen, hook, line and sinker for all the propaganda out there.
I really do suggest that you compose arguments which are reasoned (my own may not be entirely correct, but at least I have points I may attempt to defend, or conceed in light of better information), rather than knee jerk "You can't do that! You can't say that!", with no basis in fact, or reason.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[ahillen]

One more example to illustrate my point:

Maybe we agree on the notion that the Chinese government is not really a nice, democratic government by our standards. After all, people are not really allowed to express freely their opinion (at least if their opinion is in contradiction to the opinion of the Party). Many people sit in jails as political prisoners, there are no free elections, and what the Chines are doing in Tibet is also not really nice.

So, under the assumption that you agree with me that the Chinese government is bad, I see from your reasoning that you favor an US invasion into China, right? After all (just to abuse a slightly changed quote from you): You cannot be anti-invasion and anti-Chinese government, by opposing the invasion, the Chinese government stays in power.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[tjstork]

You can whatever you want, but, if you are not willing to back it up, then you are full of s--t. Free speech is only speech, and few dictators will fall because of words against them.

I will NOT retract my statement. By the actions of both the United States and Europe, we are in favor of North Korea, african dictators, disease, famine and pestilence and oppression. We may not "like" what we've chosen, and we may not "like" the sequence of events that has unfolded, but, there is no escaping from the moral consequences of having chosen them.

So yes, I am, for the moment, in favor of African dictators and all the other brutalities that you suggest, and, you are too, and you can take your pseudo humanitarian posturing and shove it up that bottom part attached to your useless excuse for a spine.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[malkavian]

Ok, so it's a case of you're against dictators. Except when you're not.
And you may not like the moral consequences of choosing something illegal, except you choose it in the first place, knowing that.
Note also, that I have never said in my previous statements that I'm not doing anything about my beliefs. Please don't judge me by your choices. And certainly don't make a statement of fact that I am for something just because you are (indicating that you know where I spend my time and money), when, in reality, you don't have a clue.

Personally, I think you misunderstand the power of speech, words and information. Without free speech, you can't educate. Without education, you're at the mercy of those who would tie you up in propaganda and lies.

I do get the impression that you're one of those that doesn't actually listen to a debate, but walks in with all guns blazing, shouting people down and putting fingers in the ears and saying 'la la la' when someone else tries to make a point. Well, in this case anyway.

You're not going to listen to a single point I try to make, and take it on board, and to date, you've actually not tried to make any point at all.
If you have something interesting to say, I'll read. If you just resort to the previous childishness, then, I'll merely take it as the flamebait it is, and studiously ignore it.
Personally, I'd really rather read something you put some real, rational thought into that made me sit back and think on.
An alternate viewpoint is always good to chew over, when it's well thought on and presented. Several times over the years, I've been persuaded on here to alter my perceptions due to well presented and thought out rationales.
Do yourself justice and write one of them, rather than relying on cheap and childish insults and knee jerk reactions. Your posting history says you can do it.. Please do..

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[Stiletto]

It's that "if you're not with us youre against us" Bush-plomacy that polarizes the world and causes these problems to begin with.

The world's issues make up a large-resolution gray-scale image, but people like you are out to convert it to a 16x16 2-color icon.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[Epistax]

I'd like to join everyone else in telling you how extremely wrong you are. Your base argument is that you cannot hold an opinion unless you do something about it.

Ebola is bad. I'm not curing it. If I'm not part of the solution I'm part of the problem. Therefore, I must think Ebola is good.
Thus spake your logic.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you, a fucking three-year old?

When you grow up, you'll learn the world is not all black and white.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[tjstork]

The point that I am trying to make is that when it comes to the lives of people, talk is cheap. Yes, speech is important and necessary, but, at the end of the day, the actions we take have far more impact and gravity than the words we say.

In my mind, I see people that say "I don't like Saddam, Saddam is evil, but", in the same boat as those who say "well, SUVs are bad, we should defend the earth, but, I got a lot of stuff to haul."

It's as if we have a culture that seems to think it is morally right by simply saying the right things, rather than doing them. Like, we white people say that we are not racist because we do not say nigger, but, who among us actively supports local businesses owned by black people? We talk about valuing local culture, but by imported goods en mass from walmart because they appeal to a shlockified view of America. we talk about peace when we practice war and we talk about war when we practice peace.

we are a society that says entirely one thing and does another. I'm not angry at you personally for doing this, I'm angry at all of us, myself included, for living in a world where we talk about how much the power of speech is, when our word means nothing.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[smithmc]

You cannot be anti-invasion and anti-Saddam, because, by opposing the invasion, Saddam stays in power.

These things are not binary in nature. It is possible to be more anti-invasion than anti-Saddam. This still does not mean that one is pro-Saddam.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ebola is bad. I'm not curing it. If I'm not part of the solution I'm part of the problem. Therefore, I must think Ebola is good. Thus spake your logic."

If someone did privide a cure, and you said that person was wrong for doing it, however, Id say that meant you though ebola was good, or at least not worth curing. That's, the hypocracy of the left. They say it would be good if Saddam was gone, but when someone actually does it, they say what they're doing is wrong

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[Anonymous Coward]

"The world's issues make up a large-resolution gray-scale image, but people like you are out to convert it to a 16x16 2-color icon."

So 300,00 people in mass graves is gray area? You can actually stand up and say it's wrong for the US to remove a mass murderer from power. Either shut up and say nothing, or support the US. But don't hold contradictory opinions like, Saddam is bad, but it's illegal to remove him and the US is therefore wrong to do so.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[Stiletto]

The opinion is not contradictory, if your mind is capable of more than Bush's "good or evil" comic-book world view.

If this war was about removing an evil mass-murdering dictator from power, surely the USA must have plans to remove all the evil mass-murdering dictators in the world from power.

Let's start with Indonesia's "president"... Oh wait, the USA put this evil mass-murdering dictator into power in the first place, so I guess he's exempt.

I'm glad Saddam has been removed from power. Many other people (including me) would also be glad if Bush was removed from power as well. Does that make it right to use military force to do it?

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[aled]

Hey what you have against comic books? most of them are far more complex than Bush speechs.

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[tjstork]

IF you aren't part of the solution, then you either don't give a shit, or are a part of the problem.

What I'm saying is that opinions without action are worthless? Why is it so hard to come down off your tree of piety and admit that you don't give a shit about something? But oh no, you have to at least "SAY" something, to be counted among the politically correct.

Until you admit that you don't give a shit about ebola, then you are a moral fraud. :-)

Re:No invasion == pro Saddam

[TPFH]

You cannot be anti-invasion and anti-Saddam

Description of False Dilemma

# Either 1+1=4 or 1+1=12.
# It is not the case that 1+1=4.
# Therefore 1+1=12.

You are either with George W. Bush, or you are with the terrorists.
(Many of whom were directly supported by multiple members of GWB's administration durring the 1980s)

Sorry, I'm not with GWB or the terrorists. They are all assholes.

Bush comes out on top because he was in favor of having one less dictator than you and willing to act on it.

Funny how his father was unwilling to act on it back in 1991. The infrastructure of Iraq was already destroyed. Saddam's troops were not loyal to him. You would almost think that politicians supported dictators who rule with an Iron Fist.

Not to mention, Saddam was a bad guy long before he invaded Kuwait. The radical-left and others were against Saddam long before he offically became the enemy of the United States. Just listen to the song VX Gas Attack by Skinny Puppy, released in 1988.

Zero Wing

[Luigi30]

In 2003A.D. war was beginning.
Saddam: What happen?
Osama: Someone set up us the nuke!
Osama: We get signal.
Saddam: What?
Osama: Radio turn on.
Bush: How are you, Gentlemen!?
Bush: All your terrorist are belong to us!
Bush: You are on the way to destruction!
Saddam: What you say?
Bush: You have no chance to survive make your time!

It had to be done...

To all the people...

[JFMulder]

... who said that US went to Iraq for the WMD : oops, there are none.
Who then said he had links to Al Quadea : Oops, there are none.
Who then said he was a very bad man : Yeah, you're right, he was bad, but that's not why you went there.

And if you don't believe me, ask Bush when he is going to invade other countries with dictators or very evil government? Countries like Egypt who is considered an US ally?

This war was NEVER about the iraki people. Saddam was a truly evil man, but don't believe for a second Bush went in Irak for the people, it was just an afterthought.

You invoked Godwin first

[Anonymous Coward]

You were the one who invoked Godwin actually, by quoting Hitler with antisemitic statements.

I never mentioned "God". However, the statement "there is no God" is just a statement of your religious faith. So you are bringing your own religion into this.

To be against the crimes of the Israeli government is to be against humanity

Probably, since there are no crimes. If you hate people for crimes they did not commit....

Zionism is terrorism, no matter how you cut it.

There you go, quoting nazis again.

Then again, you are probably some random USian wonk who believes what he is told by big media.

No, I look past what the left-wing media tells me.

Maybe one day you'll see the lie

And then I will put on a black shirt and march along with you? No thanks. I am not brain-damaged, and am thus not given to such racist hatred.

China Next!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush should up the ante a bit. I mean, two-bit alli... I mean, dictators are ALL the US takes out. But only when they no longer serve US interests. So, lets hope Bush's re-election campaign is to Liberate the US Corps from the dictatorship of China and bring those jobs back home!

Re:China Next!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great idea! Let me just move a bit further away from the blast radius of those nukes though, ok?

Under gentoo

[pagaman]

root@iraq# emerge unmerge saddam-hussien
root@iraq# emerge democracy
Calculating dependencies
!!! all ebuilds that could satisfy "democracy" have been masked.

!!! Error calculating dependencies. Too unstable. Please correct.
root@iraq# emerge friendly-dictator
Calculating dependencies
!!! all ebuilds that could satisfy "friendly-dictator" have been masked.

!!! Error calculating dependencies. Could knife us in the back. Please correct.

root@iraq# emerge friendly-dictator-council
Calculating dependencies ...done!
>>> emerge (1 of 10) app-admin/friendly-dictator1 to /iraq

Re:Under gentoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow - this is undoubtedly the nerdiest thing I've ever read on Slashdot... Think about that for a moment. Mind boggling, isn't it?

You lot make America look stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod parent and grandparent -1, Idiotic. And you people thought the arabs were uncivilised!

Actually this will probably increase attacks

[Anonymous Coward]

Now the Iraqi's know Saddam can't come back so it will probably encourage more fighters to defeat the Americans.

Especially if the Shiite's think they are going to be locked out of power by some phoney democracy.

This could just be the beginning...

OFFTOPIC, TROLL

[gustgr]

this post is TOTALLY offtopic and it should not being published at all. I tought the site said 'News for Nerds' ... if this is a news for nerds we should adopt CNN as our nerd news resource instead of /.

Saddam not captured by U.S. but by kurds ?

[dnaumov]

There are rumors flying around the net that are basically saying that the kurds found and captured Saddam and then gave him up to the U.S. authorities and that the U.S. have taken all the credit for founding capturing Saddam (read CNN and others). These are of course, just rumors, but who really knows ? It would no doubt be shameful for the U.S. forces to admit that it wasn't actually them who did it.

Re:Saddam not captured by U.S. but by kurds ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? It'd be fantastic if the Kurds had caught Saddam. It'd be Iraqis "freeing" themselves. The political value of that would way overwhelm any downsides for the US. Heck, Blair was trying to spin things that way in his speech today anyway.

Re:Saddam not captured by U.S. but by kurds ?

[ragnar]

My intuition says that the Kurds would have killed him, after all the trouble they have endured. A more likely scenario in my opinion is that he was captured at least a month ago, but has been interrogated and tortured moderately to extract any intelligence while it is fresh. I read an interesting article in The Atlantic two months ago about how it is fairly common to detain the big catches (like Sheik Khalid Mohhamed) to obtain intelligence.

Shut him up quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet we'll never hear a word out of his mouth about WMD, or anything else; lest he outline anyone's complicity. He'll be dead as soon as possible, under the ruse of 'local justice'.

is he the real Saddam?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bush administration has staged quite a few acts in this war. The Iraqis welcoming the American troops, the fall of Saddam's statue, G.W. himself "serving" the troops on thanksgiving. Keeping in mind that Saddam has a bunch of impersonators, what makes us think that the Saddam presented to us is the real one? Even a phony Saddam will do fine for Mr Bush to re-elect.

Convince the UN to chastise China...

[Shivetya]

Its not possible.

Outside of a few General Assembly declarations, which have no meaning, you aren't going to here one word against China. Just like no one cries about Chechyna (Sp).

Face it, there are always groups too big for anyone to do anything about. That doesn't mean that the small fry who cause problems should be ignored.

China will probably flip in about 20 years anyway they government control is lost to a combination of religion (Christian) and capitalism take hold.

Re:Convince the UN to chastise China...

[Anonymous Coward]

CHRISTIAN? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... ha!

Re:Convince the UN to chastise China...

[Anonymous Coward]

>CHRISTIAN? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... ha!
call back in twenty years

Re:Convince the UN to chastise China...

[Anonymous Coward]

What *is* it with this Christian obsession for taking over the world?!

Re:Convince the UN to chastise China...

[Der Krazy Kraut]

Why the hell should anyone convert to Christianity? It's one of the most idiotic religions in existence.

Re:Convince the UN to chastise China...

[loucura!]

Why the hell should anyone convert to Christianity?
Because the (Chinese)government doesn't want you to?

Re:Convince the UN to chastise China...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're implying the people would convert just to piss the government off?

Re:Convince the UN to chastise China...

[loucura!]

I'm implying that prohibition of an action makes that action attractive to people it wouldn't ordinarily attract.

Re:Convince the UN to chastise China...

[Anonymous Coward]

What *is* it with this Islamic obsession for taking over the world?!

Re:Convince the UN to chastise China...

[Anonymous Coward]

Christian, Muslim, Jew are all facets of the same religion. To an insider of one of these branches, I'm sure the difference appears huge. To an outsider, however, the differences do not appear so great.

The strife is caused by a focus on differences rather than similarities. Each branch claims to posess the one true faith, worshipping the one true deity. Each tries to increase their influence in the world by converting nonbelievers and disallowing inter-faith marriages. The world will be a better place when religious empire-building ceaces.

Re:Convince the UN to chastise China...

[p2sam]

it's built-in to the religion:

The set of all people are sinners, hence it is a Christian's duty to save them.

Some may say it's a viral religion.

Re:BUSH IS A CRIMINAL, YOU FUCKING IDIOT

[u-238]

lemme guess, you're a UK anti war dittohead "The Stop the War Coalition"-wanking moron. Using Coulter as an example to devouch conservative ideas is like using a face-painted sigh waivering street protester to devouch the liberal sit-back-and-let-the-world-bomb-us morons.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember what Cicero said: oderint dum metuant ("let them hate, so long as they fear.")

[Looks at your picture on website]

Fuck. Right now, I'm laughing at your pasty, skinny personage. Who exactly, are you personally going to make "fear' with your unparalleled weenie-ness?

I'm going to be laughing about this all day ... Jesus Fucking H. Christ, it's hilarious how "the internet" has this effect on people who wouldn't dare to speak even slightly impolitely to real people, for fear of having their god-damned head put through the wall.

Enough already

[Sycraft-fu]

Quit with the silly comments about Saddam not being linked to Al-Queda, or Bin Laden not being caught or WMDs and what have you. It is stupid. Don't pretend like you are The Great Enlightened One and the only person that can see the truth and the rest are mindless sheep.

Slashdot is a fairly sophisticated and educated crowd. Yes, we know that Bin Laden hasn't been located. Yes, we know Saddam isn't the head of Al-Queda. Yes, we know they haven't found WMDs in Iraq. None of that has ANYTHING to do with Saddam's capture and it is insulting that you think we need to be told.

That Saddam is captured is a good thing. Even if you hate Bush, think the war was wrong, unjustified and so on you cannot honestly say that the world is not a better place without him being a free man. Will this magically fix all the problems in Iraq? Of course not, doesn't mean it's still not important.

This is important if for no other reason than that we have a concept of justice, that people should pay for their crimes. Saddam now can be made to do that. He can be tried for what he's done. More important than any punishment itself is the process, society enforcing order and justice.

So knock it off with the stupid comments. We already know, and it's insulting and makes you look childish.

Re:Enough already

[nyseal]

Seriously, you sound like the 'Enlightened One' and I fully agree. God Bless.

Re:Enough already

[JFMulder]

You're 100% right. What people don't like though is that people use this as an excuse to justify the war in Irak. Yes, it's a perfectly 100% good reason to go to war with Irak, these people deserved to be freed, and I'm glad they were, but don't think for a second that the US did this ONLY for the good of Irak's people.

I'm really happy for these people, but at the same time it's a shame that they weren't freed because they we're badly treated. Oil was always their #1 target. Freeing the people, WMD and false links to Al-Quada were only excuses to go there.

That's what sickens people. And we have every right to be. This isn't childish at all.

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay american cheerboy.... so when will Roosevelt and Truman be tried for the genocide they committed against innocent German and Japanese civilians? Or Nixon for genocide in the Vietnam war?

What you talk about is not a "concept of justice", it's a concept of "the US being selt-righteous"

Re:Enough already

[althalus1969]

Aah, yes, in a way i think your even right...
but,
do you really think, Saddam is going to have a fair trial?
If they don't send him to DenHaag, we will never know, why he and half of the leaders of the western world were buddies about 15-20 years ago.
Also, he will surly explain, where all that money he had came from, where the WMDs went, or why the U.S. allowed the invasion of Kuwait. Nono, there's not going to be a trial, at least not a fair and open one.
And, btw... What are the Invasion Troops gonna say about the continuing attacks? Rumours about loyal Saddam troops are nice, but as time drags on, it'll get stale.
And with the stupid comments...well they aren't that stupid, because there are still people out there who "don't get it". So we will repeat everything over and over again.

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is a fairly sophisticated and educated crowd

One could challenge that by merely pointing at the discussions here...

Re:Enough already

[pointzero]

Thank you! I was gonna say it but you bet me too it! Capturing Saddam IS a good thing amongst all the bad things in this world. At least some of us (you) can see this.

The only thing necessary for the thriumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop trying to justify the means with the end. The conflict was fought for different reasons than what you just brought up. You say that people should forget the reasons (WMDs that have never been found, Al-Q. link that does not exist) and just concentrate on the capture of Hussein. I agree that it is a good thing in general, but lying to the public and changing the story in the end is just that. A lie.

Re:Enough already

[mattgreen]

Slashdot is a fairly sophisticated and educated crowd.

At this point it was hard not to mark him +1 funny.

Re:Enough already

[Scrameustache]

Quit with the silly comments about Saddam not being linked to Al-Queda, or Bin Laden not being caught or WMDs and what have you. It is stupid. Don't pretend like you are The Great Enlightened One and the only person that can see the truth and the rest are mindless sheep.


I will keep replying to the mindless sheep who are happy that the Great Bush has "accomplished his goal" and "protected America" and "won a victory in the war against terror" by having his troops capture Saddam.

Because none of it is true, and they DON'T allready know, and they need to be reminded.
And if you think that the truth is stupid and childish, then I pity you.

Re:Enough already

[Heisenbug]

From another comment attached to this story:

"Like him or not, Bush is the man right now. He accomplished his goal, and a grand victory is always embraced by a leader's people."

I'm not trying to insult your intelligence :), but just to spell it out -- this news means it is now easy to say that Bush has accomplished his goal, and that this is a great victory. It is, against a dictator who abused his people. It's not at all, in terms of the War on Terror or destruction of chemical and biological weapons. Since the invasion was justified via the second, not the first, means, I feel that the quoted statement above is incorrect -- and it's important to remember why.

In the coming months, this event we're discussing right now will be used to support the statement "we won." It will play a key role in who my next president is, and wherever you live, you now know that president can reach out and touch you. I think it's damn important to be reminded that when they say "we won," they mean "we combined lies, half-truths, and incompetence to justify a course that failed to accomplish our stated goals, and is considered by many to be both illegal and immoral. We did, however, destroy a dictator who had been successfully confined within his country for over a decade."

Can you see why these reminders seem both relevant and important to some of us?

Re:Enough already

[gerardrj]

...This is important if for no other reason than that we have a concept of justice, that people should pay for their crimes...
Please explain our concept of justice to the hundreds being held in Camp X-ray without being charged or tried with any crime. They have not broken any US Laws and were not captured in a war zone. (remember Congress NEVER issued a declaration of war that would make our troop actions in the Middle East legal).

Please explain our concept of justice to the thousands of Iraqi and Afgan civilians that we've bombed to death without any warning and without any legal cause.

Please explain our concept of justice that allows a sitting President to make known false statements in sworn testimony to Congress and not be impeached and tried for it.

People should pay for their crimes, and we should start with Bush for just purgery, violation of the Constitution and his oath to uphold it, and for his terrorist acts and tactics in foreign lands.

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

Good conquers evil and all you idiots can do is boo the victors. You should have been aborted; the world does not need idiots like you. You have no concept of right and wrong. Spare us from your ignorant, childish blitherings.

Re:Enough already

[Lobo93]

So knock it off with the stupid comments. We already know, and it's insulting and makes you look childish.

Translation:

SUBMIT!

Re:Enough already

[squarooticus]

so when will Roosevelt and Truman be tried for the genocide they committed against innocent German and Japanese civilians? Or Nixon for genocide in the Vietnam war?

Thank you for demonstrating so clearly why the US will never be a party to the ICC.

Re:Enough already

[vDave420]

Even if you hate Bush, think the war was wrong, unjustified and so on you cannot honestly say that the world is not a better place without him being a free man. Will this magically fix all the problems in Iraq? Of course not, doesn't mean it's still not important.

You are arguing VERY clearly that the ends justify the means, and I call BullShit!

I believe that the 68m+ US$$ spent to make "the world a better place" "without [Sadaam] being a free man" is a horrible appropriation of US taxpayer dollars (including my own).

Let's consider...
1) Billions spent in Iraq to accomplish... this? Don't give me the "liberation of Iraq" crap because that is ex-post-facto argument used to "re-direct" attention away from Bush co. lies about WMD.
2) The US now the laughingstock of the world, and thought of as the largest threat to world peace, and rightly so. To argue this would be laughable!

I could make more reasons for hours...

Just keep repeating to yourself:
How many hungry people could $68,000,000,000.00 US feed?
How many sick people could be treated?
How many children could be sent to better schools? How could the schooling conditions be improved?

Looking at the big picture, i assert firmly that you are COMPLETELY WRONG.

The world was MUCH better off when Sadaam was free, US soldiers were here, civil liberties were guaranteed for(and wanted by) Americans, and we had that $68 Billion back.

-dave-

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

the ICC is not retro-active. There is no way Roosevelt, Truman or Nixon could be tried.

If the current (or future) adminstrations commited acts against humanity (i.e. innocent civilians, not military forces) they could be held accountable.

Re:Enough already

[senor_burt]

I'm happy Saddam is captured, and I hope he will be brought to (international) justice.

But the capture of Saddam had nothing to do with the ever-changing alleged reasons for this war - causing the deaths of thousands, and suffering of millions.

Frankly, I'm more interested in seeing the Bush administration tried for their crimes... for instance, lying to congress to start this war (an impeachable offense), obstruction of justice in the findings on 9/11, and the release of the name of a covert CIA agent married to Ambassador Wilson in childish retaliation to his divulging the truth about the Niger yellow cake (which is treasonous).

Not to mention the shady dealings with the Energy commissions and undermining of the US socio-economic structure...

And of course, there's also the attempt to undermine democracy.

And of course, there's Guantanamo - which certainly qualifies as flagrant human rights violations.

Re:Enough already

[squarooticus]

: the ICC is not retro-active. There is no way Roosevelt, Truman or
: Nixon could be tried.

Straw man.

The firebombing of Tokyo, the A-bombing of Japan, and the war in Vietnam (however Johnson botched the execution of the last one) were all just decisions arrived at by consensual, representative governments. Yet, if the same decisions were made today for the same reasons, those people could be put on trial in the ICC (notwithstanding an American invasion of the Netherlands to liberate them). Hence, why the US will not subjugate to international waffling its freedom to act when necessary.

Re:Enough already

[man2525]

I went to Iraq for some WMDs, and all I got was this lousy despot!

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd argue with you, but what's the point? I'll just leave you with a 'you're a moron', and let that be it.

Re:Enough already

[Zonekeeper]

Exactly... people who think that Roosevelt and Trumann are guilty of crimes, and that the Enola Gay shouldn't be displayed without showing the horrible effects it had on the people it bombed seem well intentioned at first glance, however, don't ask them about ALSO showing the Bataan death march, the rape of Nanking, video and other proof of Iraqis being slaughtered by Saddam, etc. They don't want to do that. As far as they are concerned, if it makes the U.S. look bad, it's good. If it makes U.S. look good or anyone else look bad, it's bad. End of story.

Re:Enough already

[Myopic]

the world may be a better place without an evil dictator like Saddam in power, but the world is not a better place with an accepted policy that a country with better weapons can impose arbitrary will on another country it doesn't like.

it's tit for tat: everyone is glad Saddam is gone, but a lot of us aren't thrilled with the precident, and we think the world is in fact not a better world for it.

Re:Enough already

[iamatlas]

But it is kind of funny.

Re:Enough already

[randyest]

No, it wasn't about oil, nor can you back up your silly claim.

It's about this.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Re:Enough already

[Rotten168]

Slashdot is a fairly sophisticated and educated crowd.

You *must* be joking.

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is a fairly sophisticated and educated crowd.

O.K. I'll let out some slack. I just wish more people would consider that there are many threads in this causal link. Bin Ladin's "Al Qaeda" drew energy from the festering dissent caused by U.S. forces on holy Arab ground. And the primary reason U.S. forces were stationed there was to prevent Saddam's expansionist tendencies from overtaking Kuwait, Iran or another Arab neighbor. Those who pay attention to world events would know that much of the U.S. forces in Saudia Arabia pulled out shortly after Saddam's regime was overthrown.
Whether or not the coward Saddam was caught physically in bed with the coward Bin Ladin, he fed the very forces which caused Bin Ladin to rise to power. Saddam encouraged and funded anti-semetic terrorists in Israel, leading to an Israeli hardliner coming into power. He prevented people in Iraq and the entire region from living a peaceful and prosperous life and directed the anger created by such poverty against the U.S. He fed into conspiracy theories that persist in some marxist media circles in Europe and the mid east that everything the U.S. does is about oil. The region will be more stable, prosperous, peaceful and holy without Saddam Hussein pretending to be God. Let him have a fair and open trial, and let him rot for 10000 years with daily reminders of the horror he caused to the world.

Re:Enough already

[placeclicker]

Not nessicarily, he's just non-petty.

Re:Enough already

[shaunyb]

i believed it was about oil until i read more Chomsky. he has convinced me that oil is but another bonus. it's really just about power.

however, there is the fact that the war on Iraq began 2 weeks ahead of schedule because they saw an opportunity to secure the oil fields.

in addition, the first time the bush administration talked about attacking Iraq was September 13, 2001, 2 days after 9/11 (read Bob Woodward's Bush at War, 2002, Simon & Schuster); so obviously it's not like they found evidence of ties between the al Qaeda and Saddam and then decided to attack. they were already going to.

and, to comment on your second link, the article talks about the the Iraqi terrorist training camp Salman Pak. this is quite possibly the most hypocritical justification for war the US has ever used. the US has a terrorist training camp in Fort Benning, Georgia called the "School of the Americas", aka the "School of the Assassins." it's graduates have gone on to commit massacres, terrorism, assassination, torture, rape, and kidnapping, mainly in Latin America, targeting educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, etc. the SOA was originally in Panama until 1984, when it was kicked out for being "the biggest base for destabilization in Latin America."

now, if you still believe that the US intends to eradicate terrorism, then could you explain why it maintains relationships with the most brutal terrorist states on earth? (examples are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Haiti, Guatemala, Colombia, etc).

and could you explain why it not only supports terrorism but commits it? the US is the only country ever to be condemned by the World Court for international terrorism. this occurred in the 1980's, when the US attacked Nicaragua. the World Court ordered the US to cease their attack and to pay substantial reparations for the damage it had done, which included a civilian death count in the tens of thousands. the US refused and the attacks escalated. immediately following this, the UN Security Council proposed a resolution calling for all States to adhere to international law. the US, alone, veoted the resolution. then, the UN General Assembly (which includes about 200 countries) passed the same resolution, with only the US and Israel voting "no".

shall i continue?

Re:Enough already

[extrasolar]

"Slashdot is a fairly sophisticated and educated crowd."

ROTFLMAO

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

The application of military force in Iraq is perfectly legal under U.S. law. Ever hear of a little document called the War Powers Resolution? Didn't think so.

Congress doesn't have to declare war. Bush just needs to explain himself about every fourty days and Congress has to approve. If Congress doesn't approve, they can pull the military out of there as soon as they wish to. Learn U.S. law before speaking about it. Until you do, you are merely spouting off uninformed nonsense.

As for Camp X-Ray, they are not under federal juristiction. It is a military juristiction under military law. Learn about juristictions before talking more about it. Until you do, you are merely spouting off uninformed nonsense.

As for the bombing, civilians were not specifically targeted. But, there will always be collateral damage. It's a fact of war. Get over it. And as for legal basis? The president and Congress can use military power for any reason they see fit as long as it doesn't infringe on a citizen's constitutional right on land under the juristiction of the constitution. There is no written critera to provide a legal basis for military action. So, according to you, all military action is illegal. Yeah right. Again, learn what you are talking about. Otherwise, you are merely spouting off uninformed nonsense.

Bush making statements he knows are false before Congress? Name one. You'll be looking for a long time. All the lies he has told up there have not been delibrate, but as a result of inaccurate intellegence.

Now you are calling Bush a terrorist? Lay off the weed, crack, and whatever else you are doing. He never violated the constitution. Name one violation and cite what he violated. I dare you.

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. Anything that opposes Bush is childish. After all, didn't you know he was chosen by God, not the people of the United States, to be president? He MUST be a good man!

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was at Camp X-Ray... I would tell those fuckers "Ha ha sucks to be you, you fundamentalist dirtbags". Frankly the biggest travesty is that John Walker Lindh is not in there with them.

Detaining foreign citizens is a standard practice in war. German citizens in British territories were detained, and vice versa. Things just get weird because we are not fighting a true nation.

As for civilians dying in war, to quote Charles De Gaulle, "C'est la guerre". Do you know how many French civilians were killed by US and British bombs in WWII?

The thing I hate about revisionist Chomskyist nonsense is that historical facts take a convenient second place to political concerns, and the realities of WWII and the rest of the past are ignored when they do not support this type of argument.

And I hate GW Bush too and vote Democrat. I'm just embarassed by the far left.

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing that the USA ever really did wrong was fight in WW2. We should've just waited until all of Europe was dead, then made it a state and moved all of our criminals there.

Re:Enough already

[cpeterso]

Don't forget that Iraq was threatening to start selling its oil only for euros instead of dollars. That would have been a nice coup for the EU and bad news for the US dollar.

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

Not even nearly enough. I hate the american guvmn't for what it has done, I would rather see Saddam killing innocent civilians than see americans occupying Iraq. Is that clear? 9/11, who gives a fuck? ( and I knew someone who died there ) millions of Iraqi kids died due to the US sanctions. Bin Laden was created by the US politicians, which means he was created by the electoriat of the United States. I hate the people who created him. Is this clear?

Re:Enough already

[Shadowlore]

Without passing a moral judgement on this ... if the president of the US (pick one) said "we need to go over and start eliminating these ruthless dictators" they wouldn't stand for it.

All of the "it is about oil and nothing else" pleas have less evidence behind them than the evidence that Iraq was pursuing nuclear, biological, and/or chemical weapons.

Doesn't stop them from being proclaimed, does it?

Re:Enough already

[JFMulder]

The only so-called proof about nuclear weapons were shipments of aluminium tubes which were bought from Africa. It was discovered later that the aluminium wasn't pure enough to be used in a nuclear weapon (I don't know who al uminium is used in nuclear weapon so sorry if this seems a bit clunky), and was destined for ground-air artillery.

As for the biological weapons, how do you think the US knows he had some at one point. Because countries like the US, France and Britain (the obvious three) SOLD them to him. Now there were supposedly destroyed years ago. Or to other countries. (Terrorists, well see about that in the coming weeks I guess)

As for the oil, COME ON!!! Bush and his friends all have huge interrests in oil companies. They need that oil to flow to the US. Bush even said recently that they'd pay themselves back with the oil from Iraq. Now can this oil pay for billions of dollars invested in this war. Maybe not, I honestly don't have a clue. But oil is at the base of our economy. Without oil, cars don't work, people can get to their job, plastics are made with some derivative of oil I think. It's VERY important to people with money that oil keeps coming out of Iraq.

Never believe that any governement, be they American, Canadian, French, Chinese, whatever, is going to spend 500 billions just for good will and peace. There's ALWAYS an ulterior motive.

Re:Enough already

[Scudsucker]

It's about this.

If there was a shread of truth to that, why isn't the Bush team screaming it from the rooftops, eh?

No, it wasn't about oil, nor can you back up your silly claim.

The practice of awarding reconstruction contracts only to companies with strong ties to the administration would imply otherwise.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Uh huh. We'll only be able to tell in the long run, but its quite possible that both we and the Iraqis would be better of if Saddam was left in power. Its possible that the people could rebel and set up a hardcore theocracy, a la Iran in the 80's. There is precedent - the United States helped create Al Queda by training guys like Osama to fight the puppet communist government installed by the Soviet Union. There's two problems with that: 1) we helped train future terrorists and 2) the people of Afganistan would have been a *hell* of a lot better off under a communist government than under the Taliban.

Re:BUSH IS A CRIMINAL, YOU FUCKING IDIOT

[ryzynforce]

I find it interesting that you say that. Though you might not agree with the politics of the current administration, I do think that you should be a bit understanding that you even have the ability to say that without fear of any retaliation. You do not have to look over your shoulder when you express your opinions. In my opinion I am happy with the fact that you have the right and freedom to formulate your opinions and post them. I would like to see what your behavior would be like if after you posted your barely intelligible comment you find yourself being moved to another location on the run from the authorities coming to end your life for posting "anti-government/regime" comments. I understand that you do not agree, but I would think that you could find better ways to say what you had to sa without the use of "You fucking dittohead Coulter-wanking moron" or "BUSH IS A CRIMINAL, YOU FUCKING IDIOT" -- Those comments are usually made by someone who has a limited intelligence and an even more limited vocabulary. All that however, is just my opinion.

What will happen to South park?

[gunix]

Does this mean that Saddam will have more time to be in South Park, now that he does not have to hide any more?

I hope he get the same lawyers that O.J Simpson had, so he can get away with murder and still be able to be in South park. I still think that Satan is prepared to take him back and I'm waiting for that episode.

Since you personally did not attack Sadam

[Anonymous Coward]

you must be pro-Sadam. I never saw on the news, some lone computer nerd walking up to all the terrorists and attacking them with your fould body odor and bad posture. So by your argument you are pro-Sadam, pro-kitten killing, pro-child porn. Since you have dont nothing to stop them personally.

Why must Republicans always be so dumb and sheep like.

Re:Since you personally did not attack Sadam

[Anonymous Coward]

I really lol'ed. Perfect argumentation :)

YOU FAIL IT, GODWIN WISHER

[Anonymous Coward]

I never mentioned Hitler nor Nazi-ism, you felt the need to mindlessly associate my words with your Godwin-fishing. The "media" isn't "left-wing" despite what your info-whores tell you. I don't support Nazi-ism in the slightest, yet you feel the need to associate me with it. Guess what: You still fail. Fuck Hitler, fuck Israel, fuck ANYONE who thinks that one's destiny has something to do with heritage or bloodline. You are so ignorant, and I can only hope that some of you imperialist fucks will truly see that.

Re:YOU FAIL IT, GODWIN WISHER

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of backing up your opinions with facts, you just attack the person you are debating with? I'm sure a whole lot of people with side you with...

Re:YOU FAIL IT, GODWIN WISHER

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm simply stating a point: To be critical of Israel, to some, is to be pro-Nazi. I'm not a Nazi, nor do I support Israel's genocide. It's not a complicated issue, just some people's views seem to get in the way of facts.

Re:YOU FAIL IT, GODWIN WISHER

[Anonymous Coward]

now, are you talking about yourself?

Re:YOU FAIL IT, GODWIN WISHER

[Anonymous Coward]

Clarify, dickhead. I post some, while inflamatory, remarks about Israel, people instantly retort with GODWIN. Typical response given today's atmosphere. I'm simply pointing out one side's idiocy by using another side's idiocy.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

recognition of strength != respect

Wooohooo ya this is great

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can support all Iraqi liberation fighters without some stupid American fascist saying that I "love Saddam".

Now the average Iraqi can pick up a RPG or an AK and kill imperialists without fear of Saddam ever coming back.

This is a great day for the anti-imperialist resistance!

Now only....

[mick29]

....they have to find his weapons of mass decep^H^H^Hstruction.

Oh yeah, well we winter coat problemse up here!

[PhotoGuy]

The front page of Canada.com showed an interesting contrast this morning. The top international story (with no picture):

Saddam Hussein captured alive
U.S. troops captured Saddam Hussein in a raid near the ousted Iraqi leader's hometown of Tikrit, the head of the U.S. administration in Iraq said Sunday. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we got him,' Paul Bremer told a news conference.

Followed by the lead National story, with picture!

Minister flaunts sealskin coat
OTTAWA - Natural Resources Minister John Efford attended his first cabinet meeting Saturday wearing a sealskin coat and was promptly clubbed down by animal rights activists.

I really like living in Canada.

Re:Oh yeah, well we winter coat problemse up here!

[PhotoGuy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I botched the spelling of the subject line, undoubtedly leading to a barrage of "we have proof reading problems up here." Bring it on, you predictable buggers.

Besides, it's early, and my fingers are cold because my whale oil lamp hasn't heated up the Igloo yet. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Don't any of these people know how to use a mic?

[spoot]

What I want to know is don't any of hte Iraq council members know how to use a mic. Every 10 seconds they are tapping on the freekin mics and mumbling in Arabic "is this on?" Are these the smartest people we could find to govern their country? Somebody needs to give them a media 101 course. (tap tap tap)

-1 Offtopic

[Luigi30]

Let's mod the topic -1 offtopic. How ironic if I get an offtopic.

I have a question...

[Anonymous Coward]

News for Nerds. Stuff that matters?

USA! Rulez! Euro-weeies suck terror -dick

[Anonymous Coward]

As do Deanie Babies here in the good 'ol USA.
Why are so many /. moderators Communist?

Strength and respect are not the same.

[aepervius]

Remmember Hitler & germany in 1937-1940 ? they had plenty of Strength. I am pretty sure nobody repected them really. but feared yes. Remmember Staline and the purge ? He had plenty of strength too. Are you respecting him ? Do you think the russian people at large are/were respecting him ?


Ther word you search for strength is NOT repsect. Respect comes from admiting the weak point and strong point of the other and admiting for a certain admiration of those point.

US is not respected. US 15 years ago might be. But thanks to a certain ... External politic and some pinch of bullying now the US is not respected. It is FEARED for its strength. See the two example above.

Fear and respect are quite not the same things, even if both lead you where you want to go. But remmember this : nothing is eternal. You recolt what you seed. If you think what is seeding right now the US is good, well good to you. I personally fear my kids will have to live "interresting years".

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pinko Euro-commies like you make me sick.

The USA is not feared as much as it is envied. Even after serious economic problems, it still has the strength to fight and win the largest kind of war the world is likely to see in decades (or ever). Even when there is a large minority inside the US (and, for some unimaginable reason, an apparent majority outside the US) who support repressive terrorist sponsoring regimes, the US is not afraid to lead in action to remove those regimes and build a real nation in its place.

Europe, on the other hand, is finding that the welfare state experiment is failing horribly: more and more, they are realizing that the true engine of their growth over the past half century has been those envied Americans, and that without the USA growing strongly, their economies do not work. That helps to turn the envy bitter, to make people yell "imperialism" or "fascism" even with scant backing. Yelling at the US makes them feel better, too, so they do not have to look in the mirror and yell "coward."

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yelling at the US makes them feel better, too, so they do not have to look in the mirror and yell "coward."

Wheras your own yelling is purely because you are so certain of yourself, right?

Riiiight.

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[Bytal]

When Stalin died those hundreds of thousands of people on the streets weren't there by force, the country was so brainwashed that people cried truthfully. You can still find WW2 veterans who see him as a God, even after seeing their own friends and family killed or iomprisoned for life. If you want a nice English explanation of the real horror of the Soviet regime, read the last part of "1984" where the difference between the Inquisition, the fascists and communists is explained.

And with regard to America it is not about respect now, it's about other countries not having the same clout and failing even after starting a huge public relations battle against the US. It's interesting to note that the countries leading the anti-American/anti-Bush crusade are the ones who are most threatened by a strong US presence in various parts of the world. France isn't exactly falling over itself to go against America because of high moral values, rather it has to appear nice to it's large muslim population as well as making sure that it's not completely powerless in the new century.
As for Russia well I think anyone can see the huge insult that ignoring the wishes of an ex-world power would be to them. Not to mention that the presence of large amounts of American troops in areas which they historically had a lot of influence in and which they had always supported and strategically valued is just something they have to control if they wish to keep any kind of status or power in the region.

There are very few countries opposing Bush for humanitarian reason, though they'd like the world to think so. They want to do the same exact thing America does, to have the military power to push their own interests and the economic power to control all the emerging countries. I mean everyone calls the US imperialistic and bent of waging illegal wars yet no one remembers French atrocities against Algerians who wanted their freedom. Or what exactly the French Foreign legion does in Africa or what the Russians do in Chechnya. In the end every government only thinks strategically, and anyone who thinks otherwise is either naive or a fool. While president's might spout great humanistic speaches or make up excuses about WMDs it's all about strategy. For the US is ideal strategy to be able to have a controlling circle of countries around Iran and to make sure potential terrorist bases are taken out where possible. It's strategically important to have a successfull non-Jewish democratic state in the region to act as an example, and it's strategically important to have army bases that are in well controlled countries instead of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The other countries want the same things but don't have the clout, either military or financial to achieve them and that's why they are so against American dominance in the most energetically important region in the world. If I were Putin I'd be pissing in my pants about Bush or a Free Iraq throwing cheap Iraqi oil on the market, in one fell swoop killing the nascent Russian economy. If I were Chirac I'd be deathly afraid of my huge Arab population making trouble or of loosing hundreds of lucrative deals with embargoed governments in that region, I mean who would they supply nuclear reactors to, other then unstable maniacal leaders.

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[Stiletto]

You sound like a the kid in school who is the biggest and meanest jerk but gets away with everything because he and his family are rich. When he asks his mommy why everybody hates him, she says "Oh, they're just jealous, dear." instead of "Stop being such a jerk."

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

your post is quite irrelevant, although you can see part of the reality. Please re-read the post you respond to. It talks to you about the future we might face...
Have a nice day.

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Even when there is a large minority inside the US (and, for some unimaginable reason, an apparent majority outside the US) who support repressive terrorist sponsoring regimes

Can you describe these terrorist-sponsoring regimes that are supported by so many people? I haven't heard of any.

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, my name is Critical Thinking. It's nice to meet you for the very first time.

Bytal explained WHY the comparison between the USA and the USSR is specious and also why it is being made. He was responding to a post where that comparison was being made. Why is debunking that comparison irrelevant?

As for "the future we might face" we might all be blown to smithereens by the first fusion reactor to be deployed. While we can keep an eye open for that, it is not the only problem we should consider or try to address.

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you sound like a pussy. How wonderfully insightful.

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stalin was successful, and the Russians miss him enough to keep Putin in power. Democracy is unnatural to Russia, and will continue to fail there.
The people who object to unilateralism by the US do so because they are either Jihadists or, like the French, envious of US power and wish to leverage Jihadism against us.

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[Jason Munster]

"Remmember Hitler & germany in 1937-1940 ? they had plenty of Strength."

If you are referring to relative strength, you missed something in your History courses. Hitler and Germany were not strong until well after they subjugated half of Europe. At any point in time a major power back then could have intervened and crushed his forces. But do to the lessons we mislearned from WWI, the world thought it would be best to let the situation work its own way out. Thus appeasement came about. Eventually people came to realize that Hitler's promises that he'd be done with his expansion after 'just this one last country' were hollow. By then it was too late.

Another problem arises from your idea of respect. In difference cultures, respect arises in different ways, and to label it as you have would be similar to saying that every country in the world is socialist. A majority might live under such a doctrine, but it makes the original statement no less true.

It would probably be easier if you described how the US is disrespected. You start to do this, but don't really develop the thought: you try to set up a contrast with your previous statement, but you really dont include enough information to make it worthwhile.

All of this is not really meant for the post I replied to. It is a general criticism of all posts that are Anti-US. Criticize our leadership, criticize prominant individuals that are in our country, but please don't criticize the country that I love and label all the citizens as evil with such spurious points. Don't just errantly spread your opinion without strong backing; next time post your train of thought so that everyone can follow. Perhaps have it with specific points, and a coherent conclusion with some remedies to the problem. That way those of us that feel love for our countries, ideals, or practices can address a specific concern.

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[jmccay]

Great reply, but you forgot one key point. No other country in history has been as benevalent as thre US has when they were a super power. Did Roman? No, Roman expansion policy makes the US policy of go in break down and rebuild look like a vacation in Hawaii! If you don't believe me look at what we did in Japan compared to what Rome did where ever the went. We set up a democracy. What did Rome do? The subjigated other countries the colonies. Last time I check Japan was not a state in the United States of America.
Did Great Britian? Nope. They colonized the world...including America! The fact is the America has very sparing in it's use of power. No other nation has held back as much, and asked other nations to hold back (as in Isreal who could destory their neighbors at any time if it wasn't for the US).
The fact is that the nations complaining are complaining because they now realise that the mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. After a very long time of being a big influence in world power France, Germany, and Russia mean nothing now!

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[ghostdancer]

Good point...

The world is more of gray area than black and white...

Re:Strength and respect are not the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact is the America has very sparing in it's use of power.

lets hope it stays that way

how can be sure that him is really him?

[xadhoom]

now... how can we be 100% sure that him is him? I mean... he has a lot of men similar to himself and used all'round the world for public relation... now on what basis intelligence say that saddam is saddam ? of course, the poor man will never confess, perhaps with DNA comparison... anyone has saddam DNA map to compare with? come on, don't be so happy without veryfing all data before... I'll be happy if saddam has been captured, but only when there's a real, scientific proof of that.
being sarcastic: perhaps is a bush&blair move to gain some shares, after all problems they're causing?

dunno...

sorry for my bad english.

Nabbing Saddam won't end the resistance

[mousse-man]

Anybody who's got a real clue about guerilla tactics will never have a central leadership. Far too easy to follow the trace to the command. If I was tasked to fight a guerilla war, I'd split my unit into cells and only stage hit&run raids. Kill off easy targets, and if possible, hit the enemys civilian populace. And send home as many coffins as possible. In a democracy, the outcome of a war is not decided by military accomplishments, but by the number of coffins sent back and political correctness (that's why Vietnam, while militarly perfectly winnable, was still a loss for the US).

No, that resistance in Iraq has multiple reasons, amongst them:

- political
- religious
- nationalistic

What the Americans should fear most is a conglomerate of these three above-mentioned forces. That conglomerate would make sure that ten Americans die in Iraq every single day.

The Americans wisely didn't invite the Turkish Army into northern Iraq. Not yet. They might get that idea. When they do that, the Peshmerga will regard any allied force as legitimate target.

In short, nabbing Saddam might have gotten one villain, but they didn't get the freedom fighters^W^Wterrorists. And Osama is still at large, maybe until early November 2004?

Re:Nabbing Saddam won't end the resistance

[sethstorm]

You forgot to add the 4th reason

-Saddam is in the enemy hands and wont get anything close to a fair trial

Fake press

[Halmos]

http://www.guerrillanews.com/forum/showflat.pl?Cat =&Board=gnn&Number=241974&page=0&view=collapsed&sb =5&o=0

Unrest closure

[Anonymous Coward]

Although Saddam's capture isn't the "end all". It does settle the unrest that was Iraq during his regime.

He was a rather ambitious leader and expanded his nation by force and terror. He wasn't one to shy away from the weapons trade and supplying certain groups. It was just another place for terror organization to call home.

The far greater thing, the Iraqi nation can now look towards the future. The long years of Bathists control and Saddam kept the Iraqi people quiet and restricted. This is a greater win for the Iraqi pepole and the neighboring Arab emigrates.

Horrible contradiction

[nirvanis]

Those who funded Saddam's terror reign for years now save the world from terrorist menace.

(Likewise I'm happy to see Saddam captured)

Re:Horrible contradiction

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, I believe if you'll check your facts, you'll see that it was France, Germany, and Russia who did most (more than 95%) of the funding. Is it any wonder why they were opposed to the war? And is it any wonder why they are squirming in their panties now?

Re:Horrible contradiction

[nirvanis]

Obviously, I do not excuse France, Germany and Russia among others. I'm pretty acquainted about oil industry dominance in international affairs.

Amazing!

[JSmooth]

Wow! I mean this is just amazing news! The ENTIRE armed forces of the most powerful nation on earth was able to track down and apprehend a man after less than a year of destroying what remained of his homeland. Boy am I proud to be an American! Phew!

Our boys kicked ass on this one! When our fearful (oops, fearless) leader says we will get our man, by golly, we get our man! 1000s of lives, billions of dollars, these are piddly details in the quest of Saddam.

Here's the real question: What, exactly, are the differences between Bush and Hussein?

One is a failed, alocholic, AWOL, carpet bagging Yankee murderer and the other is just a ruthless dictator...

Sorry, I won't bother with the karma here, all you "patriotic" citizens go ahead and rip me apart for excerising my freedom of speech.

Thanks

"these colors never run"
except from: Sharks, Snipers, The Flu, and any other thing the 24hour News Channels tell us to be afraid of.

could you patriots please visit this site

[Anonymous Coward]

This site may be some kind of nightmare for you and your patriotic viewpoints. Just *try* to keep an open mind and remember the numerous times the Bush administration has already been proven to be lying.

Re:could you patriots please visit this site

[TwinkieStix]

You want us to read this?

No evidence to date has been submitted by ANY organisation which shows any involvement whatsoever by Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. According to all intelligence sources (except North America) that I have heard speaking about 9/11, they all insist no terrorist organisation is capable of carrying out a sophisticated attack of this nature, and it could ONLY have been done by high level officials within the US government itself! So the question is, why is nobody investigating the probability that elements within the US government did these acts?

You're kidding right. I have doubts. I have questions. But, I know everybody in this message board has heard of and probably read the jolly roger and "The Cookbook". Now tell me, how hard is making a bomb? How hard is hijacking a plane with no guards and no guns. Before 9-11, the hijacker wanted something other than to make the plane into a bomb, so everybody did what the jijacker wanted. It only took long enough for the passengers on the fourth plane to find out what was going on for that to all change.

Moral impact?Yes, but hardly negative.

[lommetennis]

For the sake of US, it would probably better to have Saddam on the loose. The day he would be taken, dead or alive, many more would start fighting the forces of invation, *because then no one can say they're fighting for Saddam.*
The Bin Laden case is a whole other story completely;Afghanistan was attacked to get Bin Laden, and it would be a triumph if he were found.Anyting else would be a defeat.

(I'll admit to having taken the ideas from an interview with the british-pakastani intellectual Tariq Ali (author of The Clash of Fundamentalism, 2002), but what he had to say was good, none the less.

Not Planet of the Apes.

[The Cydonian]

Saddam just dressing up for the inevitable return of the king.

Poor sod, missed it by three days! :-)

Re:GOOD JOB TO US TROOPS, PRISON TO THE US GOVERNM

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's going to get elected ripping off up Alaska though? The environmentalist crowd would have a heyday with it. And to invade Venezuela...we had a shallow pretext to invade Iraq, what even shallower one would we use to justify invading Venezuela? We might as well invade Mexico, since at least there we have a bit more historical animosity and the Alamo to point at.

Maybe we could get the Venezuelans to not have biological and chemical weapons though, and not have proof of the fact. Certainly it's been proven now that with enough idiocy from the US public an imbecile can sell any amount of violence to justify aggression. If we're so damned concerned about nukes and poison gas and plagues, why aren't we invading China, India, Pakistan, N Korea, Britain, France, Russia, Israel,...the list obviously goes on. Maybe it's because of the despot in power in Iraq? Well, what about most of Africa, N. Korea, China, Iran...Gee, what the fuck else could it be about unless it's oil? Certainly we haven't removed the dangerous and the damned from the world by dropping bombs. I agree though, we'd have done better invading Saudi Arabia except that I doubt we'd been able to figure out what to invade SAE for in time to make it an election issue.

Some scattered thoughtz ...

[Anonymous Coward]

They woulda caught Saddam earlier, but no one recognized him. He was disguised as Dick Cheney.

I'm told they got suspicious when they saw a Domino's guy shoving pizzas down a hole.

Re:Good. Period.

[hendrix69]

The fact that you fail to see how the fall of a major arabic tyranny that has threatened middle eastern peace for centuries and caused the death of millions helps to make the world (and America, which is still apart of the world) a safer place is disturbing. True, Bush might have done better to go after North Korea first, put more effort in finding ben-laden or concentrate on solving the isr-pal conflict, but to say that liberating Iraq is irrelevant to US security interests is plain wrong.

Where are all those look alikes?

[kautilya]

First things first. Where are those WMDs which can strike europe and United States in few hours notice? We have been made to believe that Saddam has so many look alikes. How come not a single one is caught?? U.S. Media in general discredited Saddam and his government with its propoganda supressing the "real" stuff. The real stuff is there are real terrorists somewhere. Bush and his pals doesn't know how to get them. Iraq is an easy target and makes tremendous economic and political sense. No doubt Saddam gassed kurds and is a despotic ruler. He shouldn't have become president in first place which as a matter of fact is courtesy of United States. He was propped up by United States to wage war against Iran. Saddam used very same weapons he got from united states against Kuwait. Good thing...there will be an end to all this violence though some puppet govt. will be in place soon. Atleast citizens of Iraq will lead a better life..

Re:Where are all those look alikes?

[aled]

Saddam has eaten every WMD. That's right, he has them all inside. That's why he must be kept alone and not allowed to talk about his old american friends. If he opens his mouth deadly gas may come out.

Re:GOOD JOB TO US TROOPS, PRISON TO THE US GOVERNM

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can convince Venezuela is a threat to Israel, I KNOW it'll get PWN3D like Iraq via the Pentagon.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Tom Rothamel]

Yes it would. There already is such a court, the International Criminal Court..
The problem is, the USA opposes it.

For good reason, mind you. The US could not join any ICC treaty, as the terms of the treaty are not acceptable under the US constitution. More pragmatically, it seems quite likely that the tranzis would use the ICC to bring frivilous charges against various officials in the US.

War-crimes tribunals should be short-term, focusing on the results of a single conflict and then dissolved. To do otherwise leads to mission creep, and the defining down of crimes against humanity merely to give the tribunal something to do.

Thanks /.

[agentk]

Thanks for this important news, from those of us who have no connection whatsoever to the outside world other than Slashdot.org.

Re:Next we go after the worst evil ruler of all

[sethstorm]

Wait for the SS (oops, meant USSS) to stop protecting him, and do whatever. Which should be around sometime in 2022, or 2014 if Someone Else [TM] gets in the White House in 2004.

No so. Violence will increase

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, *if* most of the resistance was from Saddam, you'd see a decline in violence (unless the U.S. executed him and made him a martyr).

However, most of the resistance was *not* from Hussein who was shaggy bum and hiding in a hole when they found him.

You might actually now start to see an *increase* in violence since the other groups (Sunni's, Shiites, etc) won't be seen as being associated with Hussein.

Let The Bush Bashing Begin

[nurb432]

Saddam was an sadistic, evil, insane, dictator that enjoyed killing masses of people when he was in a bad mood.. He also helped subsidize the terrorists that attacked this country, and others.. And blatantly claimed he hated the US ( and other nations ) He needed to be gone, at most any cost.

Its is a GOOD thing that he is gone. He will no longer serve as incentive for many of the 2bit terrorists to continue. His capture will take a lot of wind out of their 'cause'.

But instead of appreciating the ramifications of what has just been done, I expect this entire forum to consist of people taking personal pot shots at the president.

For those of you that are just too f-ing short sided and must twist everything around to make it an attack on our leader and our country, I only have one thing to say to you: Get the hell out if you dislike it here so much. We don't need you, nor do you deserve any of the benefits or freedoms that you get for living in MY country.

You may me sick.

Re:Good. So?

[nyseal]

And what, exactly, is the problem? The fact that terrorists can move freely throughout the middle east (Iraq included) without consequence or retribution from their thug leaders? Oh great here it comes.....George W is a thug; apparently he's not even a man. Jesus, grow up.

It is worth mentioning!

[twoslice]

This isn't normal Slashdot subject matter, but I figured it was worth mentioning

it was secretly revealed that Saddam Hussein transferred billions into these suspicious looking stock accounts before he was arrested. MSFT and SCOX and Darl McBride is one of his body doubles that made those transactions by proxy. McBrides battle song.

Hang on a sec... I thought I was wearing my tinfoil hat, but the box says it is actually made from aluminium foil! aaagggh my brain, my brain.....

"celebrations"

[jguevin]

While I don't doubt that many, many Iraqis are overjoyed at Hussein's capture, I couldn't help but notice that the celebrating Iraqis seemed to be small pockets of about thirty men, jumping up and down for a camera, on otherwise empty streets.

Reminds of a certain statue-toppling event not so long ago.

The skeptic in me also wonders whether Hussein really said, hours after his capture, that Iraqis were "less than human", and generally "made a mockery of Iraq."

Thoughts?

Re:GOOD JOB TO US TROOPS, PRISON TO THE US GOVERNM

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't necessarily think its an anti-war comment.. its more an anti-asshole comment directed to brainless pieces of shite like yourself who are so busy proclaiming everyone who doesn't support waging war on random countries in the middle east as and when it suits the USA, are anti-war whiners.

It especially galls me that the USA has this sudden half-assed international care attitude, and feels that it needs to remind everyone else what that nasty Saddam has being doing to his population for years. Why the hell can't the USA just look to the international community and really mean it rather than just using it when it thinks it needs it!

I'm not pro-saddam, but I am anti-war - but only because of the attitudes of 'shoot now, think later' cowboys like yourself and your war mongering government.

What if the Trial is held?

[kautilya]

What if Saddam tries to prove that United States killed more Iraqis through sanctions and war than he did?

Re:What if the Trial is held?

[sethstorm]

Then you'll see him exiled off to some country with a large sum of money to live ala Castro - no longer a threat, and always under the control of imperialists.

Re:bin laden???????-BUSH

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we need a regime change in the white house
Down with bush the anti democratic kapitalist.

So

[Ilgaz]

Saddam the CIA agent done all of this to world has been captured.

Be happy to mod me -10 levels.

"These are not the Bush lies you're looking for...

[Anonymous Coward]

...move along."

Off Topic

[JesusQuintana]

I was just about to say that this whole subject is off topic and it is insulting to Slashdot readers to be treated like they don't have other sources of news... but then you reminded me where I was.

How long does it take to check DNA?

[xof]

I have no idea. But 20:30 - 15:00 (18.5 hours) seems (to me at least) a very short time to handle such a delicate analysis in a war zone.

WOMD found!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am saddened to see the arrest occur without offering evidence for Saddam's illegal weapons of mass destruction - the purported reason for the invasion. Saddam is a criminal, but that doesn't permit the US to commit acts of international terrorism in the name of 'preemptive strikes' and homeland security, international law strictly forbids such actions. Weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, but the media fail to report this. The US in this invasion has used, and continues to use, massive amounts of depleted uranium. UN advisors confirm that this radioactive substance is killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi children via dramatically increased cancer rates. Start understanding for yourself http://www.sundayherald.com/32522

Take the red pill and educate yourself, find out what the headlines really mean. Don't use the PR provided by the military as your sole point of reference for current events. Look beyond the media machine of CNN et al and discover what is really going on in the world. The following is a good start to read what the independent media is able to uncover http://projectcensored.org/publications/2004/index .html

Re:WOMD found!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes let's get real. Hans von Sponeck the former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq when asked about Iraq's weapons program responded "the evidence isn't there to justify an attack on Iraq". Or how about Scott Ritter who was a UN weapons inspector in Iraq for seven years (also a former US marine), he states that "we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament" [http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0721-02.htm]. Furthermore, complete verification was prohibited as the US out of fears of not finding a weapons program inhibited a successful inspections program [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-d ec98/ritter_8-31.html]. Not quite the reality put forth by Bush in his statement "Our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking weapons of mass destruction, and evidence indicates that they are doing so with determination."

So, in 2002 to qualify Bush's statements the UN Security Council resolution 1441 [http://www.un.int/usa/sres-iraq.htm] resumed weapons inspections. Inspections included sophisticated satellite reconnaissance, U2 spy planes, and helicopter flyovers to which end? UN weapons inspectors (Hans Blix and Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei) found no evidence of a WMDs program.

What UN resolution provides a legal justification for a US invasion into Iraq? It isn't resolution 1441, in fact you won't find a resolution that legalizes the American's actions in Iraq.

Shall I continue?

New Zealand?! Pro-war?!

[tehanu]

I'm sorry, but I just lost all respect for you when you included New Zealand in that list. New Zealand is about as anti-war as you can possibly get. If there was a spectrum with the US on one end, New Zealand would be in the extreme opposite end. India is also anti-war. You're getting anti-war Norway confused with pro-war Denmark (don't worry, Osama bin Laden did that too). And the government of Uzbekistan is well known for its use of torture and the death penalty against politcal opponents, not to mention putting human rights activists in mental hospitals. I wouldn't exactly be proud of their support. I would have put Japan instead of Uzbekistan myself. And let's not forget that it is only the *governments* of those countries that supported the US. In all of them, the vast majority of the *people* were opposed to it (except Israel and Kuwait I suppose, though 50% of Kuwaities still think the US is a potential military threat to *them*)

I'm sorry, I still can't get pass *New Zealand* being on the list of supporters of the US. It's like seeing the head of PETA listed as the best man at the wedding of the CEO of Furs, Inc.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[squarooticus]

LOL. Bite me, meathead.

Who cares about his kids?

[hammarlund]

After his other two sons defected to Jordan, Hussein offered them amnesty if they would come home. Being no smarter than their father, they went home. They were executed by their father.

If anything, the other two sons will have more of a chance in the hands of the Iraqi people than they had with their father.

Re:Who cares about his kids?

[Anonymous Coward]

After his other two sons defected to Jordan, Hussein offered them amnesty if they would come home. Being no smarter than their father, they went home. They were executed by their father.

If anything, the other two sons will have more of a chance in the hands of the Iraqi people than they had with their father.

What??? The executed "sons" were son-in-laws were they not?

Also, to which other two sons are you referring? Uday and Qusay are dead.

Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Mmm coffee]

Woke up, saw news, had karma to burn, felt like saying something, dunno why. Here goes.

(1) I am sick of all the people here, on Fark, and on countless other sites mindlessly bitching about the conservitives and/or the liberals. All politicians are going for the $ no matter what party you support, both sides are insane, and the majority of people are centrists with a slight leaning one side or another. Extremists from both sides are equally mindless, and as always are the ones to make the most noise. Nobody cares about your blind following, please either say something with an ounce of intelligence behind it or STFU. Duckspeak is annoying.

(Side note: All you people adding intelligent debate and thoughts reguardless of your political affiliation: keep it up! People who help the good content to noise ratio are the unsung heroes of the internet.)

(2) I am very glad Saddam is found. One less asshole in the world to worry about. However...

(3) Until I hear of nukes with "Hi, there!" painted on the sides being dragged out of Iraq, we have still invaded Iraq for no good reason. The only reason the UN went along with this little war is because US intelligence lied about WMD and thus believed that they posed a serious threat to neighboring nations. No WMD = unjustified war = unjustified deaths on both sides.

(4) A clarification of #2: Again, I am glad that he's taken care of. However, it is not America's place or anyone else's to say "I disagree with that X nation is doing, bomb them". If we have the right to bomb another nation to "free the people" then why doesn't China have the right to start WW3 with us in order to "free the poor American people from the totalarian fist of the Bush regime" or such other bollocks? Only if a nation has the power to pose a severe threat to neighboring nations or the world at large should drastic military action be taken against them.

(5) Where the fuck is Osama?!?! He flew those planes into our buildings, not Saddam. Why the hell is he no longer a high priority? I've had a close friend die in the WTC and you're telling me that capturing the man directly responsible for my friend's death isn't a priority?!!!

(6) I sure hope they don't do anything stupid like torturing Saddam. Should we treat him inhumanely a _LOT_ of people will be severely pissed, a lot of them nuts enough to do insane crap like fly planes into our buildings. What we receive 10 years from now will be a direct mirror of our actions now, after all.

(7) Speaking of Osama, shouldn't we be going after the top brass at the CIA for training him? I mean, they basically started the largest terrorist movement in the world..

(8) The war on terrorism can never end, for it is not a static entity. A war on Iraq can end. A war on an action anyone can do can not end. The Bush administration has started a war that will never end, a war that they can exploit to give them a lot of power they are not intended to have (and have done so). This situation scares me.

(9) It saddens me that I have yet to hear anyone question "Where will this take us in 10 years? Or 20?" We are repeating past mistakes and worrying only about the immediate future, it seems. The amount of debt we are leaving to future generations through this war alone makes me afraid of our impact on the future. Let alone the legal precidents we have set, loss of rights, new (probably unconstitutional) laws, nations we've pissed off, etc.

(10) I need coffee. Damn parents calling me at 6am telling me to turn on the TV when they know damn well that I don't own a TV and haven't for years... grr...

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Squidgee]

The UN went along with the war..?

I supported it, but sure as hell don't remember that... =p

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[soccerisgod]

(3) Until I hear of nukes with "Hi, there!" painted on the sides being dragged out of Iraq, we have still invaded Iraq for no good reason. The only reason the UN went along with this little war is because US intelligence lied about WMD and thus believed that they posed a serious threat to neighboring nations. No WMD = unjustified war = unjustified deaths on both sides.

Pardon me, but have I been missing something? As far as I know the UN didn't "go along" with the war. It merily supports "reconstruction effords" now and has recognized the "coalation of the willing" as the current temporary governing force of iraq.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Memory as short as your dick? Go back and read the fucking resolutions. We did have the right to do it. Just because the pussies in France, Germany, and Russia didn't have the balls to help us doesn't mean we were wrong.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Anonymous Coward]

(3) Until I hear of nukes with "Hi, there!" painted on the sides being dragged out of Iraq, we have still invaded Iraq for no good reason. The only reason the UN went along with this little war is because US intelligence lied about WMD and thus believed that they posed a serious threat to neighboring nations. No WMD = unjustified war = unjustified deaths on both sides.

You misunderstand the situation (as does almost everyone it seems). The deal was (and this was supported by the UN), as long as Iraq didn't interfere with the weapons inspectors, he would be fine. If not, he would be attacked. He interfered with the inspectors, so the USA said "hey UN, he broke his part of the bargain, it's time to bomb him". But France, Germany, and Russia had lent him a lot of money, and knew that if Saddam were deposed, they would be forced to forgive Iraq's debts. So they used the WWII/Cold War-relic positions on the security council to block the attack. Ironically, the USA attacked Iraq to enforce a UN resolution that the UN refused to enforce, in an attempt to protect the UN's own authority.

Finding weapons of mass destruction was (and still is) totally irrelevant. Saddam broke a deal that protected his regime, and the UN refused to enforce their own law. That is the reason for this war. That has always been the reason for this war.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[meta-monkey]

I'm glad you're marginally pleased that Saddam's been captured. However, people like you will never be happy. Finally, we get this guy, and the rape rooms and torture chambers in Iraq are a thing of the past. In any imaginably sane world-view, the ousting of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a democracy in the heart of the middle east is a good thing. Yes, a LOT of people have asked where this will take us in 10 or 20 years, and would you like to know where it could take us? Where Bush HOPES it will take us, if he can actually get some support from the rest of the world? Peace in the middle east. True, honest-to-God peace. The Arab world is a world of theocratic dictatorships. The people are oppressed and live in squalor and fear while their leaders live in luxury, and lie to them and tell them that things are the way they are because of the West, and because of Jews, and because of anybody but them.

Nothing fuels progress and prosperity like freedom. Imagine a real democracy kindled in Iraq, and an Iraqi people who are happy and are free to live their lives they way they see fit, and free to create a prosperous society. Watch the rest of the Arab world look at this, and realize that their leaders are lying to them. Watch the theocracies topple. Then, maybe, when democracy rules the middle east, the middle east will be at peace, since democracies do not make war on each other. Maybe if truth, spread through a free press, infused the Arab world, there would even be peace between the Arabs and the Jews.

That's where Bush wants to be in 10 or 20 years. That's what he's been saying all along, but you can't hear him over the screams of "where's Saddam?!? Where's Osama?!? Where's the WMD?!?" from people generally more concerned with returning their petty political party to power than the well-being of their countrymen or the rest of the world. Well, they got one, and they're still looking for the rest. But, people like you will never be satisfied, because instead of giving your support to the coalition's efforts, because instead of working towards the world that could be, you would rather fold your arms across your chest and sniff at every success, and whine about the tasks still underway. Have you ever heard the expression "lead, follow, or get out of the way?" Well, the goal here is peace in the middle east. And people like you are standing smack dab in the middle of the road, nose in the air. Get out of the way.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[vDave420]

(10) I need coffee. Damn parents calling me at 6am telling me to turn on the TV when they know damn well that I don't own a TV and haven't for years... grr...

Argh...
My family called me 5 times this morning, waking me & my GF up, for this news...
I was as pleased as you. haha
-dave-

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Pros_n_Cons]

I'm sorry to hear about #5 perhaps the fact that the training for the 9-11 attacks was in Iraq.
"We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States," he added chillingly. "The Gulf War never ended for Saddam Hussein. He is at war with the United States. We were repeatedly told this."
Or the Number of Ties cited by the washingtontimes
The most conclusive evidence comes in a highly detailed list of intelligence reports revealed last month in the Weekly Standard. Senior Iraqis were said to have traveled to Sudan in the mid-1990s to teach bin Laden's operatives how to make sophisticated truck bombs.
Terrorists subsequently used such bombs to hit targets in Saudi Arabia and at two U.S. embassies in Africa.

I hope you feel alittle better now. I do.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[randyest]

No, it wasn't about WMD, nor can you back up your claim that it ever was supposed to be all about WMD.

It's about this.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Anonymous Coward]

However, people like you will never be happy. Finally, we get this guy, and the rape rooms and torture chambers in Iraq are a thing of the past.

And what about the ones in North Korea? Or China? Or the other dozen or so that are around the globe? Oh hey, what about the thing we setup in Cuba so that we could avoid any nasty things goin on here in our own country. Hey, it's ok. You see things in your own little way, I'm quite sure mostly from FOX News. Have fun with it!

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[meta-monkey]

So, since we can't do everything we shouldn't do anything. That's horrible logic.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[arobas]

(10) Maybe they mean wwitv.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Anonymous Coward]

First, let me thank you for an intelligent comment from an obviously intelligent young person.

Second, let me address one issue you brought up:
"7) Speaking of Osama, shouldn't we be going after the top brass at the CIA for training him? I mean, they basically started the largest terrorist movement in the world"

We in America fought a cold war for half a century against the Soviet Union; at times calling it the Korean War, the Vietnam war or a Cuban embargo among many other terms used for dozens of local situations. It was initially thought to be a war against communism, but it turned out it was really a war against a single government - the Soviet Union. We atarted the largest terrorist movement in the world (jihad in Afganistan against the Soviet Union (who had a very large Muslim population ready to be a fifth column (see Sain).)

We won that cold war. It was a real war that could have destroyed the world. My father flew nuclear bomb laden planes with orders to destoy vast swathe of USSR in retaliation should it come to that. I wrote ECCM code so their systems would mis-identify the locations of our aircraft. SUDDEBLY during Gorbachov the other side just gave up and STOPPED changing their ECM systems that we had to continually counter. Then the wall fell.

Then the USSR fell. And a terrible war was over , a burden lifted, and a jihad movement - intact. And we just walked away from Afganistan, leaving its citizens to the tender cares of those who had been our allies but had always considered us just a little less of an enemy (like what England thought of USSR in WWII).

So we had good reasons for creating the jihad in the first place. We learned too late just how big a mistake it was to just walk away when the USSR fell. Who knew hwat the cost would become? No one.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[extrasolar]

Thanks for writing one of the few posts in this thread worth replying to. Seriously, I doubt you can be talking to these guys about Scrabble and they will immediately take a position against the Bush Administration.

"Where the fuck is Osama?!?!"

I think they are still looking for him, its just that the longer it takes the less PR value it has, so they've naturally been quieting down about it.

"I sure hope they don't do anything stupid like torturing Saddam. Should we treat him inhumanely a _LOT_ of people will be severely pissed, a lot of them nuts enough to do insane crap like fly planes into our buildings."

One thing I've noticed is the difference between the news I'm watching on TV and what I read on the internet. Every few moments on ABC they talk about the celebration in Iraq, but clicking links on news.google.com mentions both the celebration in Iraq as well as the anger a lot of Iraqis have over him being captured. However, I don't think this is intentional. The simplest explanation is that the people running the news networks has a prejudice to believe in the unpopularity of Saddam in Iraq. If you are going into Iraq looking for celebrations over Saddam being captured, well, thats exactly what you're going to find. Who knows, maybe these folks celebrating are just drunk folks who always wave red flags around on Sunday afternoons :)

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Keeper]

No, but when we fuck up we should own up to it instead of being a bunch of pussies and pretending we invaded because Saddam was did mean things to his citizens.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Hortensia Patel]

Only if a nation has the power to pose a severe threat to neighboring nations or the world at large should drastic military action be taken against them.

Careful. Prior to the latest Gulf War, the US clearly posed a severe threat to Iraq. Had Iraq possessed the capability to mount an effective pre-emptive attack against the US, would it have been morally justified in doing so?

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Mmm coffee]

You make a very excellent point. A bleak one, but excellent none the less.

Mods - mod parent up, eh? That should be + 5 informative, not 0 Anonymous Coward.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[demon]

Here's a hint for you. The grandparent post, as well as many other posts, are simply pointing out (and rightly so, IMO) that the ends don't justify the means. I mean, yeah, Saddam Hussein was not a good guy. I think we can all agree on that point (ok, most of us, maybe not all). However, I think that it's not really a good precedent to set that "oh, we don't like what these guys are doing, let's give some dubious reason and start a war with them". That just can't be allowed. It's not cool, and that kind of flimsy reasoning won't cut it. While yes, Saddam Hussein's capture is a net positive, that doesn't mean we should say "whatever it takes, immoral or not, to achieve our desired result". Please, just think about that the next time you are going to tell someone not to speak up about methods they think are dubious, or just plain wrong. The ends do not, can not, and should not be used to justify the means, no matter how good the outcome.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Kelz]

(4) A clarification of #2: Again, I am glad that he's taken care of. However, it is not America's place or anyone else's to say "I disagree with that X nation is doing, bomb them". If we have the right to bomb another nation to "free the people" then why doesn't China have the right to start WW3 with us in order to "free the poor American people from the totalarian fist of the Bush regime" or such other bollocks? Only if a nation has the power to pose a severe threat to neighboring nations or the world at large should drastic military action be taken against them.

I really would like to comment but Bush is gassing my house at the moment. Yeah.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Anonymous Coward]

You are seriously going to use newsmax and the washington times as your sources? Why not toss in a link to the 700 Club to round it out.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[chefmonkey]

A war on an action anyone can do can not end. The Bush administration has started a war that will never end, a war that they can exploit to give them a lot of power they are not intended to have (and have done so). This situation scares me.

<irony>
Ummm... the "war on drugs" was started long before W was in office. If I recall, it was a Reagan thing. But I agree with your analysis 100%.
</irony>

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Pros_n_Cons]

I could point you to the full interview by the N.Y. Times, the video's on arab BBC of saddams terrorist training, The court case conducted in manhatten NY where satelite photos were shown in court. But you'll only hear what you want. I wish you the best of luck using a search engine try "Salman Pak" and your favorite news source as a keyword.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[burns210]

i have to post in agreement to a lot of your comments... most notably when you talked about:

"I am very glad Saddam is found. One less asshole in the world to worry about. However... The only reason the UN went along with this little war is because US intelligence lied about WMD and thus believed that they posed a serious threat to neighboring nations. No WMD = unjustified war = unjustified deaths on both sides"

This is a point that i have taken since the beginning, while everyone seems to a 100% for or againt, my opinion is in the middle.

Against: Crappy(lied about) reasons for going to war, no WMD (yet) though i will not be surprised if found, and the blatant disregard of the UN....
FOR: Horrible, murderous dictator is taken out of power... He is not the only one in the world, but 1 less is only a Good Thing (TM)... Yes, China is evil, Iran, Pakistan, Bin Laden...

America is two-faced about its friends(china, iran) but nonetheless, we took a bad person who has done HORRIBLE things out of power.

P.S. Bush still isn't getting my vote.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure hope they don't do anything stupid like torturing Saddam.

Are you nutts? They would never do that, he has too much info in his head, besides one of his good friends is the current PM in France! And we don't want him as a martyr.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[meta-monkey]

I'm sorry, demon, but we don't live in an episode of Star Trek. Sometimes, the ends have to justify the means.

A lot of german civilians died during World War II. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm willing to bet that, per capita, 100 times more civilians died during the invasion of Germany than died during the invasion of Iraq. Today, there was dancing in the streets of Iraq. They even showed it on CNN (not those vile liars Fox News mind you!) so it must be true. Those people are glad for the ends.

I was opposed to the war until the first bombs fell. However, once the the war began...there's no going back. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. So, what do you propose we do now? Quit? Leave? Pull every solider out of Iraq? Do you understand the consequences of those actions? We would replace a ruthless, but stable, dictatorship with anarchy and civil war. Once the war was begun, there's only one option: victory. And, truly, the potential for the ultimate victory: peace in the middle east. Now, if you wish for a better life for those in the Arab world, throw all your support behind George Bush and the coalition! If they succeed...if they create a beacon of freedom in the heart of the middle east, then it may be that fifty years hence, historians remember George Bush as the creator of peace in the middle east. Will you tell your grandchildren that you supported him, or opposed him? Tell me...given the world as it is right now, at this instant (not a year ago!) what would you do?

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Anonymous Coward]

We were on site at Salman Pak. We did not have to look at fabricated satellite photos. There was no terrorist training camp there. End of story.

You're just another victim of propaganda.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[pitchpipe]

Actually, I have thought about the future (10-20 years down the road). The Bush administration is going to make America safer through their fighting of terrorism, homeland security, war on Iraq, etc. They are spending so much money that in the future this country will no longer be a superpower because they will have bankrupted us by spending us into oblivion. Only superpowers are generally targets of international terrorism (presumably because the target country is involved in some foreign affair that the terrorists want them out of), so after we are no longer a superpower, we wont have the terrorism to worry about. So yes, they have a plan! To be fair, it is not just the Bush admin that is to blame, but every pork barreling, lobbyist mogering politician.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Anonymous Coward]

• Ironically, the USA attacked Iraq to enforce a UN resolution that the UN refused to enforce, in an attempt to protect the UN's own authority.

Oh.

I thought it was "USA attacked Iraq to enforce the will of Bush's corporate supporters, in an attempt to show that they really don't give a shit about internation law".

My mistake, I stand corrected!

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Urkki]

• I was opposed to the war until the first bombs fell. However, once the the war began...there's no going back. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. So, what do you propose we do now? Quit? Leave? Pull every solider out of Iraq?

Those (opposing war but going through to the end once it has started, while still opposing it) are not mutually exclusive.

The problem US has now is, how can it ever pull out, how can it ever give true democracy to Iraq, and still keep what they came to get (power in middle east, access to Iraq oil, money for US companies doing reconstruction etc).

As long as US imposes it's will on Iraq, the people of Iraq will like US less and less. So allowing full democracy for Iraq would mean immediate trouble for "US national interests" in Iraq. Giving just a bit of freedom while controlling other things really hasn't worked very long anywhere, now has it? Either it must become full democracy (meaning in Iraq there would parties demanding full US withdrawal and getting a lot of votes because of it) and freedom of speech (meaning no running over demonstrators with tanks like has happened in China or USSR) and all that, or it collaplses into totalitarian regime that supresses anybody trying to oppose them.

Tricky situtation, eh?

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[jrumney]

So they used the WWII/Cold War-relic positions on the security council to block the attack.

No, they didn't. The attack was never put to a vote, because the US/UK knew that even without a French or Russian veto (and both countries had indicated that they might refrain from vetoing) they would lose the vote. If you want examples of using Cold War-relic positions to block resolutions, look at the US's record of veto, and think about what conflicts have been going on for ovre 50 years without UN intervention.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[meta-monkey]

I'd say it's probably not that tricky, since we did it about sixty years ago in Japan and Germany. We invaded, liberated their people from dictatorships, replaced them with modern democracies, and then left. Yes, I know we still have military bases in Japan and Germany and everywhere else, but the U.S. does not control their governments.

Also, the idea that the U.S. is after Iraqi oil is ridiculous, because if we were that hard up for oil (which we're not) it would have been far more cost effective to buy it on the cheap from Saddam by lifting the sanctions.

Money for US companies doing reconstruction? There are plenty of other projects out there that could have been contracted, that would have resulted in a) more money for American companies and less publicity and b) much, much less political flak at home and abroad. I would suggest your adjust your tinfoil hat to make sure none of Haliburton's mind control rays can get you.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Pros_n_Cons]

You're just another victim of propaganda.

Am I? Well having 3 iraqi defecters give thier testamony, having a judge rule in thier favor and the video's I've seen Fedayeen saddam (which roughly translates saddams martyrs) training in guerilla tactics, torture (throwing people off buildings, or beating them while tied up) You will forgive my weak mind for 'believing' the propaganda over a slashdot anonymous coward. Until you can provide more infomation I'll think of you as the propagandist.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Urkki]

Yeah, but Japan was never invaded, they surrendered. And though I'm not sure, I think it was not really occupied and controlled in the sense Iraq is now, and the basic social structures were was not really torn apart, emperor remained emperor even after the surrender and all that. Also the imminent threat of Soviets, already controlling a few islands (did they already give 'em back to Japan, or is it still under negotiation?), mada US presence a lot more tolerable.

And situation in West Germany was a bit different, as I believe they were quite aware what was going in East Germany, and allied occupation probably started to seem like a blessing compared to what was going on in the East... Also I could be wrong here, but I do think that even despite WW2 that has just ended, a lot of Allied troops viewed Germans as fellow Europeans and/or fellow christians, at least much more so than current Coalition occupation forces in Iraq view Iraqis as equals...

Also, people of both Germany and Japan were quite unified, one people. This is not the situation in Iraq, there are the Kurds and the Shia and Sunni muslims that are really not very friendly towards each others.

So the situation in post-WW2 Germany or Japan IMHO was easier in a few ways than situation in Iraq now. Also the Cold War that was starting made things a lot easier domestically in the USA, even though current "war on terror" tries to achieve the same effect.

So it is tricky, triciker than back then after WW2 certainly. Also there might be a lot less time (politically), especially if guerilla resistance can't be supressed, and especially if motives behind occupation aren't quite honest and sincere...

I mean, about oil, reconstruction deals and other "conspiracy stuff"... Considering everything (like lies about WMDs and other manipulation like that) I find it hard to believe there isn't a lot of "conspiracy stuff" behind it all. I'm just optimistically hoping it was for money, not for something more sinister...

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[meta-monkey]

Name one lie the administration told about WMD.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Urkki]

The first hit in google with "iraq wmd lies" is this page. Note: I didn't even check other hits, nor did I read that entire page, just checked the quotes at the top of that page.

Are those quotes forged or real? If they're real (which seems very likely, but I did not try to verify them), they were very hard trying to give the impression that there's no doubt about existence of Iraqi WMD. None have been found. Either US and British intelligence agencies were awfully naive and incompetent, or intelligence agencies and other elements inside government were deceiving the politicians, or politicians were lying through their teeth to the people... Considering the power US currently has, I don't really know which of these three is the most worrysome, but I'm not inclined to believe the "incompetent" explanation.

That leaves systematical deception at one level or another. But you're free to believe what you will of course.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[meta-monkey]

You're making a huge leap (so is that page you linked to). Here's the deal. Bush & Co. said Iraq had WMD. We invade, and now we can't find the WMD. So here's the options:

a) Iraq had no WMD
i) Bush & Co. knew he had no WMD, and lied and said he did for some nefarious purpose, knowing full well that once the invasion was over, no WMD would be found and they would look like idiots, or the devil
ii) the intelligence angencies of every first-world nation were wrong, and they misinformed Bush. Keep in mind, during the debates in the U.N. before the war, France & Co. fully agreed that Saddam had WMD. The debate was about HOW he should be disarmed of the WMD everybody agreed he had.

b) Iraq had WMD
i) Saddam destroyed his WMD before the invasion began
ii) Saddam hid his WMD before the invasion began
iii) Saddam moved his WMD to Syria or somewhere else before the invasion began

Seriously, how big a bunker does it take to hide a WMD manufacturing lab? Iraq is the size of California. It took, what, eight months to find Saddam hiding in a hole? How long might it take to find the WMD? Hopefully, Saddam will tell us.

Anyway, as you can see, there are numerous possiblities to explain the administration's statements. That Bush would lie, I would say, is the least likely. I mean, if Bush knew there were no WMD, then he would know that when the invasion was over, no WMD would be found, and he'd look like an ass. Why the hell would he do that? Politically, I'm a Libertarian. I'm not planning to vote for Bush in 2004. I dislike many, many of his policies. However, I do not believe he's insane, and I do not believe he and his handlers are stupid. I'm suspicious of those who, confronted with the facts of the case for WMD in Iraq, immediately jump to the least likely, but most damning, conclusion. I'd say the most likely explanations are a combination of everything in part B. I think Saddam had WMD, and when it was obvious his time was up, he destroyed his processing facilities, shipped what he could to Syria, and destroyed the rest. That seems to me to be the most likely option.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Urkki]

• That Bush would lie, I would say, is the least likely. I mean, if Bush knew there were no WMD, then he would know that when the invasion was over, no WMD would be found, and he'd look like an ass.

So does he look like an ass now? I mean you claim to dislike him, yet even you try defend what was said by his administration about WMDs. So his supporters in US must be cheering for him and not give a shit about no WMD discoveries. And international community seems to be mildly annoyed about it at most too.

So that's why he could have knowingly lied, or been led to lie unknowingly by others. Calculated risk by him (or more likely by his advisors and supporters)... Oh, I think it's quite possible they believed there *may* be something there, but they also knew that even if they'd find nothing, there would be little risk in saying stuff like "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat" just before the war. If they say stuff like that, and then nothing is found after the war, I find it very hard to believe they weren't just intentionally saying what they wanted to say, never mind about the truth.

So Saddam shipped all his WMD to Syria, eh? Probably also killed all those involved in any way so they couldn't talk (not that I'd find that hard to believe about Saddam)? So when do you recon US will attack Syria, then?

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Glock27]

Hey there meta-monkey!

I didn't manage to read as many posts as I would have liked Sunday, and I just wanted to say that both this post and your last one up the tree (heh, meta-monkey, tree - it is 5:30 AM after all;) deserved to be modded way up.

Bush may (or may not) have all kinds of problems as a politician and/or human being, but you have to love his audacity, and his policies.

I voted for him primarily since I didn't want a tax-and-spend Democrat in power (let's not talk about the deficits *sigh*), but after 9/11 I've become a fan, I have to admit.

Have a good one!

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also what passes in these parts for an "old fart".

Excellent post, I hope you come by one last time to check replies... :-)

As they say, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Your post deserved a +5 Insightful. I remember my biggest worry growing up in the 60's was the U.S. getting nuked. I honestly didn't think I'd live to see 2000.

The world is a much safer place than it was in those days, at least from the standpoint of a massive nuclear exchange. The new developments in bioweapons look very nasty though...

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[meta-monkey]

Yes, Bush looks like an ass now, and the reputation of the U.S. with foreign countries has suffered seriously. Unless those WMD are found, the war was not a good thing for Bush. I think that, given all the alternative possibilities, the possibility that "Bush lied" is the least likely. No, I don't like Bush. I didn't like Clinton. Honestly, I don't think I've liked a president since Jefferson. However, I give everybody a fair shake. I'll condemn Bush for the dumb stuff he does wrong, and I'll praise him for the stuff he does right, and for the stuff in between, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I think it remains to be seen whether "Bush lied" or not, so I'll withhold judgement. Yes, he could have lied, but given all the other possible scenarios, it's a big leap to jump to that conclusion.

Now, I told you I was against the war before the bombs fell. I didn't buy any of the right's excusing for going to war, but I also didn't buy any of the left's excuses for not going to war. The left says it's about oil (bull shit...there are way cheaper and easier ways to get oil), enriching Haliburton (ummm....why not just give them a $2 billion contract building a bridge or something here in the states?), or getting revenge for Daddy (wait, let me guess...somebody just took a psych class in night school, right?). The right says it's to stop Saddam from using WMD on us (highly, highly unlikely, as while Saddam is evil, he doesn't have a death wish), because Saddam is evil (yeah, but it's not my problem...) and because he ignores the U.N. (everybody ignores the U.N. The U.N. ignores the U.N. Let France deal with it). However, I believe the administration really felt it was their place to right (some of) the wrongs of this world, and that's why we went to war. So, if that's the case...why lie? Why did Bush go to war, if he didn't really know about the WMD?

Yeah, I can definitely believe Saddam shipped some stuff across the unguarded and unwatched border into Syria. He might have killed those involved...or just not told them what they were shipping. If that's the case, you might not want to plan a vacation in Syria next Spring.

Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)

[js7a]

The first hit in google with "iraq wmd lies" is [ http://billmon.org.v.sabren.com/archives/000172.ht ml ....] Are those quotes forged or real?

They are real, but not the whole story. Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?

• 2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.

• 11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."

• 11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."

• 22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."

• 24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

• 17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."

• 7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[theycallmeB]

Well not that the US would consider it in anyway, the ICC treaty specifically bans prosecution for crimes comitted before its ratification date.

I won't even get started about your statement about world respect other than to say it went out the window long before we thumbed our noses at most of the world and invaded Iraq. That just made the world mad.

It's official...

[Munra]

It's official... Osama Bin Laden has been declared World Hide and Seek champion ;O)

Manta

Re:It's official...

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on out so we can give you the 'award'.

Re:It's official...

[fieldcomm]

Osama bin Laden proclaimed new World Hide and Seek Champion
Dateline: Baghdad

President Saddam Husein has just been tagged by the "Its" of the US led coalition forces in Iraq. After counting to 50, the US stocked around the country, searching palaces and buildings for the Iraqi champion of hide and seek, who, for decades has hidden from sight, except for occasional "Marco-Polo" messages--an Arab variation of our traditional "Hide and Seek" rules.

It looked, in the beginning of this match, as if bin Laden was going to go out first, as his various favourite hiding spots were picked out by the US one by one. However, every time the US lifted the cloth covering to one of the caves, Osama was no where in sight.

"I can't believe that we got Saddam first, " said Gaming Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "I mean, Osama has more places to hid, 'cause Saddam is in the middle of the desert. Yet, Saddam kept switching hiding spots, which is so, like, cheating." The US tried to enlist the support of others in this 'It' campaign against Saddam, stating that the dictator would use WMD (Weapons of Mass Distraction). However, the international gaming community saw the American request as a violation of the rules.

"I really think, too, that the US should have counted to 100. 50 is just not the way things are done, and it violates many international agreements, and the mandate of the UN Security Council. After Hitler only counted to 25, there was an international mandate for "100 Mississippi"'s--that is in the "Geneva Convention," said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

However, in the end, bin Laden held out longer, as the US tagged Husein in an underground cavern measuring 6 by 8 feet.

Rumsfeld commented: "I remembered this one time my friend Jimmy was hiding under the porch, and I saw him laying down there, and I said "That's where Saddam is hiding!". It is much better this time, too, because after I found Jimmy, play time was over, and I had to go back to work at Halliburton. Now, I can stay out and play in Iraq after the street lights come on."

Reporters tried to reach bin Laden for comment on his win, but he was no where to be found. US President Bush commented: "It is time for all of us to live in peace. It is time for the US to bring freedom to the world. It is time for us to call 'Ali, Ali oxen free' and bring these terrorist to justice."

Commenting on the way the game was played, he said: "Here in America, tag is played in plain sight, which much running and pushing. This is just the true, free, violent American way, where the winner it he with the longest reach. This game of hiding is just not what God intended."

Re:It's official...

[Limburgher]

Looks like he's studied How Not to Be Seen. :)

Re:It's official...

[justins]

I hate campers, I honestly do.

Re:It's official...

[Kirth]

No actually, because the USA cheated -- they had the chance to get him and let him go, since Pakistan did not want their secret agents to be shot.. And besides, the Ex(?)-CIA-Agent Bin Laden is much more useful as a "Madman running free".
--

Caputre him and more join the resistance

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone hates the Americans but nobody wanted Saddam to come back.

Now that that can't happen the ordinary Shiite and Kurd can rise up and fight without fear of inadvertantly helping Saddam.

Plus now protestors and anti-imperialism activists can't be slandered with "Saddam Lover" and other infantile crap.

In all this is a victory in the fight to establish a real national liberation movement in Iraq.

He looks...

[Frodo420024]

...a lot like Wolverine now, doesn't he? Must've had a tough time since April :)

Too early to help Bush

[TheRealStyro]

This event is really too early to help Bush in any significant manner. If this were to happen in August/September or 2004, then it would be much different. This should be forgotten by the time the debates start, and should not be used by Bush.

The best thing the nine democrat candidates can do is to express relief, and to push for an international criminal court to try Saddam. In the meantime they should present a common voice that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, Osama and terrorism. Saddam acted agressively toward invading neighboring counries, and tortured and killed many Iraqi citizens, but he had nothing to do with 9/11, Osama and terrorism. Rinse, lather and repeat...

Re:Too early to help Bush

[Nate B.]

Perhaps you are correct. However, it may have been possible that if Saddam isn't captured until after the party conventions and the situation in Iraq continues as it has been for the past few months, then even the capture of Saddam would not do anything for Bush's re-election bid. We will never know, of course.

You are correct in the assessment that the Democrats can only express relief and support and then probably make bin Laden the issue. Right now, though I think that Saddam's capture has stolen much of their thunder.

It should be an interesting political show!

Re:New Zealand?! Pro-war?!

[BTWR]

Damn. I lost "tehanu"'s respect! Oh no!

slashdot wants to know how the 4th did it.

[nounderscores]

A more slashdot-style story will come out when they declassify how the 4th captured saddam. The 4th is known as the wired division as they are using more experimental warfighting techniques and information technology than the 3rd (who are more traditional).

the press confrence had the general state that it was a "great piece of analytical work" to process the intel and get the third to move out in less than an hour and a half.

Oh how I wish they'd tell us the details.

Iraqi and Iranese reelect Bush !

[Jesrad]

If you're Iraqi or Iranese, you have some serious reason to vote for Bush in 2004 !

When will our Jack Ruby show up here ?!?

[goodbot]

We can't let this guy (whether he's really Saddam or just one of those several look-alikes) actually live... Comm'on!! For Christ sakes, we still haven't found any god damn Weapons of Mass Destruction... If this gut is REALLY Saddam... shit... he stands a good chance of suing the US in front of the Euro-centric "world" court... and aren't we (the USA over here) paying enough for our mistakes over there already !?! Damn!! We need to orchestrate an "incident" where a brave/heroic New Iraqie Democratic Patriot makes his way through the crushing crowds of world reporters (preferably, broadcast live during prime time East Coast US TV viewing hours) then confronts Saddam directly... and shoots him dead.

Hmmm... do you think the Europeans will buy it ? That they'll accept the inevitable "lone gunman" conclusions of their own "world court" Warren Commission ?

Hmmmm...

Re:When will our Jack Ruby show up here ?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... do you think the Europeans will buy it ?

Who the fuck gives a shit what the Euro-weenies think? They are yesterday's powers still trying to hang on to whatever they can of their national reason for being.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[torpor]

The reason America objects to the ICC is that Cheney, Bush Sr., Powell, and half of the current administration would be called up to be prosecuted for war crimes they committed during Gulf War One...

"The Highway of Death" incident comes immediately to mind, but there are other crimes which Powell and co. are responsible for ...

Is it a double?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there nobody here who doubts it is really Saddam? I mean, how much doubles was this man rumoured to have? It seems to be the most logical approach to be not found: make them stop searching for you.....

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[torpor]

The reason the US opposes the ICC is not because 'US soldiers dont get safety', its because there are existing ICC court orders regarding certain war crimes which the current administration are guilty of committing ...

American propaganda about the ICC *never* includes the small item about Cheney being immediately subject to war crimes prosecution, were the US to ratify the ICC...

Boy this is great news

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Now we can be rest assured this guy won't come to power again. I can't imagine a better day for our armed forces short of the day they all go home. Good job guys!

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[thelaw]

in my view, it would be better for iraq's future to try hussein under a new iraqi government. this would help establish parameters for justice under the new system.

consider that hussein's crimes are not really crimes against humanity in the way the Holocaust was. they were crimes primarily against his own people, and also against iranians. it should be his own people (or a subset thereof) that try him, not some european judges wearing wigs.

summary:
1) health of the new iraq
2) jurisdiction

jon

WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sorry, but there are very few reason that terrorism should be an allowed thing, in terms of moral rights. For example, terrorism against the Nazi regieme (back in WW2), and when only attacking the Nazi regieme and no the general German population, might of been OK.

Problem is, that today, there are no such cases in the world where terrorism can be justified. Even the Israel/Palenstine fights, don't believe what they say on TV that it is about land, thats BS, its about a religious war of Muslim Extremists against Jews.

War on terror is removing these people that put human life of children and women somwhere lower on the scale then it should be. Parents being happy that their children are 'Shahidim' (heroic homocide bombers).

Re:WRONG

[arevos]

You've missed the point entirely.

Re:WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

If the war on terror involved removing people who put women and children somewhere lower than they should be we'd have to call for an immediate dismissal of Congress, Bush and his Cabinet. After all, they're the ones trying to sell the notion that removing the rights of women and children and just about everyone else back home is needful so that we can kill women and children and everyone else abroad. The US used to stand for something, now it only stands for what the terrorists defined it as. Good job!

Re:WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, terrorism against the Nazi regieme (back in WW2), and when only attacking the Nazi regieme and no the general German population, might of been OK.

First of all, it's "might have," you illiterate buffoon.

Furthermore, you evidently fail to understand the meaning of the word. Terrorism is defined as an act in which violence is directed against civilians. It's not possible to attack a military or regime target with an act of terrorism, because by definition an attack against such a target is not terrorism.

If we're going to discuss terrorism here, let's at least all pull out our mother-fucking dictionaries and comprehend the term.

Re:Wrong

[anno1a]

"So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power? All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built"

Uhm... Didn't Sadam comply? The weapon inspectors were in Iraq, being compied fully with, when USA decided Saddam had to go.
Other than that, the weapons were supposed to be launchable within 45 minutes or so at any given moment, so they can't have been buried that deeply. Why didn't Sadam use all those dangerous weapons when they were finally invaded?

Re:Wrong

[DeepSpace]

Technically, the 1991 war remained a cease-fire, a truce which Iraq violated by firing on US patrols during said cease-fire. This invoked the US's right to resume hotilities.

It was WMD, not violations, bush said so,

Furthermore, Iraq was in violation of about 2 dozen UN resolutions.
Then US should bomb israel first(?!)

Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.

WMD and WMD facility is more like pyramid

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than that, the weapons were supposed to be launchable within 45 minutes or so at any given moment, so they can't have been buried that deeply. Why didn't Sadam use all those dangerous weapons when they were finally invaded?

Shhhhhh, the right wing hates it when you shine a light on the lies.

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power? All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built woth the Iraqi people's money, and still torturing and killing dissenters.

Well, there's always the theory that he was bluffing - that if he admitted to not having WMDs, he'd risk being thrown out by the Iraqis, and he wagered that they were more likely to do it than the US was

Re:Wrong

[localman]

All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces

Funny, that's what I thought was happening. And in fact, every country in the world who was observing the situation (except for America and Britain) believed he was complying. He may not have been particularly polite about it, but the inspectors were there going through his country for months.

Then Bush said "prove you have no weapons", which is logically impossible, and that was our justification for war.

I'm not even saying that ousting Saddam was a bad thing. But the fact remains we went to war under false pretenses, and that is a very very very dangerous precedent. If the ends justify the means in this case we are taking a step closer to being a rogue nation -- the likes of which we have so often criticized and fought in the past.

Cheers.

Re:Wrong

[TC (WC)]

So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power?

Well, the fact that there were foreign spies in the teams that were using it as an opportunity to gather intellegence unrelated to the inspections seemed to be a pretty good reason...

Re:Wrong

[jafac]

Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.

The difference is - the people who supposedly buried them are ALIVE TODAY, and it is (should be, if Bush had comitted enough troops) a trivial matter to get these people into custody and question them. And the documentation behind their orders is all sitting in buildings we supposedly control.

If we have not found ANY trace of WMD by now - then there just plain are none.

Re:Wrong

[iconian]

Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.

I'll be interested to learn what Saddam has to say on the matter after intense interrogation.

To the best of my knowledge, Egyptian mummies and their relatives and friends and children and grandchildren and great grandchildren have been long dead and clues to the location of these artifacts died with them. That is the reason we are still finding things in Egypt. People who know the location of the WMDs are still alive. If we don't find anything within the next 10 years, it's unlikely that we'll find anything at all.

All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built woth the Iraqi people's money, and still torturing and killing dissenters.

Let's say that the IRS accuses you of tax evasion. You initially decided to cooporate because you have the proverbial nothing-to-hide. They decided to search your house of receipts, inquire into your book report grades, medical records, drug-use, and sexual activites. You then decided that you did not want to cooporate anymore so you get a lawyer. This sort of thing happens all the time and you have talking heads in the media always saying: "Well, if she had nothing to hide, she would have cooperated". Can someone really say that you are guilty because you stopped cooperating with the authorities? Putting on my tin-foil hat, it is in the interest of the authorities, who cannot find evidence of wrong-doing but still suspects you of wrong-doing, to get you to stop cooperating. According to Scott Ritter, former-UN weapons inspector who gave a talk at my school a while back, this was one of the scenarios:

U.N. Weapons Inspector: We need a place to look. What does your satellite recon-photos say?
U.S. Intelligence: Check the Baath party house.

U.N. weapons inspector checked and found nothing. One week later...

U.N. Weapons Inspector: We need a place to look. Suggestions?
U.S. Intelligence: Check the Baath party house again. I think there's something there.

U.N. weapons inspector checked but met with some mild resistance. They found nothing. Two weeks later...

U.N. Weapons Inspector: Leads?
U.S. Intelligence: Check the Baath party house again. I'm pretty sure there's something there.

U.N. Weapons Inspector approached the Baath party home of Saddam. They were refused entrance.

Scott Ritter said that the U.N. Weapons inspector was a tool of the U.S. designed to fail.

To those of you who believe that there are WMDs in Iraq, what kind of evidence you like to see to that would convince you otherwise? If there is no set of evidence that would disprove your belief, then your argument is based strictly on faith.

With all that said, any points about WMD are really moot points. US is in Iraq now. Those of you on the left who think we should withdraw immediately, that is a mistake. If we do so, the region will end up a bigger mess than when we entered.

Re:Wrong

[ahillen]

So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power?

Pride? I think one should never underestimate the importance 'pride' is playing in Arab culture (though I have to admit I'm absolutely no expert in this matter...). A picture of standing there 'with your underpants down' and being searched by the US or the UN surely is not something a self-declared pan-arabian leader is keen to present, even if you have nothing to hide.

Finding WMDs in Iraq surely is a demanding task, but I think the comparison with Egyptian mummies is a bit far fetched. If these weapons existed, they must have been produced,handled, researched on, stored and finally being hid in the last 10-15 years. It would be strange if they managed to destroy really every trace of them. There should be people alive who now. There must have been offices, documents of the Iraqi government (dictatorships are usually quite good in bureaucracy...) Of course, the fact that nothing was found doesn't really prove much. But the discrepancy between before the war (all this 'evidence' shown to the UN security council, which should prove how much the US knows about the Iraqi weapons program, all this sites were one was sure that they were used for research etc.) and after the war (nothing) is really very ... strang.

Re:Wrong

[Decameron81]

Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.

What do egyptian mummies have to do with Saddam? Was that a joke? So you're saying that even tho the US has ZERO evidence about those weapons, nobody can point that out to them?

I agreed with the decision to attack him... but I still think that the weapons excuse was just that, an excuse. Bush needed to show the strength of the USA after the 11th september attack, and all of America was so angry about it as to push really hard for the attack. There are other countries in the world that are trying to react in similar ways to terrorism but find themselves completely blocked by decisions made by the US or the UN. That is what's wrong about USA. But hey, terrorism hurts more when it's closer to home, doesn't it?

Diego Rey

Re:Wrong

[betat]

"So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power? All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built woth the Iraqi people's money, and still torturing and killing dissenters."

I speculate that one of the reasons would be pride.

Imagine how you would feel if your house was being raided daily by strangers inspecting every inch of your house and taking pictures and stuff. How long would you be able to tolerate it?

Now imagine how long someone who has been living like a king most of his life would tolerate it. And, if kicking inspectors out his palaces would not necessarily instantly incite a war or some similarly bad consequence for him, why not do it. Of course we have seen that eventually his decision was a bad one but if you look at it, it probably was an attractive, if only for a short term, course of action.

But, anyway, like I said, I'm only speculating.

Re:Wrong

[wondafucka]

"So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power? All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built woth the Iraqi people's money, and still torturing and killing dissenters."

It's simple. The US has proven themselves multiple times to be complete dicks. They lie, spy, and try and set up insurrections or assasinations.

I love so many aspects about America and freedom, it makes me so mad when our leaders do something to make me ashamed of this country. I'm not excusing SH for acting the way he did, but if the US was bullying me, I would definitely fuck with their heads.

From here on when discussing Iraq and Terrorism, I want to take a center line. Yes, we are doing the right thing and are heroes. No, we are doing the wrong thing because we are not admitting to how much of US action helped create this situation in the first place. US citizens who criticize the US are just as big patriots as those who love the country no matter what.

Re:Wrong

[Colazar]

"So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power?"

The reports I've heard suggest that Saddam wanted us to believe that he still had WMD, because he thought that the only reason we hadn't attacked him was that we were afraid of his WMD.

Obviously, he was wrong. He was thinking like a bully, and not a diplomat. But, you know, it was being a bully that had kept him in power for so long, so what do you expect.

Re:Wrong

[rick446]

Technically, the 1991 war remained a cease-fire, a truce which Iraq violated by firing on US patrols during said cease-fire. This invoked the US's right to resume hotilities.

Actually, the "US patrols" themselves were of dubious legality. They certainly weren't part of any Security Council resolution or noted in the cease-fire.

Furthermore, Iraq was in violation of about 2 dozen UN resolutions.

So is Israel. But we don't care. If fact, we do more than "not care." We give them half our foreign aid budget. Because we don't, in the end, care about the UN or multilateralism. We ignore the UN because we, as the last remaining superpower, can.

Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.

...And they will be completely unusable, as any remaining weapons which may be out there almost certainly are. These things lose potency over time and must be maintained. If they are not maintained, they are unusable, and maintenance takes facilities, and such facilities are not that hard to find, especially when you have free reign over the country.

So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power? All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built woth the Iraqi people's money, and still torturing and killing dissenters.

Sorry for the side trip to the 80's, but NOT . Saddam didn't "throw out" the inspectors. They were withdrawn for their own safety due to impending US/British invasion. Or did it escape you that the weapons inspectors were asking for more time, and everyone except for the US and Britain wanted to give it to them? The inspectors were given less than 4 months in Iraq to find weapons that we, in over 7 months since "major combat" ended, have been unable to find ourselves. That says one of two things: either we jumped the gun because we didn't really understand how hard it is to inspect Iraq, or there really aren't weapons there.

Re:Wrong

[h4x0r-3l337]

Furthermore, Iraq was in violation of about 2 dozen UN resolutions.

So are other countries. When will the U.S. invade and liberate Israel?

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

>I'll be interested to learn what Saddam has to say >on the matter after intense interrogation.

do you mean torture ?

Re:Wrong

[OSgod]

and that's the same Scott Ritter who has twice now been picked up by local police for attempting to meet children he's met on the Internet for liasons.... Living in his hometown it's great to have such a sterling citizen to sully it's name...

At one time Scott sounded "normal, sane" ... then he changed his tune dramatically to ultra left wing... then a year or two after his return from Iraq he attempts to meet two sepearte young ladies (under 16... as in statutory rape) he met on the Internet (two different events, separted by more than a year). Each time he's picked up by the local police department -- it's hushed up until it comes out.

Those who believe in conspiracy theories amongst us may start to wonder -- what was Scott doing in Iraq? Perhaps developing a sexual taste for children? Was that leverage to make him change his "view" so dramatically?

In the end it's hard to take what he says seriously as he's pretty much corrupted himself and his cause.

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Your story doesn't QUITE fit together. If weapons inspectors were so close to blowing the whole gig, why didn't we just go to where the weapon inspectors were going to go and find the WMD? Well, we did go to those places, and haven't found a thing.

Re:Wrong

[ag0ny]

Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.

That would possibly be true IF the amount of resources used to search for those WMD were the same as the resources given to archeologists, which aren't. Your statement is false.

How much money has been spent (as of now) on this war? Around $80 billion, if I recall correctly. Give that money to a university on the condition that they will use that money to excavate the desert, and in a few months you'd find all the sand removed, all the archeological sites and tombs discovered, digged, catalogued and restored. Oh, and you'd find also a few museums right there, and the scientific community and the egyptians would be making big bucks by filming documentaries for the National Geographic...

Re:Wrong

[MisterMook]

So the region is a big mess and we're not getting blown up in the streets while we shop for sodas....this is our problem why? Maybe if the whole region is so messed up that they're in a major land war amongst themselves they'll stop being so pissed off at us. Sounds win-win to me, unless you're an agent of Haliburton.

Re:Wrong

[StarTux]

"To the best of my knowledge, Egyptian mummies and their relatives and friends and children and grandchildren and great grandchildren have been long dead and clues to the location of these artifacts died with them. That is the reason we are still finding things in Egypt. People who know the location of the WMDs are still alive. If we don't find anything within the next 10 years, it's unlikely that we'll find anything at all."

Give the agents to one person and give them two weeks to get rid of them. Then kill that said person and everyone who is related to him, or is friends with him. Whats the chance of finding it then? Now that Saddam has been caught it will increase

I doubt he had a nuclear capability, especially after the Israeli's took out their nuclear capability, however biological or chemical agents could well have been hidden.

But, last thought...If he had remained in power, if the UN lifted sanctions, signed a peace treaty, would Saddam not have then begun to stockpile and to develop nuclear capabilities? Of course we will never know.

"According to Scott Ritter, former-UN weapons inspector who gave a talk at my school a while back."

Would be interesting if he could have imagined being sent by the League of Nations to Germany in 1935 to check on how well Germany was abiding Versailles treaty? Yes they would have seen a buildup of planes and pilots, but they would have explained it was for Lufthansa (many of the planes, like the He 111 were placed into passenger service). Imagine if the League of Nations had teeth, Germany got invaded and Hitler removed in 1936? WW2 would most likely have been avoided, Japan would probably be like N Korea is today, and people would still be arguing that it was the wrong thing to do, that there was no evidence that Hitler was re-arming, all he was doing was building up his civilian passenger fleet. Of course there are vast differences, but still similarities :).

They are all moot points and pointless

Re:Wrong

[glesga_kiss]

Technically, the 1991 war remained a cease-fire, a truce which Iraq violated by firing on US patrols during said cease-fire. This invoked the US's right to resume hotilities.

"They started it!!". How lame. Besides, I think you'd probably find that we fired first. We've been bombing them almost non-stop for the past 10 years. Just 'cos it ain't on CNN doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

Furthermore, Iraq was in violation of about 2 dozen UN resolutions.

Cool. If we are going on UN resolution violations, I take it Israel is next? Didn't think so...

I'll be interested to learn what Saddam has to say on the matter after intense interrogation.

You mean torture? Oh wait, that's a cultural thing. It's not torture if you don't draw blood apparently. Sleep deprivation and phy-opps you call it, eh?

So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power?

Because the American ones seemed more interested in Saddam's movements than WMD. And seeing as you've actively been trying to assassinate him for the past 10 years, I'd say that was good reason to get pissed. Imagine the US outrage if Saddam were to take a pot-shot at Bush!

All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built woth the Iraqi people's money, and still torturing and killing dissenters.

No, he'd be dead, due to a precission guided bomb, sent using inteligence by the US members of the inspection team, who were pretty likely CIA. And that was the good thing about Saddam...predictability. He will do anything he can to stay in power. Simple as that.

Re:Wrong

[mre5565]

Let's say that the IRS accuses you of tax evasion. You initially decided to cooporate because you have the proverbial nothing-to-hide. They decided to search your house of receipts, inquire into your book report grades, medical records, drug-use, and sexual activites. You then decided that you did not want to cooporate anymore so you get a lawyer.

Absurd. There is no denying Iraq illegally invaded Kuwait. Whereas given the complexity of the US tax code, the the room for interpretation and confusion (both on the part of IRS and the taxpayer), its easy to presume innocence on the part of the accused. Saddam ceded his right to innocence when he invaded Kuwait, triggering a war that the US has yet to sign a treaty for. The war is still on. There's no analogy here. And this was modded to 5? Absurd.

According to Scott Ritter, former-UN weapons inspector who gave a talk at my school a while back [...]

Perhaps Ritter was at your school (probably an elementary school), to scope out underaged girls to rape.

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's try a different analogy, my Saddamite friend....

Say the Treasury Department is looking for counterfeiters.

They raid the house of someone who has claimed to have made fake bills.
They find: special ink used to print currency, large presses used to print currency, plenty of paper that is commonly used to simulate currency, and last, but not least, some plates that look an awful lot like currency plate. What didn't they find? Any counterfeit currency.

According to your logic, the Treasury Department has no business ever bothering this accused counterfeiter ever again. Nevermind that the explicit single-use materials for counterfeiting were abundant, he's as pure as the driven snow.

Stop lying to yourself.
Scott Ritter was bought and paid for with the blood of Iraqi citizens, debited from the generous accounts of the despot Hussein.
Shame on him, and shame on you.

Re:Wrong

[pirhana]

>>Technically, the 1991 war remained a cease-fire, a truce which Iraq violated by firing on US patrols during said cease-fire. This invoked the US's right to resume hotilities

But that was not the STATED reason for going war. The stated reasons were WMD, Iraq-Al-Qaida relation and relation with 9/11. None of these have been proven right. In fact it has become clear that these were false.

>>Furthermore, Iraq was in violation of about 2 dozen UN resolutions.

What about Israel ? they are breaching far more. Will US do ANYTHING for that matter?

>> Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.

Then why the same logic was not applied to UN inspection team ? why is it that UN team is supposed to find the WMD in a short time and US has to be given 250 years for the same.?

Re:Wrong

[ConorK]

So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power?

Saddam *didn't* throw the inspectors out, George W. Bush did. Bush is the one who advised the inspectors to leave as he was about to start bombing and didn't want to kill them.

Saddam did not throw them out. To suggest otherwise is wrong. The weapons inspectors were reporting *good* co-operation from Iraq right before the war.

This notion of Saddam throwing them out is a falsehood that even Bush himself has tried to keep alive, but the fact is that if you go to your local library and look at a newspaper from earliers this year you will see that there were weapons inspectors in Iraq right up until the outbreak of fresh hostilities.

Re: Wrong

[Black Parrot]

> So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power?

Saddam didn't throw out the inspectors. The UN withdrew them a few years back when the USA and friends unilaterally decided that a bit of bombing would help things along, and after getting them back in, withdrew them again this year when the USA and friends unilaterally decided to remove the regime by force.

I find it very troubling that supporters of the war are still so poorly informed of what was going on with that, even at this late date.

As for cheerful cooperation, imagine what your country would do if a coalition of foreigners imposed inspections on you, demanded instant access to any site in the country without qualification, and backed up the intrusion with the threat of bombings. Especially after public revelation that earlier inspections had included a spy for your enimies among the inspectors.

Despite this, the Iraqis were cooperating, surly though they were about it. Surely you saw their missiles being crushed by the inspectors' bulldozers mere days before the invasion?

What we're seeing here is a manufactured excuse for a war, by a regime that's too stupid to stage an old-fashioned 'incident' to justify it.

Re: Wrong

[Black Parrot]

> With all that said, any points about WMD are really moot points. US is in Iraq now. Those of you on the left who think we should withdraw immediately, that is a mistake. If we do so, the region will end up a bigger mess than when we entered.

And of course, that's what's going to happen when we leave anyway... but if we don't leave, those who suspected our motives will be all the more assured that we aren't there for the stated reasons.

We've set ourselves up with a tiger-by-the-tail scenario. An that is as good an argument for the folly of the invasion as the lack of WMD is.

Re: Wrong

[Black Parrot]

> If we have not found ANY trace of WMD by now - then there just plain are none.

Worse yet, the US intelligence community was not willing to commit to an unqualified 'yes' even before the shooting started. For that reason it was clear to some of us, even then, that this was a simple case of 'scumming' the evidence to find support for the invasion.

I am against the war because it was undertaken on false pretexts. The continual redefinition of the mission since then does nothing to change my mind.

Formula

[too_bad]

Probability of finding saddam was inversely proportional to the
time left until the next election.

So this was not a very unexpected outcome!!

Re:Saddam ...

[p0rnking]

And what will they charge Saddam with?
The whole reason why the US invaded Iraq is because of "Weapons of Mass Destruction", which to this day, have yet to be found.

Re:Good. Period.

[Anonymous Coward]

centuries? Uhh... weren't the british in iraq long before saddam in the 1930s? I dont call 50 years 'centuries'

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[torpor]

would use the ICC to bring frivilous charges against various officials in the US.


Ermm... "The Highway of Death" incident, for which Powell, Cheney, Wolfowitz and more are all guilty, is not a frivolous charge. These men *did* commit war crimes, per the international definition, and they *must* be brought to justice.

The only reason the US objects to the ICC is because there is no immunity for these people, whose crimes are well documented outside of the US propaganda machine...

Worth mentioning...

[Snaller]

...but not worth spelling correctly apparently.

Hold your horses, pard!

[bluethundr]

The DNA tests are not in..YET! And I do mean YET!

But I really wish they had the results before they went public. Suppose for a moment that it's NOT him. That it's one of the body doubles surgically altered to look like Saddam. Do you really think Bush is gonna step up to the bully pulpit and say "Oops!"?

Re:Hold your horses, pard!

[sethstorm]

Most likely, they'll take a lesson from Wall St. - pump him for info, and dump him in a shallow grave when the public looks the other way.

Re:Hold your horses, pard!

[soccerisgod]

Did it ever occur to you that it doesn't matter one bit if he's actually the former ruler of iraq or some $rand actor? I mean, as long as nobody finds out...

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Keebler71]

War is not pretty. Your so-called highway of death occurred before the end of hostilities. How in any way is it a war crime to allow an army to retreat or regroup (and how do you differentiate between the two?)

Suprise role in LotR?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or does he look, with that beard, EXACTLY like Gandalf from LotR?

Maybe have him as a suprise walk-on?

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson:

[DrEldarion]

USA! USA! USA!

They shaved Saddam

[Scrameustache]

Even without explicitly arranging things to transport a certain message, cameras lie by choosing angles and avoiding others.

They shaved his beard and dyed his mustache!
I'd certainly call that "arranging things".

It was a big beard too...I guess they didn't want him to look like Santa so close to Xmas.

How Saddam's being treated,( Re:who cares?)

[Anonymous Coward]

With Saddam Hussain being put on display in a humiliative fashion - him playing the role of a broken man whose two sons have been killed by the very forces that now have control of his life - this might anger those who lead these assaults even more.

But the Coalition forces aren't completly humiliating him (Based on 30 minutes of news radio while making pancakes). He's not blindfolded and shackled. They gave him a medical exam and a shave and a haircut. He's being shown as meek and cooperating. Regardless of the truth of the situation, he is being shown in such a way as to dis-illusion the remaining resistance.

Or at least one can hope.

It will be interesting to see how the US stage-manages this. Clothes will be interesting. I expect to see him in nice, comfortable, western clothes.

We are sincerely hoping that you will vote their asses out of office next time and elect somebody with a finer understanding of the world...

Unfortunately, the events of the last 24 hours don't make this very likely.

-- ac at home

Hooah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell yeah folks! You can practically hear the left-wing gnashing of teeth going on, not to mention the collective "oh sh--" that came from Iran, Syria, and a host of other countries in the region.

Good job military!

Lies, Lies, and more Lies...

[Anonymous Coward]

==
The US government DID invade a soveriegn nation. It did so without international support. It did so in violation of international law. The means, especially in this case, do not justify the ends.
==

1. It had international support; France, Germany, and Russia do not constitute "International"

2. It did not violate International Law, that is almost laughable. It went in under the original agreement of cease fire through which the first Gulf War was stopped. Picking nits, no UN Security Council Resolution that passed opposed it.

So, play your little ignorance game, its far far easy to do as you don't provide any links to real news sites to back it up.

Re:Lies, Lies, and more Lies...

[Scudsucker]

1. It had international support; France, Germany, and Russia do not constitute "International"

Neither does England, for that matter.

2. It did not violate International Law, that is almost laughable. It went in under the original agreement of cease fire through which the first Gulf War was stopped.

Uh huh. We're going to punish Saddam for ignoring U.N. resolutions, but to do so we ignore the U.N. No, thats not contradictory at all...

Picking nits, no UN Security Council Resolution that passed opposed it.

And how is any such resolution going to pass, when either the United States or Britain could veto it? How stupid are you?

So, play your little ignorance game, its far far easy to do as you don't provide any links to real news sites to back it up.

Go ahead and play your apologist game, since no amount of facts will beat the truth through your thick skull.

Right !

[Jesrad]

The people of Iraq should reelect Bush in 2004 ! He did so much for them !

Quick...

[attonitus]

Where's Jack Ruby?

NEWS BREAK

[bruthasj]

The military medical examiner found all traces of WMD left in the beard of the man that started all. Thank you, and good night.

oh come on

[wrinkledshirt]

This is important if for no other reason than that we have a concept of justice, that people should pay for their crimes.

Funny -- in my view justice isn't being served here. The crimes that this man is responsible for went unpunished (and, in fact, were given the unofficial okay) at the time they were carried out.

This man is paying for Bin Laden's crimes. The war started with 9/11 and took a major (albeit preplanned) detour here.

Re:oh come on

[forgotmypassword]

Funny -- in my view justice isn't being served here. The crimes that this man is responsible for went unpunished (and, in fact, were given the unofficial okay) at the time they were carried out.

As if being consistent is more important than human life!

I keep hearing this argument, and I don't think that I will ever understand it.

Re:oh come on

[wrinkledshirt]

I agree that human life is important. That's why the United States should never gotten into bed with this guy in the first place.

This article is a lie!

[Mohammed Al-Sahaf]

Today the victorious Iraqi forces stormed the White House and arrested the tyrant war criminal Bush. Now we have apprehended the leader of the international criminal gang of bastards, we will be sure to bring him to trial for his war crimes.

The imperialist U.S. and British forces are like a snake that slithers all over the place but that doesn't control anything! Do not believe the lies, my friend! They are lying every day. They are lying always, and mainly they are lying to their public opinion.

Re:This article is a lie!

[Anonymous Coward]

your wrong my little muslim friend, americans are not snakes, we're just inrested in ourselves and our economy, we're going to americanize iraq now and get heavily discounted oil. wars are either fought for religion or business prospects. its business for us, dont take it personally.

Re:This article is a lie!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, Baghdad Bob! How you will be missed!
Thy humor beyond compare, yet thy info was amiss.

Re:This article is a lie!

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? +4 insightful????! Geez, the moderators are really sucking today. That is FUNNY, not INSIGHTFUL because its NOT TRUE!!!!

Re:This article is a lie!

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful my ass.

Re:This article is a lie!

[Anonymous Coward]

And why should we listen to you? You're probably one of these Americans whose lies Al-Sahaf was just warning us about.

Re:This article is a lie!

[Richard M. Nixon]

Oh, Baghdad Bob! How you will be missed!

When it is time for them to die, he will be killed last.

Re:This article is a lie!

[Richard M. Nixon]

we're going to americanize iraq now and get heavily discounted oil.

Too bad we've already spent more money on the military venture than all of the oil in Iraq is worth.

This would not have happened if a real conservative like myself was in charge of the Iraq war. That George W Bush is a liberal who spends way too much money. Conservatives fight wars for less!

Desert Combat MOD

[Anonymous Coward]

How long till we get the "Capture Saddam" level for Desert Combat.

Also gotta love th ename "Operation Red Dawn" and the teams being named Wolverine 1&2

Re:Desert Combat MOD

[Anonymous Coward]

Instant flop

You know you're a real geek...

[katpurz]

...when you find out news like this from Slashdot! hehehehe

US War Crimes.

[torpor]

You're right, the US is faaaaar from innocent.

Far, far from innocent.

WMDs

[fuck_this_shit]

Oh, so tomorrow he can lead Bremer and a CNN team to those enormous WMD stashes which were such a huge threat to the US and the cause for war with Iraq? I'll start holding my breath right this second!

Re:WMDs

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'll start holding my breath right this second!"

Good!!! You'll be dead by tomorrow!!

Re:WMDs

[fuck_this_shit]

I'm already a zombie, no further harm will come to me.

Good News...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is of course good news. (Of course if they didn't make this up, too.)

But it's also good to see that $87 billion being put to good use, aside from overpaying Halliburton for gas. How many plasma screen TVs did our tax dollars buy Iraq?

Can we arrest his business partners too please?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you people in the land of the free are allowed to see it, but theres some great TV footage of saddam shaking hands with his business partner Donald Rumsfeld years ago, before Donny sold him Anthrax.
Surely this evil mans associates should be hunted down next? should be easy to find mr rumsfeld.

THANK YOU AMERICA!!!

[superangrybrit]

Thank you President Bush!

Re:THANK YOU AMERICA!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for understanding.

pictures and pictures

[Knights who say 'INT]

Is it just me or world-class third-world poorhole dictator mr. Sat^Hddam looks really simmilar to world-class purist-annoying camera-loving tenor singer Luciano Pavarotti?

See here and here.

Really, couldn't this have been set up by an orthodox italian opera singer?

We're more on the same side than you may think.

[Anonymous Coward]

The US manufactured Saddam to what he was in his height of power, now we are paying the price (thank you REAGAN, you fucking idiot). Saddam's crimes are megar compared to other dictators, yet he is a recent target given his proximity to Israel and his oil reserves.

"Irak"?

[Kircle]

You know you're reading a slashdot comment when you see someone mentioning "Irak" :)

Re:"Irak"?

[JFMulder]

You know you're reading Slashdot that most of their readers only speak english and don't know that in french we write "Iraq" Irak. So I made a mistake, big deal. I'd like to see you write in french.

Re:"Irak"?

[Anonymous Coward]

French? God bless them in their cowardice and ignorance.

Re:"Irak"?

[f0rt0r]

We understand. Well, most of us. Just a few think English is the only language on the planet.

Re:"Irak"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Irak is an accepted English spelling.

Re:"Irak"?

[SETIGuy]

Like there's a "right" way to write it in this character set....

Re:"Irak"?

[Anonymous Coward]

the only french word that I know is "coward".

Re:"Irak"?

[Stray7Xi]

In "Iraq" they use arabic characters, so when we translate it to a Roman alphabet we just adopt a spelling based on the phonetics.

Since every language has a different set of phonetics, it gets spelled differently. I can't guess the justification of it being "Iraq" in english, since we have no phonetics.

Other times we make up names that have little to do with the original cultural names, which in fact happens most of the time.

Re:"Irak"?

[Datafage]

Well... I never learned French but I've gone at Spanish, Latin, Italian, and German, so I think I'm ahead of the game ;)

Re:"Irak"?

[Danny Rathjens]

I knew that 'Irak' was the french spelling because the Iraqi nuclear reactor that the French helped build and the israelis blew up was called 'osirak'. A combination of 'osiris', which was the name of the french reactor it was based on, and the french spelling of iraq.

Re:"Irak"?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also "Irak" in Dutch. So that'd be another 16 million people that spell it Irak. It's funny how the Grammar Police only know 1 language.

Re:"Irak"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see you write in french.

Je suis un fromage mangeant le singe de reddition

Re:"Irak"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see you write in french.

I don't have to. I'm from the United States of America. Our dialect of english is all I need to know. The rest of the world must convenience me, or I'll have all of you locked up in Git-mo where you belong.

Go surrender to someone, Frenchy. After Lafayette, you guys sure went downhill.

Forgetting one or two things

[Zygote-IC-]

China has nuclear weapons.
Iraq does not.
Much easier to invade a country and get rid of some assholes when they can't turn you or your major cities into a radioactive cinder.
Oh and then there's that thing about having a bajillion troops.
Just a few small points to remember.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Ubergrendle]

These are good points, but you have to remember how they can be interpreted. In this light, the US is a *bully*. It picks fights that it knows it can win. Its fighting because it can, not because its 'right' or the enemy is 'wrong'.

I will sleep better tonight knowing Saddam is arrested. I will hope for a better future for the Middle East. But my pragmatic side says the US will benefit from this more than Iraqi citizens, and that the zeal for human rights currently expressed by the US administration will not be extended to any other country.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't fighting wars that you can win called intelligence? A bully picks on innocents in a playground. Saddam was not some innocent kid the US picked on. He used WMD on tens of thousands in his war on Iran and on his own people.

If you want a bully there was the Kuwait war where an innocent country got taken over and annexed for no reason. If we annex Iraq then you can call the US a bully.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Zygote-IC-]

These are good points, but you have to remember how they can be interpreted. In this light, the US is a *bully*. It picks fights that it knows it can win. Its fighting because it can, not because its 'right' or the enemy is 'wrong'.

True, but they have a word for countries who get into fights they can't win.
France.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[moonbender]

Well, one of the original reasons for attacking Iraq was that they allegedly had both WMD and the ability to use them against Western countries. Not nuclear weapons, though.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Anonymous Coward]

China has nuclear weapons. Iraq does not.

Whaaat, but Iraq had stock piles of WMD just waiting to be used -- and their nuke was almost ready, almost! Isn't that just as bad?

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Lacota]

I'd just like to mention that isnt the "threat" of WMD in Iraq the reason they went in there in the first place?

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Anonymous Coward]

... and of course, that doesn't necessarily mean France is more stupid than the US. Sometimes fighting a battle you're going to lose is better than doing nothing to show what you believe in. Bah, I guess some american just don't understand this though. Now go proceed harrassing minors. :-)

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[cygnus]

China has nuclear weapons.
Iraq does not.

how about Burma then? oh no, wait:

Iraq has oil.
Burma does not.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[RickHunter]

In fact, the reason the USA invaded Iraq is that Iraq has nuclear weapons. Look back at US policy over the past fifty years. They never invade a country with nuclear weapons, no matter what that country does or how anti-American they are. (Save a direct attack on the US or one of its allies, which is yet to happen) Instead, they employ a policy of appeasement. Countries without nuclear weapons, however, get hit with the Merkin Sledgehammer and have "American-friendly" dictators installed.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[RickHunter]

Er. Iraq has NO nuclear weapons. That'll teach me not to hit preview first.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Anenga]

The Bush administration never said Iraq has nuclear weapons. The whole reason was to attack Iraq before it became an imminent threat. For examplem, North Korea. Back during the Clinton administration, Jimmy Carter went over there to try to curb their Nuclear capabilities. They lied right to Carter's idiotic face, and he believed them, and Clinton allowed probably the Worst U.S. President in History to represent his foreign policy for him. Then we find out, oops, North Korea indeed did not stop it's nuclear weapons programs, and has Nukes right now and is willing to use them if they have to.

Are you saying we should invade North Korea? And risk killing kabillions of U.S./Coalition troops? That was the whole reason to go to Iraq, before it represents that same situtation that were facing in North Korea.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[ducomputergeek]

China also has a people in power that has enough sense to know that the use of nuclear weapons would assure their own destruction. They sabre rattle over Taiwann once a year, but are more interested in developing their economy than taking over their neighbors.

Iraq does not

True, thank you Isreal. They bombed Saddam's French supplied nuclear reactor in 1981. Isreal gets a lot flack for their unilateralist actions, but that probably prevented Saddam from having those weapons in 1991.

Much easier to invade a country and get rid of some assholes when they can't turn you or your major cities into a radioactive cinder. Oh and then there's that thing about having a bajillion troops.

Yeah, why the development of ABM, especially of theatre level, defenses would be a good idea. And just remember this: a bajillion troops vs. the amount of firepower contain with in one of our ballistic missle subs...

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Anonymous Coward]

Or palistine (remember how they tried to destroy Isreal completly but isreal kicked their ass?)

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[madprof]

So wherever there are huge human rights abuses by countries with no nukes, it's right to go in?
When did the US adopt this policy and who adopted it?
Bush has not adopted it from what I can tell.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Hooya]

well, let's forget about china for a while then. i'm pretty sure we have plenty of countries that don't have a 'bajillion troops' and nuclear weapons whoose people could use a little rescueing from their facist murderous dictators... where's the US in all this?

oh i forgot. they don't have oil. my bad.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Anonymous Coward]

ok how about pakistan?
that's the root of all evil.... every mess we have today..

osama is there.. its a fact ask any CIA agent and they will tell ya(of course they will kill u after that)

osama is a harder mice to catch... and i tell u mark my words this war on terror has just began...

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially not our own! I want Bush to invade the U.S., so that we can have a few billion dollars to build an infrastructure that doesn't totally suck, like the one we have now!

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[cpeterso]

China has WMDs? OMG!!

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[HiThere]

But Burma is closer to China. So even if it has oil, it might be a bit dicey to do anything about it. (Ever hear of a place called Viet Nam...We had the arms, they had a good local supply line that couldn't be cut.)

And now China has a space program. Manned capsules in orbit. Clear proof that if they want to have ICBMs, they'll have them. You want to give the cause to WANT a bunch of ICBMs? And China has nuclear weapons, and a highly rated biological and genetics facilities. Basically, they can do anything we can do. They just can't afford to do it in as flashy a way. They're tight on money & food, not on technology. But China & India are creating gentically modified plants..thongh not the kind Monsanto makes. What is holding them back is trade regulations. (The European Commonwealth is quite sticky about that kind of thing!)

So you don't give China causes to get nervous. That's probably more than half of what's protecting North Korea. North Korea could devastate Japan. China could devastate the US...and probably the rest of the world, so they don't push too hard against us either. But also we don't back them into a corner.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[johnjay]

The fact that the US hasn't invaded a country with nuclear capability is an accident of history at this time. MAD worked pretty well when there weren't many countries with nuclear capability. Now, with Iran and N.K. both attempting to achieve nuclear capability, it is very likely that the US will invade a nuclear country in the near future. There is no way to effectively deter terrorists or unstable countries from using nuclear weapons.

The current policy of the US seems to be to consider invading unstable, hostile countries before they go nuclear if possible (that was one of the arguments for invading Iraq--Iraq was trying to get nuclear capability). With N.K. and Iran, it may be that the US discovers that they have nuclear capability after the fact. They may plan to invade these countries because of their budding nuclear capability.

Because of these nations' sponsorship of terrorism, we would need to strike them before they had nuclear weapons, or, barring that, before they had a significant number of nuclear weapons, in order to protect our coastal cities from nuclear shipping cargo.

I know that Pakistan almost fits into the same category as Iran and North Korea, but we're hanging on to the thread of hope that it's stable enough (and the army will continue to be friendly enough), that it isn't a threat.

North Korea may be safe from invasion for a while because it could take Japan or South Korea down with it.

Iran is not safe. If it continues to pursue nuclear capability, and the IAEA continues to act like the UN did with regard to Iraq, it Will be bombed soon. Either by Israel, or the US, or both. And if you're going to bomb that country's army to destroy it's nuclear capability, might as well push it up a notch or two to destroy the mullah's power completely and free the people, right?

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually North Korea is in a category of its own because they have extremely good ballistic missile technology, arguably on par or better than China. They are the only nuclear state outside the big five (USA, Russia, China, France, and the UK) with this capability.

Being able to make nuclear weapons is one thing. Being able to deliver them in a swift counterstrike is quite another. What makes North Korea doubly dangerous is that they are a nation of starving peasants with no significant production they can export. Except missiles and missile technology.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Enoch Root]

And now China has a space program. Manned capsules in orbit. Clear proof that if they want to have ICBMs, they'll have them.

Eeeeeeeeer... I hate to break this to you now, but China HAS ICBMs, and they're all nicely aligned on the US.

Second, China is NOT tight on money, and not tight on food. They are growing at a monstrous rate, and thanks to espionnage, they have all the US technology they need up to at least 1996, as revealed by the CIA in 1999.

You have a weird vision of China, dude. You should, like, read up before trying to express an opinion about the world.

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[HiThere]

Yes, China has ICBMs. I said you don't want to give them a reason to want a LOT of them. As for food...I know they've been working hard on the problem. That's a part of what's given them a bad rep with certain fundie types. I hadn't heard that they had "solved the problem". As for espionage...yes, that was what they were using. But now they are developing on their own. And not always along the same paths that we are developing, so espionage *can't* be the answer. As for tight on money...the government may have lots of money, but the country doesn't. And since the government seems to be spending part of what they have in very dubious ways (the three gorges dam), it's not clear that this even similar. (Mind you, the US govt. does equally stupid things. And so the the large monopolies. It's a characteristic of large organizations that they will do large stupid things...as well as the other kind. But it's the large stupid things that can be disasterous.)

Growing at a monstrous rate? Depends on what you mean. They are accelerating change as rapidly as they can assimilate it into their society, and perhaps just a bit more so. So are we. So is nearly every one who can. It's called approaching the Technological Singularity. (Search for it in Google. You may also want to check out Vernor Vinge on the concept. He as non-fiction articles as well as fiction on it.)

Re:Forgetting one or two things

[Enoch Root]

Thanks for bringing the cocnept of Technological Singularity up. I'm a Vinge fan (just his SF stuff), and I've already drawn that parallel with China. It's striking.

Btw, I've been living in Shanghai for 5 months, and already the dychotomy between China's remaining tradition and the pace of change is awesome to behold. There's nothing like walking in the Old City and bargaining for live chicken while Bladerunner-like towers loom in the background.

The best example of the approach of the technological singularity is the Chinese space program... They are catching up very quickly, for reasons of their own, and they avowed goal is to bypass other nations in the race for Mars. (Well, I hope they make it, but it is awfully ambitious. Then again, everything about China today is ambitious.)

Re:Good. So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't you be out picketing about 'recounts' and waving your 'We done been cheated' placard?

Uh, no.

[The Tyro]

There were six deaths and 1400 injuries in the original WTC bombing in 1993...

But don't take my word for it... here's the Wikipedia entry for the incident

Re:Uh, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're going to get modded -1, Not Anti-Bush

Re:Uh, no.

[Kymermosst]

There were six deaths and 1400 injuries in the original WTC bombing in 1993...

Wow... someone else on Slashdot who hasn't forgotten history from just ten years ago.

I thought I was the only one.

Re:Uh, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows the '93 WTC bombing was done by Bush Sr. as punishment against Clinton.

Right, lefty moonbats?

Re:Saddam ...

[FURY13RT]

Saying "you have no wmd, so he cant be tried" is like saying "we cant try a shooter since we dident find bullets in his gun". He's used these weapons before. we know he's killed hundred of thousands through genocide and outright war. If he goes in front of Geneva, its a death penalty for sure.

Saddam Hussein still alive?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought he had been killed by a pack of wild boars or gassed by canadians or something and was now in heaven being tortured by mormons after being banished from hell because he pissed of satan who he had been having a homosexual love afair with.

I doubt that Saddam's capture will provoke anger

[einhverfr]

But that does not mean that this will end the current resistance. It depends on who is right about what is really going on.

Theory 1: Saddam loyalists are attacking the Americans, et al. In this scenario, capturing Saddam weakens the resistance.

Theory 2: Outside terrorists are the main sponsors. In this scenario it makes NO DIFFERENCE where Saddam is captured or not.

Theory 3: The main rank and file of the resistance are formed by patriotic Iraqis who see themselves not as fighting for Saddam but rather as fighting for Iraqi independence. In this case, the arrest of Saddam removes a MAJOR obstacle to the resistance, namely the fear that by resisting, it will be allowing Saddam to come back to power.

The truth is probably a mixture of all three. The real danger in the arrest (not to say that I am opposed to the arrest, but let's not have rosy tinted glasses about the whole thing) is that it will take a resistance movement which has seen a growing mainstream patriotic wing and remove the final obstacle for the mainstream Iraqi to support it. In this case, it could mean that the war will simmer and slowly boil up.

This is not without precedent. Look into WWI and the experience of the British in the area that became Iraq.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[timotten]

Yes it would. There already is such a court, the International Criminal Court..
The problem is, the USA opposes it.

Well, there are many reasons the ICC is a non-issue:

* The current administration dislikes any and all forms of international cooperation, especially ones which can try US citizens.
* Membership -- The US, Iraq, Kuwait, and Iran are not members of the ICC.
* Complementarity -- ICC complements national courts. It can only try a case if the national court systems cannot or do not.
* Retroactivity -- ICC jurisdiction is not retroactive. It can only try crimes after 2002, which would exclude most of the interesting Iraq-related crimes (except the US invasion...)

Angry and ashamed

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm angry and ashamed at the prevailing opinion here that this is somehow not a good thing. Just take a look at the reports from the streets of Iraq: people over there are genuinely happy, and we should be happy with them. They ought to know what's best for them. Agree or not with the policies that led up to this, the actual capture is undeniable a Good Thing, and you can't couch that in dictator-coddling and America-bashing language.

By the way, I think this will have a positive impact on the guerilla operations (from our perspective), although we have to be cautious. Saddam Hussein provided a figure who could be restored to power, a strongman who was capable of keeping the other members of his party in line. With him gone, the various guerilla leaders won't be able to support a restoration of Saddam, so they'll have to talk about putting themselves in power, which will lead to devisive factionalism that will undermine the terrorists.

Re:Angry and ashamed

[Anonymous Coward]

Another graduate of the CNN/Bush/Republico/Israel School of Education. Didnt even consider the other side.

Re:Angry and ashamed

[Anonymous Coward]

What other side?

Re:Angry and ashamed

[Anonymous Coward]

It was on TV so it must be true.

Oh I agree.

[tjstork]

That's the aweful truth. By our choice to trade with China, and to engage them, we have decided that we are in favor of the Chinese oppressive police state.

So, suck it up, because we are all commies and dictator supporting thugs. We've decided that avoiding a world war is more important than a dictatorial system over a billion people, that, cashing in on them as a form of a American corporate slave labor will someday liberate them. We are not against it, we participate it in, and therefor, we are in favor of it.

Sorry, but I'm saving my congrats for...

[sethstorm]

...when the USA finally figures its time has come, by repeated and decisive military defeats. Then, I'll gladly support the ridding out of the corrupt officials within our tarnished nation.

Re:Saddam ...

[FyRE666]

Well, I think they might bring up the small matters of ethnic cleansing, murder, violence, extortion, biological weapons.... oh and that gold bathroom, I believe Jean Paul Gaultier and co want word with him about taste ;-)

Let justice be done

[simgod]

I'm sure the military court at Guantanamo will be thrilled to hear whose idea it was to use chemical weapons to control his country.

Re:Let justice be done

[sethstorm]

You mean the kangaroo court @ Guantanamo. Give him a real trial where the States cant touch him. Preferably by nobody in the Occupying Coalition.

Re:Let justice be done

[gerardrj]

It was actually the idea of the British occupying forces to use chemical weapons to control the country of Iraq. It was standard proceedure for the British to use nerve gas against the remote towns when the tax monies were not sent in on time, or just randomly to "keep the people in line".
Saddam simply continued the technique.
Once Saddam was out of power (actually we didn't wait that long), the US started randomly bombing the people.

Randomly bombing Iraqis is a long and honored tradition. Saddam wasn't the first, and he wasn't be the last to do it.

It isn't about one man...

[CritterNYC]

...or is it?

will anyone get the $25Million?

[ubiquitin]

One of the news reports (google news has about 700 of them this morning) indicated that the "cordon and search" efforts began from a tip from an Iraqi. I wonder if that dude will get $25M or even a fraction of it? On a separate note, it is great to see pretty much all elements of the political spectrum in agreement on the point that having Saddam Hussein in custody is a good thing and will help to bring closure to the whole Iraq debacle. Woohooo! Gaudete!

Re:will anyone get the $25Million?

[sethstorm]

He'll be dead soon, if not in the States. Then I'll congratulate the death of a snitch. Not all parts of the political spectrum agree, particularly mine.

I don't give a shit to NYC

[keeboo]

really.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Planesdragon]

The problem is, the USA opposes it.

Well, yeah. It'd be a political body in a political body that has often been used as an anti-us platform.

I can't think of a good reason why there can't be an exception for sodliers serving under a UN mandate; that'd kill both the US's fears of the court and the world's fear of the US in one fell swoop.

And if I had reported it instead of CmdrTaco....

[borgheron]

It would have been rejected outright with prejudice since I'm not one of the little "clique" of authors here who is able to actually get stories published.

GJC

predictions of presidibential address

[frankmanowar]

As you may know (unless you're head was in a hole in the ground, like former iraqi leader), Saddam Hussein has been captured and taken to an 'undisclosed location at 9:15pm' last night according to CNN.

The presdibent is scheduled to give a speech at noon over the cable television networks and UHF, and these are my predictions for that speech:

1) "Merica, we have come a long way against the evil doo ers, but our work is NOT done."

2) "I can assure you that because of his capture, things will be radically diff'rent in I-raq, this is a new page in history for the I-rakki people. Everything is going to be okay."

3) "This is a symbol that 'Merica's War Against Terrorism is working, that we can meet our goals."

4) "Vote for me."

Re:predictions of presidibential address

[sethstorm]

You forgot
5) Ameri-[bullet to president's head from journalist] followed by disgust, and pleasure from sume

Re:predictions of presidibential address

[sethstorm]

oops!
meant,
pleasure from some in the crowd

Re:predictions of presidibential address

[frankmanowar]

sorry about the redundant intro there, this is post of something i put in another forum ;)

Show some balls!

[Anonymous Coward]

There *was* international support in the form of U.N. Resolutions. Nobody but the U.S. had the balls to enforce them. That's why there was no supposed "international support". Thank God for the United States to show some balls, once again, and make the world a safer place for all. If you're jealous, then too damn bad. Just stop and think a little about where this world would be without the United States intervention. U.S. bashing is getting tired and trite.

Re:Saddam ...

[BasilBrush]

And what will they charge Saddam with? The whole reason why the US invaded Iraq is because of "Weapons of Mass Destruction", which to this day, have yet to be found.

Mass murder and genocide among other things. Until this day, "Saddam Hussein" had yet to be found.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, the USA opposes it.

The USA opposes it because it realizes its OWN ACTIONS in the international arena would end up on that court's docket.

Like most things "International" these days, the USA feels it is above them.

Well....

[SmallFurryCreature]

Well I think a local minister being clubbed unconsious and skinned and then left to die painfully slowly on the ice would be big news yeah.

No I didn't read the article. Geez this is slashdot.

SUTTON KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN!

[Anonymous Coward]

Czech this!

Slashdot prevails again!

[SharpNose]

I knew something serious was up when MSNBC's Web Site curled up and died after displaying "BREAKING NEWS". As has happened before, a trip to /. told me what was going on!

Why the fear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do so many countries fear the message of White Pride?

Any idea brought forth in an open society is exposed to criticism. If I claim to be able to make psychic predications, it should come as no suprise that many people will seek to prove otherwise, or just outright laugh at me. If I want to make a statement that I believe blue shirts cause violence, people are going to want to see statistics and evidence, right? No rational person would believe such things without evidence. It is up to you, the reader, to study the facts and decide for yourself what is true and what is false. This is your right. You don't have to believe things that are obviously false, no matter what people in power tell you.

Fortunately we have the freedom to criticize many ideas today. Almost no idea is censored in modern western countries. The extreme elements of society like drug-users, pedophiles, and homosexuals are each day considered more and more mainstream, and many of their ideas are becoming the "norm." But while countries work to legalize things like prostitution and drug usage, at the same time they make stricter and stricter laws against so-called "hate speech."

Why? Why is information about White Pride censored when virtually anything else is published openly? Why can any idea be exposed to criticism except when it has to do with race?

The fact is Jews, liberals, neo-conservatives, and other people in power know exactly what the message of White pride means and how powerful it is. Unlike their attempts at social engineering, our message is based on fact and reason. This is what makes it dangerous to them. It doesn't matter how much propaganda about "equality," "reparations," and "diversity" they hammer us with. When people see the evidence, and evaluate the facts for themselves, they will come to the same conclusions that other informed White people have. No amount of Jewish lies will stop the truth. They know this and fear it. This is why they try to suppress us.

So what should you do about this? Open your mind, and visit White Pride web sites like the National Alliance, White Civil Rights, and Stormfront. Get a copy of David Duke's My Awakening. Read what they have to say and make your own conclusions -- does what they say agree with the evidence available? Have your own experiences verified what they are saying? No one is going to tell you what to think, because it is up to you to make your own decisions.

media is media...

[ScottGant]

I've come to the conclusion that there is no "liberal media" nor a "conservative media". It's just "The Media"

There is no view they're trying to push, no idea they want people to follow...they're a shark that feeds on itself and will eat anything and everything in it's way.

They only look at the almighty dollar and only care how many people are watching so they can sell their ads. That's the bottom line. They will report on anything and everything...the more sensational the better. Facts rarely enter into the fray...just so long as they have a headline.

The government doesn't control them because if that were true, then that in itself would be a major story...that "CNN has evidence that FOX is controlled by X" or vice versa. Remember, they eat anything and everything.

Re:media is media...

[Kashif Shaikh]

"Remember, they eat anything and everything."

True. But according to my espionage course I took in my undergrad years(taught by an ex-Canadian "secret-agent"), a country needs three thinks to achieve superiority:

- money
- military
- media

The "3 M's" as I like to call it, which America had. As espionage methods were being sophisticated, so were techniques of using the media to stage fake events(I'm sorry I don't have a reference for one...I know there was one with Cuba...just have to dig my history books)

P.S. If you the media is not controlled my the gov't your really wrong. Because the american media only tries to show one side of a story -- and if your point was true -- they would show other sides of the story in Iraq and etc. Also, here is canada, all the major news agency are owned by Jews(you make the corellation - we muslims already have).

Re:media is media...

[Hexydes]

If the media is not liberal, why do the majority of them (90%) consistently vote for Democrats?

Re:media is media...

[ScottGant]

that's just it...there IS no other side of the story as far as The Media is concerned. If there was, they would report it.

Also, if those news organizations in Canada were to have a scandel, you can bet that the other news would pick up on it...blood in the water...sharks start a feeding frenzy that can't be stopped.

The so called liberal media sure didn't protect their liberal president when Clinton was dragged through the mud with the Monica Lewinski scandel...every day there were more and more lurid details paraded over the headlines and news reports...by ALL of the outlets.

It's a beast...it has no head...there is no one controlling it. At least here in America.

Also, as far as the "other side" there is also Al Jezera...but they aren't really saying anything different than anyone else...they just put on anyone that says anything. Same with the BBC etc etc.

But people want to see conspiricies everywhere.

Re:media is media...

[ScottGant]

If the media was liberal, why didn't it protect it's liberal loved president?

Clinton was raked over the coals by this "liberal" media. Every day for like 6 months we had to go through every detail of every blow-job he ever had in his life.

Why? Because the sharks smelled blood in the water. They protect no one...if you're bleeding, you're ripped apart.

Re:media is media...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the media is not liberal, why do the majority of them (90%) consistently vote for Democrats?

As made up stats go, that one seems particularly blatant. How could you possibly know how 90% of the media vote? It isn't even clear who you mean, news company directors, reporters, cameramen?

Re:media is media...

[RickHunter]

Absolutely. The Media's currently friendly towards Bush because he's providing them with good stories and pursuing policies that benefits the big money behind the media. If or when that changes, he'll suddenly become Public Enemy #1, just like Clinton and Nixon did.

Re:media is media...

[geekee]

" I've come to the conclusion that there is no "liberal media" nor a "conservative media". It's just "The Media""

I'd say there is both a liberal and conservative media. The didferent elements cater to the views people want to hear. It's just supply and demand. The trick in finding the truth is to look at as much information as you can from both sides and try to find the truth in there, if it exists at all.

Re:media is media...

[Hexydes]

Why don't you go do a little reserach? There have been many studies done on this, going all the way back to the 1960s. I'm not going to do your research for you, I already know the statistic. If you feel like learning about it, check out this url:

http://www.google.com

Re:media is media...

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFL

Re:media is media...

[sheldon]

Can you please give me the list of media people and who they voted for? Who did Rush Limbaugh vote for? What about Tony Blankley? Ann Coulter? Fred Barnes? Brit Hume? etc. etc.

I was shocked to learn Chris Matthews voted for Bush. He said so on his show one day.

This is a lot like the myth of the Hollywood liberals. For some reason people pay attention to Barbara Streiwhowhothehellcares... but not to Charlton "NRA" Heston and Arnold "The Governator" Shwaohwhothehellcares.

Martin Sheen is supposed to keep his mouth shut, but it's ok if Ronald Reagan and Arnold run for Governor and/or President.

Re:media is media...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the sharks smelled blood in the water. They protect no one...if you're bleeding, you're ripped apart.

Really? Why don't they rip apart GW? He's made dozens of dumb mistakes regarding 911, iraq etc. You must remember that all media is owned by verry conservative republicans.

Re:media is media...

[ProfBooty]

go read the book Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News by Bernard Goldberg. Goldberg is a self described old fashioned liberal, who explains that liberals in the media don't consider themselves liberal, but as centrists,but turn out to be liberal compared to the "average american." While the book may come off as some sort of personal argument between Dan Rather and Goldberg, he makes a number of points about bias which are quite interesting.

an easy way to see if there is bias, is to listen to a news report and see if the person they interview/speak about is identified as liberal or conservative. I did this on my own (im middle of the road politcally) and was quite surprised, that congressmen, think tanks etc, were identified as conservitive, while the term liberal was rather infrequently used.

Goldberg also harps on some of the issues which the media clings on to, such as the AIDS epidemic (certainly in africa is is, but not as much in the USA) and homelessness.

Re:media is media...

[Hexydes]

Are you kidding? George Bush gets ripped apart almost daily. Most of the time it is for things he has no control over (i.e. the economy).

You're so far left that even when other people are to the left, you see them as being to the right. And that's the problem.

Re:media is media...

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt very much that he gives a percentage breakdown of "the media"s voting habits.

The 90% voting democrat thing was crap. And the fact that the poster chose to reassert it rather than just say "well... I meant a lot of them sound sort of liberal to me..." tends to suggest he's either gullible to a record breaking degree or just dishonest.

Re:media is media...

[Anonymous Coward]

mod up the parent. Hes right. Iam a member of the Sikh religion and as a result of the media post 9/11, many sikhs have been falsely characterised as terrorists. This is because the media took to an extreme the visual representation of Osama bin laden and crew. Nothing wrong with that, after all that is how they are. But unfortunately, now it is the sikhs who have to suffer to the taunts and violence of the ignorant. The media claims no responsibility ofcourse by adhering to the commendable stance of "just doing our job". Isnt it pertinent that this "job" involve a level of responsibility? Shouldnt the media play its part to correct the incorrect assumptions that its coverage of the terrorists propagate? Certainly i wish no one any harm, nor do any sikhs. Ours is a history filled with the utmost regard of humanity. We've broken down barriers of race, sex, religion, class and yet now we fall victim for something we totally are not. The media is irresponsible and held unaccountable. Something isnt fair and yet this is the sad state of affairs some of us have to put up with everyday.

Re:media is media...

[ScottGant]

I'm not left or right...and in fact I voted for Bush. You seem to be a tad defensive, I never said that the media only attacked Clinton and never attacked Bush. Quite the opposite.

But that the media attacks Bush shows my point. They attack Bush...they attacked Gore...they attacked Clinton...they attacked Dole.

Again, they smell blood in the water and they go after them...no matter who.

Thanks for agreeing with me!

Re:media is media...

[mi]

My conspiracy theory suggests, that Clinton was very well protected by the media -- intentionally or not. By reducing -- in the minds of the readers/viewers -- the scandal to that cunnilingus, they managed to push his real crimes beyond the average attention span.

Only the Wall Street Journal had a big full page article on all the other shady things he was accused of, but who reads that?

Whether or not the "media" had done that deliberately, or simply because their attention spans are just as short is another question. But they did help him out, I think.

Re:media is media...

[Anonymous Coward]

ive seen a few surveys that show about 60-80% vote democratic, and ones that go the other way

http://www.fair.org

is a decent place to look

http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/welcome. as p#conservative

has some surveys

again i think the main thing, is that goldberg's book makes sense in that a good section of the media is liberal, but does not realize it, but instead thinks they have reasonable centrist views. Or they feel that they may be liberal, but can be objective in reporting the news.

Re:media is media...

[Anonymous Coward]

The jews control the media, the muslims control terrorism, so be it. I think the diaper on your head is a little tight there spanky. If it wasn't for muslims, the taliban and saddam would still be in power. Someone got the brilliant idea (sarcasm) to take on the mighty USA, and we kicked their asses.

Re:media is media...

[sheldon]

Ok, let me get this straight.

Because Dan Rather is a liberal, that means everybody in the media is liberal.

an easy way to see if there is bias, is to listen to a news report and see if the person they interview/speak about is identified as liberal or conservative. I did this on my own (im middle of the road politcally) and was quite surprised, that congressmen, think tanks etc, were identified as conservitive, while the term liberal was rather infrequently used.

Or the other way to interpret this is that the media spends more time interviewing conservative commentators than liberal ones.

Frankly that's a bullshit way of measuring anything.

Goldberg also harps on some of the issues which the media clings on to, such as the AIDS epidemic (certainly in africa is is, but not as much in the USA) and homelessness.

Since when is AIDS a liberal or conservative issue?

Or are you going to claim that AIDS is a scurge upon the gays, and therefore only liberals care about it?

Bah, you do more to discredit yourself.

Re:media is media...

[ProfBooty]

"I'd bet that if you hooked Dan and Tom and Peter up to a lie detector and asked them if there's a liberal bias on their newscasts, they'd all say 'no' and they'd all pass the test....That leaves one other possibility. Messrs. Rather, Brokaw and Jennings don't even know what liberal bias is. I concede this is hard to believe, but I'm convinced it's why we keep getting these ridiculous denials....The problem is that Mr. Rather and the other evening stars think that liberal bias means just one thing: going hard on Republicans and easy on Democrats. But real media bias comes not so much from what party they attack. Liberal bias is the result of how they see the world.... And it is this inability to see liberal views as liberal that is at the heart of the entire problem. This is why Phyllis Schlafly is the conservative woman who heads that conservative organization but Patricia Ireland is merely the head of NOW. No liberal labels necessary. Robert Bork is the conservative judge. Laurence Tribe is the noted Harvard law professor.... Conservatives must be identified because the audience needs to know these are people with axes to grind. But liberals don't need to be identified because their views on all the big social issues -- from abortion and gun control to the death penalty and affirmative action -- aren't liberal views at all. They're simply reasonable views, shared by all the reasonable people the media elites mingle with at all their reasonable dinner parties in Manhattan and Georgetown...." -- Former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg, Wall Street Journal op-ed, "On Media Bias, Network Stars Are Rather Clueless," May 24, 2001.

no not everyone in the media is liberal, but the anchors on the three major broadcast news networks share liberal views. CNN has some balance (Lou Dobbs is most certainly a conservative, but then again his show does have a finanical focus).

Usually bias is present by identification,(the conservative cannidate, think tank etc), direct ommission (not showing both sides of a subject).

polls of the media over the last 30 years consistantly show that liberals outnumber conservites by a large margin, and that washington bureau chiefs and reporters consistanly vote democratic the majority of the time. The odd contrast is that the corporations which own them would likely be considered conservative. Journalists claim they can keep their own personal views out of their stories(and certainly do limit editoralizing their stories compared to the european media, with opinion rightly belonging in the opinon pages), but it still creeps through via story selection and ommison.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/welcome. as p

shows the results of several surveys, goldberg's book points to similiar surveys. mediaresearch center does seem to have an axe to grind since they only show liberal bias in the media and mostly ignore conservative bias in radio and print media (but few people tend to pay attention to the politics of the wall street journal, however many listen to Limbaugh). NPR tries to present a more middle of the road approach, interviewing left and rightwing viewpoints, but their talk shows have a leftward bias, and they do have a bias on story selection.

"Since when is AIDS a liberal or conservative issue?

Or are you going to claim that AIDS is a scurge upon the gays, and therefore only liberals care about it?

Bah, you do more to discredit yourself. "

In the 80's aids was a risk to everyone, and is still today, however the risk to the general population at that time was disproprotinaly minimal if you were not a member of one of several at risk groups. The risk to a hetrosexual woman who did not engage in drug use or homosexual behaviour or have a bi-sexual boyfriend was minimal. Thus it was blown out of proprotion. The same is true of homelessness. If you evernotice, the homeless people you see on TV didn't look anything like the homeless you actually see on the street, that is disproportionally white, th

Re:media is media...

[sheldon]

I think you need to read "What Liberal Bias?" by Eric Alterman.

I'm sorry, but you look at the news media today and there's very little liberal bias. If there is a bias, it would be a conservative one.

This current Bush administration has gotten a major pass from the media. Events, which under Clinton would have received a full weeks of news coverage, aren't even mentioned. Things like campaign contributors sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom, etc.

The facts just don't back up your preconceptions.

Re:media is media...

[bendude]

"that's just it...there IS no other side of the story as far as The Media is concerned. If there was, they would report it."

I'm really sorry you've been so let down by your society, but I have some news for you, and it's not all good.

The media are beholdent to their advertisers. Ignore what the money men say and you go broke. No matter how many ethics a media outlet has, they're still there soley to make money and biting the hand that feeds just doesn't work

Do you suppose the media would have kicked up a fuss at any time in the past thirty years if they found out that Bush's grandfather was Hitler's banker? They havn't mentioned it.

How about if the current administration, before they were "elected" in 2000, published their plan to militarise the new century to make sure US financial interests were protected. They spoke of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as problems because they wanted to dominate in their own regions. They also said that the change they were after would be a slow one unless some kind of "Perl Harbour" event galvanised everyone.

I also noticed how no one in the media was able to connect the events immediately post 9-11 with the spookily similar Operation Northwoods plan that was rejected by Kennedy.

Once again - my condolences.

Saddam will help find WMD

[p_trekkie]

Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about? Or has that all been forgotten?

Now that Saddam is captured, the US will be able to ask (interrogate) him as to where they are. If they exist, he will be the one who knows where they are. If they are then not found in short order, we will know beyond any reasonable doubt that the administration has misled us.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. Bite me, meathead

See? Exactly what I mean. And of course, the assumption that, if you're actually *not* a dickweed, you *must* be stupid. However, in the real world, people like me, with two degrees and a high paying non-joke job tend to outclass people like you (weenie, none too smart really - just no life) in almost every respect.

It's called evolution. Look it up sometime.

Re:Good. So?

[Coppit]

I'm glad this got modded to +5. It's right on...

As the Economist said, taking Saddam down is worth doing, just based on who he is and what he's done. Unfortunately, Bush felt the need to "do something" about terrorism, and fix daddy's mistake (not going all the way to Baghdad).

My problem is that there are plenty of Bad Men in the world. I guess Castro is just too easy, and Kim Jong Il could actually defend North Korea.

What I hope is that Bush is actually smarter than we think, and that this is his way of dealing with unrest in the middle east. Topple a dictatorship and set up a moderate democracy in the region. Hopefully one by one each of the countries will become more like Jordan and less like Saudi Arabia.

Of course, you can't come out and say that your middle east policy is based on pseudo-imperialism. I'm hoping that Bush was willing to take the criticism about terrorism/WMDs for the much bigger goal of peace in the middle east.

From CNN

[Registered Coward v2]

Article qoute:
Recovered in the raid were two AK 47 rifles, a pistol, $750,000 in $100 denominations and a white and orange taxi.

Looks like he was planning to move to NYC and buy a medallion...

And you

[Anonymous Coward]

And you try to explain to my childern why they will have to pay a payroll/ss/income tax rate of over 65% to pay back all the money that the goverment is spending.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

tranzis would use the ICC to bring frivilous charges against various officials in the US.

The arrest and removal of almost ANY current major US official would help make the world a better, less corrupt, more peaceful place, and therfore such prosecution should hardly be considered frivolous.

However, if the US continues to oppose international justice that it does not control, a temporary tribunal would still be sufficient to prosecute Iraqi war criminals. Such a tribunal would probably be opposed by many nations, however, as it would be redundant when the ICC already exists.

You wish...

[Pac]

China will probably flip in about 20 years

Yeah, a country used to ignoring and loathing "foreign devils", with dinasties lasting centuries, with a planning horizon of centuries, a closed society with traditions going back to when yours and mine ancestors could barely speak, will "flip" just because a bunch of Americans making, selling and buying coloured glass arrived at the beaches. Or because of very small bunch of people now sponsor some incoherent Western religion three times younger than theirs. Yeah. That will happen just after the Sun go nova...

Re:You wish...

[DohDamit]

I don't think anyone wishes for or against such things. Face the facts: prosyletization is a very effective force of change. Have you read about the beginnings of Islam? They went from running from their enemies to knocking over age-old empires in decades. Look at the effect of capitalism in the North American native population around the 1600's. They had their own little world war over beaver pelts, for crying out load. Inertia gives way to religion and money, time and time again. Most likely though, it won't be Christianity. More than likely, it will be the current "religion problem" they have that does them in. Oh...for another example, one a little more pertinent: China DID flip very quickly in the last century. Guess I'd feel silly for overlooking that.

By the way...you come off a little flippant, ignorant, condescending, and mean-spirited. I'm not sure if you meant to...just letting you know.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[beeblebrox87]

The ICC has no jurisdiction over events before the ratification of the treaty. The current administration just wants to make sure they can continue to commit war crimes in the future.

Re:New Zealand?! Pro-war?!

[Anonymous Coward]

India is also anti-war.

Except when it comes to their own interests. Ask Pakistan.

Isn't is odd that countries act in their own self-interest?

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you see the different political climate that exists today. There was a clear good vs. evil theme with the Nazis. Now France and the UN opposed the Iraqi invasion because of the money they were making from the Food for Oil Scam (yes, it was a profitable endevor for the UN) Then they've shut up about the outrage of attacking a country that was already occupied by the UN and essentially held down, why? Because they want the money we're pumping in to rebuilding it. How come people are bitching about that? why no objections the rebuilding the country we tore down? MONEY! Nothing to do with right and wrong, stability, or anything else, it's all about money. Nobody is standing up for Iraq because they oppose killing, it's because it's going to interfere with trade or they don't see how it will be profitable.

Look at the history of UN resolutions regarding Iraq. Technically scud missles were declaired WMD because it is so easy to refit them with chemical and biologial warheads. That's pretty open and shut, scuds were fired in to Saudi Arabia within the last year, but everybody is silent. There were hard dates whereby Iraq had to produce certain evidences or allow UN inspectors in, they routinely failed to meet them. The UN had every reason to back this war, they just chose not to because of money and politics, not because they give a shit about Iraq, none of those countries are providing aid right now.

Throw ICC in to the mix, not just would the poorer countries of the west be in favor of arresting US leaders, but a portion of the US's own citizenry would as a cheap way to remove someone from office. We're way way too political these days and too greedy as a collective world society from something like that, it simply wouldn't work. More to the point, war is a really nasty thing and bad shit happens during it.

Funny you mention that

[frankjr]

I was browsing Slashdot, clicked reload expecting more geek news, and I found out that Saddam had been captured.

If it weren't for the fact that I was in school I probably would have heard about 9/11 on Slashdot first too.

Re:Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germ

[Fractal Dice]

Everybody deserves a fair trial.

But by what set of laws? International law - which the US flouts whenever it suits them? US law? New Iraq law (if there is a new legal system)? Old Iraq law? ("I was the dictator, my world was law"?). Can anyone honestly imagine any trial where a verdict of "not guilty, he's free to go" would be allowed? I do agree with your post, I guess I'm just a little too cynical about the new world order.

Does either Bush have to go on trial for the civilian deaths his orders led to? Does Blair have to face trial for possibly taking his country to war under false pretenses? Does Dick Cheney have to go on trial to explain who provided Iraq with chemical weapons technology and materials in the first place? (actually, I'd be rather curious to hear Saddam has to say at his trial about this one)

If the US president is the leader of the democratic world, why doesn't the rest of the world get a vote?

Mod parent up

[Jesrad]

This is so true. I mean, Bush clearly did something fantastic for the Iraqi, there's no denying it, and for this they should reelect him as President next November 2004.

Weapons of Mass Distraction are People too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, i'm sick of this crap. This has been pointed out by big media all over the world as well as on various forums et al. Do you really think anyone on /. has not heard about it? What exactly do you think is the addition of this article to that media who already cover this in great extent? What exactly is the technical aspect? Right, there's none.

You state something similair as a copy/paste. Your post doesn't even include a logic or opinion of yours. It is "just the facts". This been posted on /. is apathic, useless and totally offtopic.

"[...] but I figured it was worth mentioning"? What worth does it have? OIL??? OMFG!

Yet, the target was not Hussain: it was WMD's which could be effective in less than 45 minutes. That was what this war was about though the target changed after the beginning of the war. Media ignores this fact. Criticism is unknown.

You sir, are one the many of those out there: moron with apathy personality disorder. Plus, it takes the quality of this nerd-site to a lower degree. Thanks for everything,

Well then where the hell is my cheap gas?!

[caveat]

If this invasion was all about oil as you postulate, why am I still paying $1.89 a gallon? Why don't we just kill 'em all so I can get my Formula 94 for free?

Re:Well then where the hell is my cheap gas?!

[liloldme]

Why don't we just kill 'em all so I can get my Formula 94 for free?

Give them time, they're working on it. But it's a lot of people to kill. Patience.

Re:Well then where the hell is my cheap gas?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the oil is not for you.

Re:Well then where the hell is my cheap gas?!

[T-Ranger]

Its not about getting cheep oil to the US consumer, its about getting cheep oil to the US oil companies, so they can sell it to the consumer at a profit.

Gas in Europe (which is significantly closer to the oil fields) is about double the price then it is in the US.

I dont submit these as a subscriber of the oil company conspiricy theroy loby, they are true regardless of US forgin policy in the middle east.

Re:Well then where the hell is my cheap gas?!

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that most of that is tax, right?

Re:Well then where the hell is my cheap gas?!

[Valdrax]

The war wasn't about letting Americans buy cheaper oil.

The war was about letting Iraqis sell oil and spend it on US companies to rebuild their infrastructure after two wars and over a decade of sanctions. Oil is merely the how Iraq is going to pay for a Japan-like reconstruction period during which Bush-supporting companies like Haliburton will make money hand over fist. The recent policy decision to exclude countries who opposed the war from the reconstruction period just about confirms that a major motivator for the war was handing US taxpayer and Iraqi oil money straight into the hands of Bush's supporters.

Who will he finger?

[nagora]

I bet Rumsfeld is working damn hard to prevent this going to an open court.

It's now official: no WMD's

[corebreech]

At least now maybe we'll stop hearing about WMD's.

It's conclusive now boys and girls: THERE WERE NO WMD's!

It should have been obvious that night when the last U.N. inspectors lifted off from Baghdad that no WMD's were in country, but now any and all doubt has been dispelled.

Saddam Hussein was never in violation of U.N. resolutions prohibiting manufacture of WMD's.

George Bush lied so that we could invade Iraq.

George Bush is the war criminal, not Saddam Hussein.

On that note, is anybody else wondering why it is we took Saddam alive? Why, with all of our corrupt dealings with Iraq, we'd risk putting the man on trial?

It's because we've just established a precedent for controlling what the people get to see and hear from testimony given in war crimes tribunals.

slashdot proofreading

[scrytch]

Maybe next time they go out, they'll arrest Saddam Hussein instead.

GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[caveat]

...so there's no explicit ban on attacking retreating enemy units. Morally very cloudy, yes, but IIRC since it was just a 'military action' we had a loophole on that one.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[torpor]

Typical American justification for crime. "There was no law against it, therefore it wasn't a crime."

That there is the end of your Empire, mate.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad to see that totalitarianism is alive and well so it can define "crime" as "anything we don't like." What the fuck do you think law is? Crime is not the violation of an undefined code -- law is written but mutable. If you think the laws are bad, act to change them. Otherwise, go back to your hole and whine there.

Your logic, though, is an excellent example of why an ICC is a rotten idea. Revisionist historians like to come along and judge by laws established after the fact, or by ill-defined laws. I am glad that the United States has the foresight to not entrap itself in that snare.

But hey, I hear some European countries claim jurisdiction over the parts of the world that don't have "modern legal systems" (for some definition of the phrase). You can always try to bring a complaint there. I wish you good luck explaining why that is not rank colonialism.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[leviramsey]

You ever hear of "innocent until proven guilty"?

I realize that in most of Europe, you don't have that standard, so you may not know what it means, but it means that all actions are legal unless outlawed.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[torpor]

Whoa, an American actually stupid enough to try to argue on the basis of 'innocent until proven guilty' ... so its okay for you, on one side, to use this as an argument, but when its used against you (WMD, anyone? 911 attack evidence, anyone?) well ... thats a different story ...

Lets just let it rest. You're not gonna learn anything, and you're not gonna teach me anything.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[elmegil]

Of course, you can't be proven guilty if you refuse to acknowledge the court for such a trial is legitimate :-). Don't let this sound like a stance one way or the other on the particular issue in question....

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[10Ghz]

So, have you proven that those people in camp X-ray are guilty? No you have not, in fact, you haven't even charged them with any crime! You are just holding them there!

And where is the evidence saying Iraq threatened USA? Where is the evidence that they had WMD's? remember: "innocent untill proven guilty".

And here in Europe, we are innocent untill proven guilty. Law-enforcement official don't keep records on the books we borrow from the library, unlike in USA.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[Elwood P Dowd]

A further weirdness to the whole situation is the crap that Bush Sr. got from the military when he didn't push back until we got Saddam. I remember reading about middle ranking officers griping that we could have destroyed the special republican guard if Bush let the war go on just a few hours longer.

Not to mention the public. Americans thought he was weak for not following through. What a load of crap. The only reason any Arab states even began to trust us and work with us is that we didn't persist any further in Gulf War I. We said we were only pushing Saddam out of Kuwait, and we did so and we stopped. (Well. Plus a few hours to incinerate retreating soldiers maybe.) My understanding is that this restraint was not what the majority of the American public wanted.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[leviramsey]

Perhaps I was unclear in the argument (which in retrospect I was).

My point in citing "innocent until proven guilty" is that the US legal system (and I would argue it's a sine qua non of any legal system worthy of respect) treats all behaviors as OK, except for those specifically blacklisted.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[leviramsey]

What are you going on about?

My point was that the US legal system (and any legal system worthy of respect) has the defining characteristic that an act is assumed to be legal unless specifically made illegal (much like how one is innocent until proven guilty).

I apologize for the lack of clarity in the argument.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[leviramsey]

US law would not apply to anything done outside the borders of the US (for that reason, I think that the precedent used to justify Camp X-Ray (the German saboteurs in WW-II) is an invalid application of a sound doctrine).

Most of the EU did not implement presumption of innocence until fairly recently. But the Continent (and the UK on this issue) are only 2 centuries behind the US.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the EU did not implement presumption of innocence until fairly recently. But the Continent (and the UK on this issue) are only 2 centuries behind the US.

Read som friggen history.

Typical American BS, know nothing, yet claim you know it all, have always known it all.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[elmegil]

To drag this horribly off topic....

Generally I'd agree with you, and I have great appreciation for our system and how it (at least attempts to) protect individuals from unfair prosecutions/persecutions. On the other hand, the end result of your particular interpretation of that "all behaviors OK, except those specifically blacklisted" does leave open all sorts of doors for things like the Enron debacle. Were I a rightward conservative, I might point to other famously "wrong" behavior as well. If I were feeling particularly subversive, I might point out that there is very little different from that statement and "an it do no harm, do what thou wilt" :-).

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[torpor]

You know, Hitler was able to carry out a lot of his early campaign because it "wasn't illegal" as well ... so why is it any different for the US Administration, who frequently get laws changed to accomodate their wills and desires in the "Killing People for Profit" Department...

All I'm saying is just because there is legislature that states that its okay to do something, doesn't make something right, and doesn't serve as a valid justification for committing heinous crimes of murder against innocents.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[hoofie]

Excuse me ?

I was under the impression that large parts of the legal process in the USA are based on English Common Law, as are many other legal systems throughout the world. Can I quote from the CIA factbook for the USA ?

Legal System : based on English common law; judicial review of legislative acts; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations

Please dont spout your ill-informed opinions about the UK without checking your facts first.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[Rayonic]

First, the people in Camp X-Ray are not covered by the Geneva Convention.

Second, as for Iraq, a country is not the same as a person. Your analogy falls apart under closer inspection. In most criminal cases, the defendant is not able to conceal or tamper with evidence, since he or she is put into holding while that happens, or kept away from the crime scene while the investigation takes place.

Should we have arrested and detained Saddam and his regime while we searched his country for WMD and terrorist links?

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[10Ghz]

First, the people in Camp X-Ray are not covered by the Geneva Convention.

Says who? GWB?

Second, as for Iraq, a country is not the same as a person. Your analogy falls apart under closer inspection. In most criminal cases, the defendant is not able to conceal or tamper with evidence, since he or she is put into holding while that happens, or kept away from the crime scene while the investigation takes place.

If Iraq has WMD's, why didn't they use them? I mean, US forces were closing in on Baghdad, if Iraq had WMD's it was then that they should have been used: as a weapon of last resort. But they did not. Why? If you are going to say "because they didn't have the guts", then they weren't really threat now were they? What kind of threat would they be if they weren't going to use their WMD's in the first place?

Should we have arrested and detained Saddam and his regime while we searched his country for WMD and terrorist links?

No. If you did, then wouldn't FInland (for example) have the right to invade USA and seize GWB while we look for evidence about US's WMD's?

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[Rayonic]

• First, the people in Camp X-Ray are not covered by the Geneva Convention.

Says who? GWB?

Says everybody. No soldiers there, just terrorists. That is, foreign criminals unassociated with a specific government. Geneva convention only covers actual soldiers.

No. If you did, then wouldn't FInland (for example) have the right to invade USA and seize GWB while we look for evidence about US's WMD's?

Yep, totally agree. We couldn't have detained Saddam and his government while we searched for WMDs. So, we used intelligence agencies and broken resolutions as our evidence. Kind of like investigating a domestic murder when the killer won't let you in to inspect his house.

To continue the analogy, we then tapped his phones, spied through the windows, and after several demands to be let in peacefully, broke down the door and invaded. And naturally its hard to find the murder weapon now, because the killer has had ample time (months) to hide or destroy it.

Sounds pefectly resonable to me.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[Anonymous Coward]

that is a perfect reason why the ICC is fucked up from the get go.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, I guess that the previous administration, and every country on the UN security council lied about WMD too, since they were the ones that were all for putting inspectors there a decade ago. What a dumbass. They're hidden, either like the jets that were found buried in the desert or shipped to Syria. The people doing the investigation have said that they've bearly scratched the surface, yet nutcases are jumping up and down screaming "Bush Lied!" when they weren't found right away.

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[Anonymous Coward]

ban on attacking retreating units?!? WTF? That sounds like the perfect time to attack them. When did the French slip that rule in?

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[10Ghz]

Says everybody.

Not quite. "Illegal combatant" is something USA came up with in order not to be bound by the Geneva convention. Since the convention bans torture among other things, it begs the question: why does USA want to go around the treaty? They are clearly doing something that is banned by the convention.

Yep, totally agree. We couldn't have detained Saddam and his government while we searched for WMDs. So, we used intelligence agencies and broken resolutions as our evidence. Kind of like investigating a domestic murder when the killer won't let you in to inspect his house.

Uh, there had been weapons-inspectors going through the country for a long time since the first Gulf War (apart from a period of time when they left the country at the request of the USA). They destroyed loads of weapons. Later teams came up with nothing. Nada. They went on the record and said that they haven't found a thing. Powell and Condie Rice also said that they believe Iraq has destroyed all their weapons, as mandated by the internation community. USA still invaded, and guess what? They haven't found a thing either!

What more do you want? Iraq had WMD's, that's not in dispute. They have been destroyed. Like you yourtself said: "because the killer has had ample time (months) to hide or destroy it.".

Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...

[Rayonic]

What more do you want? Iraq had WMD's, that's not in dispute. They have been destroyed. Like you yourtself said: "because the killer has had ample time (months) to hide or destroy it.".

And then the investigators reported his compliance, all the resolutions were absolved, the sanctions on Iraq were lifted, and the tenuous (broken) cease-fire turned into an official peace treaty.

Right? I mean, if you're going to revise history, you might as well go all the way. Otherwise people might start asking why all those things I listed didn't happen.

Ever hear of Salman Pak?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Keep in mind folks that this has absolutely nothing to do with September 11

I guess you've never heard of Salman Pak. No surprise, it's received almost no coverage in the mainstream media, presumably the basis for your philosophy.

Basically, terrorists from around the world came to train on a Boeing 707 fuselage on how to take over an airplane using only knives, and infiltrate the cabin to take control of the aircraft.

Remember, don't get too many beliefs based on somebody else's view of events. Ideas are fine, beliefs are dangerous.

Try a google search, there's lots of documentation out there.

Re:Ever hear of Salman Pak?

[I Be Hatin']

I guess you've never heard of Salman Pak.

WTF? From the linked article:

Zeinab's story has since been corroborated by Charles Duelfer, the former vice chairman of UNSCOM, the U.N. weapons inspection team, which actually visited the Salman Pak camp several times.
"He saw the 707, in exactly the place described by the defectors," the Observer reported. "The Iraqis, he said, told UNSCOM it was used by police for counterterrorist training."
"Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter'," Duelfer explained. "I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?"

I wouldn't expect the vice chairman of UNSCOM to use phrases such as "Like derrrrrr...", for one... Oh well, maybe he picked it up from his teenage daughter.

Re:Ever hear of Salman Pak?

[cybercuzco]

Ever heard of George W Bush? " There is no evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the events of september 11" So either bush is covering it up, or there is no evidence. Dont you think if there were evidence he of all people would be trumpeting it?

Re:Ever hear of Salman Pak?

[dcam]

In fact I have heard of that.

If you do a search for further information on this "somking gun" you will find that in fact the aircraft in question was used to train iraqi's in *ani-terrorism*.

I suggest you read the following (orignally published in the New Yorker)
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0506- 06.htm

Re:Ever hear of Salman Pak?

[Anonymous Coward]

wow thanks for the link!

i especially enjoyed it because it was from propganda sight i never heard of and also because there were ann coulter banner ads everywhere!

boy the internet gets better and better every day!

!

Re:Ever hear of Salman Pak?

[slash.dt]

What a great spoof article! Oh what? You thought it was serious? Read it again, and pay more attention this time.

Re:Ever hear of Salman Pak?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Dont you think if there were evidence he of all people would be trumpeting it?

No, not until the election is closer. Yeah, that's unfortunate, but it's how he plays the game.

A little reminder...

[soccerisgod]

No matter if you believe the pictures seen on tv right now that show a male person looking similar to Saddam Hussein in captivity to be real, the question wether this event will have any impact on the insurgency taking place in iraq or not is an entirely different one.

First of all, it should be noted that several western intelligence services consider the acts of terrorism to be conducted not by loyalists but by activist with ties to/inspired by Al Qaeda. However, there is no reliable information on who's behind all this.

What if it were loyalists? Well, in that case I doubt it will make much of a difference. It has been noted that now the plain vanilla arabian person will consider Hussein a coward and will no longer fight for him. This, in my humble opinion, displays a lack of understanding of the sort of people Hussein surrounded himself with as well as having pretty rigid stereotypes.

You have to realize that his 'followers' are not motivated by ideology, honor or religion. They are/were motivated by their hunger for power. And riches. If they thought they had a chance to get that back, they might pretty well still think so. Hussein isn't dead yet, and even if he was, someone could replace him. They mostly want their power and wealth back, not necessarily Hussein.

And if it isn't (mostly) 'Saddamists' behind the terror? Then it will make even less of a difference. And if you think more troops or more/better police will improve the situation, think again. Every house search, every accidently killed civilian, every repressive action by the occupation forces or the so-called iraqi police will drive more people into the underground.

Is this a victory for the US? Certainly. Any acts of terrorism occuring after the arrest of Hussein can be discounted as the desperate last acts of a bunch of lunatics that lost their leader.

Is this a victory for the Iraqi people? Perhaps a very small one. They can have their vengence, but it's unlikely their quality of life will improve now.

Re:Saddam ...

[unborn]

Geneva doesn't have death penalty punishment.

what does this mean to the election?

[ozzy_cow]

Masses believe Bush again! Bush will probably get reelected.

Everybody in US please vote, the stakes are too high! And please, vote for an electable candidate that can get elected by the rest of the public. just my $.02

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[torpor]

ermmm... HoD occurred *after* the end of hostilities was declared by the US. *after*

And whether or not the few thousand women and children who were killed in that 'raid' were a 'retreating army' certainly is a matter of definition ...

Re:I doubt that Saddam's capture will provoke ange

[Artifakt]

If theory 3 is even a significant part of the problem, the arrest itself won't inspire much if anything in the way of increased hostilities. Now Saddam's EXECUTION would, if the US doesn't get out quickly afterwards, and dawdling enough on turning him over might as well (but nobody really knows just how long "enough" is). I'd like to see the US move quickly in turning over Saddam. The Iraquis certainly have more of a right to try him than anyone else, and a real push to let them handle the matter so we can leave more quickly is one of the best ways the US can show they don't want to stay forever.

Amazing

[mhlandrydotnet]

I am amazed (actually, not really, I could have predicted it from this crowd) at the reaction to this news.

When a spammer gets arrested, the +5 funny "Thanks Santa for an early Christmas Present" posts abound. But when a man who has killed hundreds of thousands of people, terrorized his nation and surrounding nations, and has financed Palestinian suicide bombers, not one "Thanks for an early gift". Nope. The only +5 insightful's are "I'm glad he was captured but". And some of these even leave out the "I'm glad he was captured" part.

Re:Saddam ...

[unborn]

Insightful.

In fact, as much as I have been unsupportive of this war, seeing how difficult it was to capture one person, I would figure there *might* be some truth in the existence of WMD being concealed.

Of course, this may be showing my ignorance of concealability of WMD.

Re-Elect

[AlgUSF]

Re-Elect George W. Bush. He fixed the Clinton Recession, and caught saddam! :-)

Re:Re-Elect

[GeneralCern]

I agree. If I had mods points I would toss one your way.

this just in from Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf:

[dAzED1]

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf reports:

"The American infidels have played right into Saddam's plans by taking him into their bases. They are now off-guard, and soon they will be removed from the outskirts of Bagdad, where they are still held at bay."

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[squarooticus]

Clearly you're illiterate if you think you outclass me by claiming two degrees (three here, and from Cornell and MIT, all listed on my homepage) and a high-paying non-joke job (got one of those, too; probably paying a lot more than yours).

And you post anonymously, which immediately classifies you as the real weenie!

So, I repeat:

LOL. Bite me, meathead.

The real question is..

[splaytree]

When do we get to shove Dubya and Saddam in a steel cage filled with blunt objects and let them go at it. Vince MacMahon will of course be the promoter and the match can be the main event to Wrestlemainia XXIV.

Re:The real question is..

[sethstorm]

Just make sure there are no US funded assassins in case Saddam wins, because he would, given the thin Skull'n'Bones figure Bush has attained.

Define "Fair"

[theonetruekeebler]

I'm not sure what you mean by "fair." Considering how much evidence there is, a fair and impartial tribunal will almost certainly find him guilty of genocide, and probably other crimes as well.

Since either a fair or an unfair tribunal will find him guilty, there may as well be a fair one.

If by "fair" you mean in a World Court, I'm not sure that's going to happen. The current argument is that for crimes that he, an Iraqi, committed in Iraq, against other Iraqis, he should be tried in Iraq by Iraqi law. As for what he did to and in other countries, that may well be the subject of a world court hearing, but the Iraqis get dibs.

If, however, you mean that "fair" is a jury of his peers, or the Tikrit Pinochle League, well, they're all dead or wanted. It might be fun to issue them a jury duty summons, though, just to see what happens: "Wouldn't you know it? You spend your entire personal fortune buying your way into perfect hiding, and then you get called for jury duty!"

This just in

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.petercooper.co.uk/photos/saddammouth.gi f

Re:Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germ

[roseblood]

The man is a citizen of a certain nation. That nation has laws that are applicable to it's citizens. I'm certain there's something similar to "thou shall not kill" in the legal code that can be applied to Saddam's murder of thousands of his own citizens. I think a civilian Iraqi court should get the first shot at him.

I still dont know what to think...

[gone.fishing]

Saddam has been captured. The country, indeed the world seem to think this is a good thing and a big part of me is inclined to agree. But I guess I am quite a cynic because a tiny part of me wonders how important, how real all of this is.

Those of us who live in the USA are told time and time again how free a world we live in, that our press is free to report whatever they want and that we are free to have whatever opinions we want. But over the years, I have had the opportunity to "be in the know" on a deep level significant details of a couple of news items. What I've learned from these experiences is that the news is more an entertainment medium than it is journalisim. Reporters tell a good story but leave out details that are really significant even when they know these details.

Based on these few instances, I can't help but take all news reports with more than a bit of skepticisim. In this case, I am even a bit more cautious because almost all of the information comes from our military and our government. This means that the reporters get a cleansed version of the information. They are only hearing what the government wants them to hear.

Are the facts correct? Yes, they probably are. But they aren't all of the facts. An this is true not just for this chapter of the story but all the way back to "chapter one" where ever that is.

Yes, I still want to know where the WMD are. I want to know because it was one of the primary justifications that our government used to launch the war. I hope that there will be a real, honest trial where some of the "dirty laundry" will be exposed against both sides. I think that this information is valuable so that more real truth will actually come out. Make no mistake about it, when all is said and done, the USA will probably come out better than Saddam but we need a real, honest, fair trial to really get to the honest truth. Only then will we really know. Only then will this be really important.

Re:I still dont know what to think...

[soccerisgod]

Aside from the question if you fully believe the news, the question if others believe it is always more important. Whatever your opinion is, you can be sure that for every one person who has doubts there will be a million who don't. They are led to believe something, and that should be the main concern here. Because a million people have a lot more impact than one. And if you've been reading major newspapers lately, you might have noticed that, for instance, the majority of the people in the US believe Hussein to be responsible for 9/11 - despite the fact there is no evidence.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the actual facts are always most interesting, but they have no impact if people rather believe what they want to believe, if they oversimplify, make uninformed decisions and don't bother to revise their model of the world. Simply put, actual facts don't matter to the majority.

You could say that, in a case like this, facts are made through news.

Might have Saddam, but....

[MasterSLATE]

Where are the weapons of mass destruction?

Illegitimate

[jazzer]

If this was an illegitimate war, shouldn't Saddam's case get thrown out of court in a democratic society? :)

More seriously, I can't forget the fact that this was waged without UN support and by falsifying information to harness the American populations approval. I believe that Saddam should be punished for torturing people, however hasn't the US encouraged and actually commited that crime themselves?

Re:Illegitimate

[Anonymous Coward]

In my opinion, the moment the anti-war nations claimed joy over the arrest and congratulated the US, they gave up all right to whine about the war.

Saddam Hussein is a vicious tyrant

[JWL-23]

With apologies to the Reverend Doktor:

Saddam Hussein is a vicious tyrant - he kills his own people.

George Bush kills his own people. Bill Clinton killed his own people. Richard Nixon killed his own people. Harry Truman killed his own people. Franklin Delano Roosevelt killed his own people. Woodrow Wilson killed his own people. Abraham Lincoln killed his own people. Andrew Jackson killed his own people. George Washington killed his own people. Reza Pahlavi killed his own people. Menachim Begin killed his own people. Indira Ghandi killed her own people. Mao Tse Dong killed his own people. Joseph Stalin killed his own people. Adolph Hitler killed his own people. Raymond Poincare killed his own people. Frederick the Great killed his own people. Napolean Bonaparte killed his own people. Elizabeth Tudor killed her own people. Pope Pius killed his own people. Charlemagne killed his own people. Ghengis Khan killed his own people. Mohammad killed his own people. Herod Antipas killed his own people. Julius Caesar killed his own people. Moses killed his own people. Ramses killed his own people. Tutanhkamon killed his own people. Sargon killed his own people. Cain killed his own people. The question arises: do they kill their own people because they are vicious tyrants? or are they vicious tyrants because they kill their own people? Ultimately we are all the family of man. Anyone who kills another kills his own people.

Re:Saddam Hussein is a vicious tyrant

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument is completely devoid of any scope or context - typical.

I second that entirely

[Jesrad]

In all the parties involved, there is a minority of warmongers / hatebreeders, that point at each other and try to federate the rest of the community into hatred.

Maybe YOU, Slashdot reader, are part of them, without knowing or aknowledging it.

Right now antimuslim racism is growing strong in various western countries, antisemitism is back in Europe, antiamericanism gets mixed with antiglobalization fears, and antipalestinianism grows in Israel too. Even anti-war sentiments are leading some to hatred.

I forewarn you all that this HATRED will be the cause of WW3. Not one particular community will be responsible, they will all be, altogether.

I love it. Yes let's be happy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of you wish the US hadn't interfered. You point out the people that the US killed.

You tend to forget that Saddam was mass murdering his own people like these:
http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html

And he did it with French planes and Russian arms. He owed them money. And you believed the propaganda that the US is evil and it should leave Saddam alone. Which of course is exactly what Saddam, France and Russia wanted you to believe.

You point out the lack of biologicals, but you don't seem to mind that it took this long to find a man with a huge price on his head. Now go find a couple of containers of biologicals in a counry about the size of any of the midwestern states of the US. Who knows where they're hidden? Can you tell me where every container in Illinois is located. Can you?

Look people, just be happy that a tyrant's reign is over. I look at this web site and I see a bunch of people who would never have challenged Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Franco or any other mass killer. It disturbs me that so many people who obsess about corporate and government oppression gleefully let governments kill their own people and only get upset if the US is involved in stopping it.

I used to be very involved in Amnesty International. Our goal was to point out and try to create international awareness of these kinds of abuses. It's amazing to me that the activist community collectively shoves its head in the sand when someone like the US and Britain actually stands up for the people of Iraq. I think I left Amnesty because it's hard to change the apathy of people. This war has really shown me that even the activist community can really get its head so totally up its ass that it misses the point.

Yes war sucks. But at the same time nothing would have changed for anyone in Iraq without it.

Anyway, I'm glad this chapter is over and I'm just really sickened by the fact that people keep watching this guy commit these crimes over and over and over again. Whether we like it or not, sometimes war is unavoidable and some regimes will not back down unless toppled. That's just an ugly fact that we have to face. No amount of diplomatic ass kissing would change someone that did the acts in the site linked above.

And to whoever it was that said this was an illegal war. It was not. The surrender terms of the first war clearly spelled out what Iraq's responsibilities were. They did not fulfill any of them for a period of years. They thumbed their noses at the world and did a good job of building enough propaganda that it almost worked to save them.

And not 1 american died on US soil from terrorism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before Bush and his cronies were in office either. Try looking for facts and stop listening to the spin meisters. Bush hasn't done a single thing to stop terrorism in the US. He mutilated a Democratic bill to start a Homeland Security group, and has voted against funding for Homeland Security over 20 times in the past months. Don't play the "we're safer with Bush" card unless you can back it up with facts. Otherwise you might as well be working for him.

The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lies.

[readpunk]

Saddam was our friend and allowed to be a tyrannical lunatic under our watch because at the time he was doing as we said. It wasn't until he started doing things his way that he became "evil".

September 11th was a result of our continual intervention in third world nations thanks to direct military action or CIA sponsored (funding/training) coups against leaders who won't tote the American line.

3000... 5000... 10,000... 1,000,000 Add up the number of people killed by dictators our government installed. Compare that to the number of people killed on 9/11. Scratch that, just compare East Timor to 9/11. Shouldn't we as people be acting against these actions? Or is human life not really sacred? Is the only life that is sacred that of the average white Christian American?

Re:Saddam ...

[splaytree]

And what will they charge Saddam with?

Well, the whole "being in bed with the devil" thing would be a good excuse for the prosecution.

theater...

[Anonymous Coward]

prisonplanet.com...

Saddam Hussein Walks Out On Stage Right When The Script Demanded It

> FLASHBACK: U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood predicted imminent Saddam capture 10 days ago: A member of The Pantagraph editorial board -- not really expecting an answer -- asked LaHood for more details, saying, Do you know something we don't?

Yes I do, replied LaHood.

> Saddam 'had time to commit suicide': Yet chose to spend the rest of his life in a torture camp: WHY? Why did the 'evil tyrant' cower in a cellar? Unless of course this was a stage-managed theatre production.

> FLASHBACK: Saddam Key in Early CIA Plot: Their gopher boy all along.

> FLASHBACK: Iraqi Commander Swears He Saw USAF Fly Saddam Out Of Baghdad

> FLASHBACK: Iran continues to raise secret deal claim: US flew Saddam out of Baghdad in April

> FLASHBACK: Look at how many arrests they have faked in the past dd

Or, as Orwell stated:

[MisterMook]

"Stating the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." - George Orwell.

George said it better, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't all try ;)

I worry more now for the troops than before

[pbug]

Since their leader has been caught they are going to try and free him by attacking more often. This events as the potenial to kill more soldiers.

Re:I worry more now for the troops than before

[Alan Partridge]

There's no such thing as Saddam Loyalists. There ARE, however, a great many Arab and Iraqi nationalists who will never be able to tolerate being occupied by the US Army.

Re:I worry more now for the troops than before

[Stonent1]

Since their leader has been caught they are going to try and free him by attacking more often. This events as the potenial to kill more soldiers.
br>I'm sure he was quickly whisked away out of the country soon after his capture.

Re:I worry more now for the troops than before

[AC5398]

They don't want him back, running the show. Now, THEY want to run the show. Give it a few months and Saddam's replacement will pop his/her/their head(s) up when they figure it's safe to do so.

This is why they're bombing police stations; you can't have ordinary Iraqis having the ability/resources/organization needed to stop the next coup.

Cute

[Kerinsky]

Nice meme you've got there, too bad it's false as well.

There is no way that every Iraqi will celebrate when US forces leave. There are just too many of them to be that homogeneous.

Oh look Slashdot is MSNBC now.

[Trauma_Hound1]

With every goddamn media outlet caring this, do you really think it was necessary to include this on Slashdot; is this really news for nerds, or some MSNBC clone? I mean it's not like you could have bloody missed it any place else.

Re:Oh look Slashdot is MSNBC now.

[Trauma_Hound1]

Your just pissed, I pointed out, how stupid you were for posting this. Mod this bitch.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you're illiterate if you think you outclass me by claiming two degrees (three here, and from Cornell and MIT, all listed on my homepage)

No, you are the one with the comprehension problem. That's not what I said.

a high-paying non-joke job (got one of those, too; probably paying a lot more than yours).

Let's just say that's incredibly unlikely, looking at your current (and most likely permanent) lowly position in life.

LOL. Bite me, meathead

A dickweed *and* a bit slow on the uptake! You must be a devil with the ladies!

Finally they dug up....

[3seas]

....A weapon of mass destruction.

Now if they can just find the other excuse for mass destruction.

Care to make a trillion dollar wager on whether they will or not?

Not his own people

[CavemanKiwi]

The kurds a complete different group of people they did reside with the country that is Iraq but in his eyes and therefore in reality they were not the same people. Although I am certainly not defending him as he did order the gasing of the kurds.

October surprise!

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict Osama will turn up in American custody just before the American presidential election. This will also be the same time Saddam's public trial is going on.

great appeal to emotion there.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also taking one person's response and generalizing it to "they". Throw in a "how can you argue with that" and you have the perfect right-wing argument!

No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.

[rfischer]

The justification for Gulf War II was that Iraq posted an imminent threat to our country, and that Iraq was dealing WMD to other nations.

This has been proven untrue. What is difficult to stand is that members of the Administration knew this to be untrue before the war ever started.

Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, Bush CLEARLY stated that it needed to be done BEFORE there was an imminent threat.

Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.

[CrowScape]

Well, if he's a Brit then he could be correct in his statements, as Blair did say Iraq could launch an attack in 45 minutes. But if he's an American listening to Bush, then you would be correct. It would be nice if the people on Slashdot were kind enough where simply pointing out a fact that happened to support Bush would not scare people into posting AC. Rehtoric, sure, but not facts.

Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.

[Anonymous Coward]

The justification for Gulf War II was that Iraq posted an imminent threat to our country

Actually, the justification was an "imminent threat to our country (and our allies)". Meaning Isreal.

Saddam was never a threat to America. However, he was able to take a nerve gas potshot at Tel Aviv, and he might have been crazy enough to try it.

But, try telling Joe Sixpack that we're to war on behalf of Isreal. All of a sudden the politics of it all don't seem so great.

Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.

[Anonymous Coward]

So? Fuck Tel Aviv. Why should I care about a bunch of Jews in the desert?

Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.

[Anonymous Coward]

I post AC because I do not have an account. I use Slashdot too infrequently...

Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.

[Anonymous Coward]

"was that Iraq posted an imminent threat to our country,"George Bush never said that. A better paraphase is that Iraq is likely to become an immenent threat if left unchecked. Your straw man arguement is being used by Democratic candidates, and it doesn't pass muster.

Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.

[gangien]

This has been proven untrue. What is difficult to stand is that members of the Administration knew this to be untrue before the war ever started.

Really?? where is this proof? I'd like to see it..

Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree completely. Just because we don't have the smoking WMD in our hands doesn't prove that it was untrue from the beginning! Can't prove something by the absense of something else alone!

Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.

[gangien]

sorry to burt your sarcastic bubble, but you can't. We don't see any other life in the universe but that doesn't mean there isn't other life out there.

Finally!

[ca1v1n]

Now maybe those hippies will stop complaining about RFID tags!

Elect Bush in '04

[dglo]

Bush clearly did something fantastic for the Iraqi, there's no denying it, and for this they should reelect him as President next November 2004.

<joke>
I totally agree ... Bush did something fantastic for the Iraqi people, so they should elect him President of Iraq.

Meanwhile, back in the States...
</joke>

Safer

[WoodstockJeff]

Let's see... Osama has most of his people converging on IRAQ to kill themselves in the name of mayhem, rather than trying it here... Certainly no additional safety involved there!

Re:Safer

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were an American War Widow, I'd want to punch you in the teeth for being so fucking dumb.

Some random _iraqi_ carbomb nut has nothing to do with the middle class Saudi sleeper cells that perpetrated 9/11. Use your fucking brain, shitwit.

Re:Safer

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure it does. The Al Quaeda and Saudi money is now flowing into Iraq to pay suicide bombers. This moeny would otherwise be going to attack western soft targets. Al Quaeda strategic thinking is now focus on Iraq, not the U.S. Dipshit suicide loser are now getting shot by U.S. troops as they drive their Hyundais up to Army bases instead of blowing themselves up in Israeli pizzarias.

Finally, after Iraq is soveirgn again, and is the most liberal, rich and free country in the middle east, it will just reinforce what loser asshats those Al Quaeda, Baathist and Wahabis are.

Re:Safer

[Adam_Weishaupt]

Let's see... Osama has most of his people converging on IRAQ to kill themselves in the name of mayhem, rather than trying it here... Certainly no additional safety involved there!

I personally find the idea of using our troops as bait to be paticularly disgusting.

Re:Safer

[Talence]

Actually, it's quite a lot more convenient for them: instead of going all the way to the US, they have the chance to kill US soldiers in their own "back yard".

Re:Safer

[Anonymous Coward]

God damn are you retarded. The money is from Baathist/Saddam accounts. WTC-type attacks are a whole different level than these "asshat" losers blowing themselves up. Nothing about what's going on in Iraq would deter another 9/11, and anyone who thinks otherwise is nothing more than a cocksucking apologist and a fool.

Its comical

[Metaldsa]

You know slashdot has a liberal crowd when a story that is clearly positive for the coalition and Bush has responses that mention:

Guatonoma Bay and illegal arrests
Bush's election being illegal
Osama Bin Laden is still free
US opposition to the International Court
No WMD has been found
If the war was about human rights then why not attack China

Some links:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89225& cid=7715 740
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?
sid=89225&c id=7715969
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89 225&cid=7716 015
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89225&cid =7716 761

Ever thought about actually dicussing the topic? Would it be too crazy to actually talk about the capture and its effects on Iraq?

Re:Its comical

[sethstorm]

For once, I'm proud to say I support neither, and only one(not the liberals) by crumbling tradition. Now, go back to your New England based frat where your kind is tolerated. Makes it easier to identify most of y'all

Re:Its comical

[Metaldsa]

I grew up in Lansing, MI. Grandfather was a GM employee all his life (think Michael Moore).

I live in FL now where newspapers here did they own recount of the election and found similar close results.

I've been to NY once in my life and never been to the northeast since. But I felt it was needed to point out how biased the /. community is compared to other forums right now.

Re:Its comical

[JFMulder]

Don't get us wrong, I don't think a single slashdotter is pissed right now that Saddam Hussein won't have another chance at governing Iraq. It's just that we're pissed that while this is a good thing, there's a lot of others things that should have been done first.

But you're right anyway, this should be a day to rejoince. There was even a suggestion made today in Iraq to make December 13th a national day for them, which is a good idea in my opinion.

Re:Its comical

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly what you want, heh? We just forget about all the rest, hey look we got him! Who? Sadam? Who's he? well the guy with the wmd, that got... never mind, we GOT HIM! forget about the rest, this is good news!

Re:Its comical

[Metaldsa]

"Don't get us wrong, I don't think a single slashdotter is pissed right now that Saddam Hussein won't have another chance at governing Iraq. It's just that we're pissed that while this is a good thing, there's a lot of others things that should have been done first."

I understand, just let the troops, Iraqis, and Bush have one day in the sun. :)

Re:Its comical

[Anonymous Coward]

You know slashdot has a liberal crowd when a story that is clearly positive for the coalition and Bush has responses that mention: ...


Perhaps it should be "international crowd"? Not everyone in the world sees these things in the light of American conservatism and liberalism.

Re:Its comical

[Luscious868]

I hear you man. As soon as I heard the news I had to come here just to hear what the loonies would say. This is great news for the Iraqi people! The man was a thug. Millions where tourtured, murdered and raped by his regime and now the Iraqi people will have a chance to put him on trial and seek justice. However you feel about the war and this administration, you cannot deny that this is wonderfull news for the vast majority of Iraqi's.

Re:Its comical

[Metaldsa]

"Perhaps it should be "international crowd"? Not everyone in the world sees these things in the light of American conservatism and liberalism."

Maybe not an international crowd but an Anti-US or Anti-Bush crowd. If we captured Saddam and the tone is negative here then why should I expect no different if Osama was captured. Both people killed thousands in their own way.

I get marked as flamebait because I see a wonderful day for Iraqis and US troops and point out the posts are negative. I see every leader, France and Germany included, happy to see he is put away. This isn't the international community at all.

Re:Its comical

[rocketfairy]

I'm sorry, but how, exactly, is the ICC off topic? The ICC would be a perfect vehicle for Hussein's trial given the need to avoid a US-based "victor's justice," and if that's not pertinent to his capture, I don't know what is.

Re:Its comical

[elpapacito]

You know you have a bucket of fools when the best they can do is to come here and say "I wonder what slashdot liberals will say" .

Oh like you didn't know already, come on if you're so brilliant on understanding the ones you call "liberals" why do you seek for more "liberal views" ? I guess the only reason is because you enjoy bashing views that you think are different from yours ; you so much need a pair you don't have you feel like "oh ok I'll just call them liberal, liberals , gnaa !" That's kindergarten stuff, grow out of it.

Saddam is in your league for sure as he didn't tolerate anything that was NOT on his script and tortured dissenters ; another thing Saddam did was a lot a lot of propaganda like " Iraq is the right country ! We alone have understood the clear way ! The heroic soldier that fired gases against the brutal iranians is an hero of our nation, for we all know iranians are evildoers".

Can you see intolerance growing ? "Now, go back to your New England based frat where your kind is tolerated. Makes it easier to identify most of y'all" and then what , go Saddam over them ? Hey Mr.Proud , compassion and law and rights don't work ONLY when they're good for you, they also works for others when it's NOT good for you, but all you know is that you want to "line em all on a wall". GROW A PAIR !

Re:Its comical

[Damek]

If the topic is "Saddam's capture and its effects on Iraq", then I don't see how any of this other stuff isn't involved. When you view the world as a series of specific, unconnected issues, and try to deal with them one at a time, you just end up screwing things up worse and worse as time goes on.

Re:Its comical

[bitrott]

Wow. You're so unable to deal with some of the broader issues at hand that you can't possibly fathom why people feel the need to discuss the war as a WHOLE. That's some tunnel vision you have there son.

Re:Its comical

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe you should ask why there is "anti-bush" sentiment in the world ?

USA used to be held high in esteem by nations as little as 2years ago, now we couldnt give a shit what happens to you why is that ? what caused that and what are you going to do to rectify it ? nothing just carry a bigger stick ? ok sleep well and be ready.

Re:Its comical

[Anonymous Coward]

Not pefect. The ICC doesn't allow for prosecutions prior to its creation. Most of the worst of Saddam Hussein's crimes happened prior to that.

Re:Its comical

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever since the 50s the US has been the super power. Today is no different. The world will always hate and love the country that has the msot power.

"now we couldnt give a shit what happens to you why is that ?"

Actually, its because we don't respect the rest of the world that we don't care if we piss them off. We don't respect you because you don't do anything. And when I say nothing I mean absolutely nothing. Look at Iraq in 1990. Who knows if the UN without the US could have stopped a two bit dictator from taking over a small country. I didn't see Russia, Germany, or France sending in 100,000 troops to stop a two bit dictator. So if you can't stop that in 1990 why should we respect you now that our military and economy are so much better? I even remember France tried to stop the US attack because they wanted to negotiate with Saddam for months and perhaps years. Complete weakness.

So the US IS going to do whatever we want. You WILL cry and do nothing. And then you will cry some more and we won't care. You didn't stop us in Iraq and you won't stop us from doing what we want to do next. So stamp in the streets, cry on the Internet, and talk about how right you are. But at the end of the day you will have done nothing but bitch and moan.

Re:Its comical

[BigBadBri]

OK - here's my take.

Most commentators here in the UK seem to think that this capture will weaken the resistance to US/UK occuaption, and allow a speedier transfer of power to the Vichy^Wfriendly Iraqi government.

There is another side, though - one of the things that has been restraining the Shias is the fear that Saddam might emerge from any successful resistance stronger and able to retake power.

With the demise of Saddam as a political threat, the lid is off, and the Shias can now decide for themselves whether to organise an effective resistance to occupation, a decision that will undoubtedly be influenced by the mullahs in Teheran.

And if arrangements for a provisional government are seen as sidelining either the Shias or the Kurds, then there is no fear of Saddam's reemergence to coerce these groups to cooperate with whatever form of collaborationist regime is set up.

There - it's still a 'liberal' view, but not one offtopic reference.

Happy now?

Thought not.

Re:Its comical

[Metaldsa]

"I'm sorry, but how, exactly, is the ICC off topic? The ICC would be a perfect vehicle for Hussein's trial given the need to avoid a US-based "victor's justice," and if that's not pertinent to his capture, I don't know what is."

You got me there actually. (perhaps the negative tone like the, "Ha you can't use the ICC because you rejected it!" got me) So I figured I would grab 2 more for you in exchange for that one.

The US is only there for the Oil
And Ashcroft: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89225&cid=7718 67

I am sure there are many more out there that are modded as "insightful" that are pure anti-Bush administration posts. This should be positive topic for the Iraqis and US troops. But when you lean too far to the right or left you take any mention of a topic and spin it toward your way. That is what my original point is. If we caught Osama I am sure people on slashdot would find dozens of things to post negatively on that wonderful day. See my point? /. should be a place for meaningful discussion. Not a vote down the party lines without thinking type of place.

Re:Its comical

[dr.badass]

Ever thought about actually dicussing the topic? Would it be too crazy to actually talk about the capture and its effects on Iraq?

Personally, I'd rather talk about the capture and it's effects on the United States of America, because I live there, and that's where I keep all my stuff.

That means a lot of talk about how much I've been lied to, how disappointed I am in my president (even if I had no part in electing him), and how worried I am that my country is going to hell in a handbasket because people don't know the difference between the lies and the truth (from the right, from the left, from anywhere.)

What today's capture means to me (and don't pretend this isn't on-topic) is that millions of Americans are going to go to sleep tonight believing that the 'war' is over (just like they did in April, with the "Mission Accomplished" stunt), and that the human and economic costs were worth capturing one man, and that they don't have anything to worry or think about except what to buy for Christmas.

This kind of thing terrifies me, as it should anyone, regardless of politics, because I know that millions of people will stop thinking about what's going on around them.

Re:Its comical

[Metaldsa]

"If the topic is "Saddam's capture and its effects on Iraq", then I don't see how any of this other stuff isn't involved. When you view the world as a series of specific, unconnected issues, and try to deal with them one at a time, you just end up screwing things up worse and worse as time goes on."

My point was that every topic, either positive or negative, stretches out into a dozen negatives on /. when it comes to anything involving Bush.

GDP goes up 8.2%: Discussion is lost jobs, tax breaks for the rich, manufacturing is down the toilet

Saddam is caught: Discussion is Ashcroft, oil, osama, WMD, resistance

The far right and far left will take any topic and put such a huge spin on it so if its negative or positive it doesn't matter. They will always bring up problems and blame the other side. /. should be a place of intelligent discussion. Not a vote by party lines. And that is what I see here. A bunch of liberal bush bashing no matter how good the news (Saddam was caught, lets give the troops a pat on the back and let the Iraqis be happy for a day).

See my point? Yours was valid because you are right, this is a series of events, but that doesn't make my point invalid about the site.

Re:Its comical

[Kohath]

When you view the world as a series of specific, unconnected issues, and try to deal with them one at a time, you just end up screwing things up worse and worse as time goes on.

Good point. Who was that guy that saw the big picture and was thereby able to solve everything all at once with no negative side-effects? I can't remember his name.

Re:Its comical

[Zeinfeld]

Ever thought about actually dicussing the topic? Would it be too crazy to actually talk about the capture and its effects on Iraq?

The effects are about as much as toppling Saddam's statue, almost none. Saddam was not comming back anyway. But US troops are no nearer to being able to withdraw without a new Saddam returning.

Its not so long ago that the US, Gulf states and the UK were supplying Saddam with weapons to fight the war he started against Iran.

One question that I don't expect an answer to is when will the turkeys running slashdot realise that their most popular stories these days are on politics?

Re:Its comical

[Anonymous Coward]

eat my TROLL you blind ass

Re:Its comical

[Metaldsa]

"There - it's still a 'liberal' view, but not one offtopic reference.

Happy now?"

Extremely :)

Re:Its comical

[Metaldsa]

"why do you seek for more "liberal views""

I come here because its a great site for geek news, I've hung out with Cowboy Neal, and this site came from the senior class of Hope college when I was a freshman. So I have some ties to the site and see it as an intellectual breeding ground that has been turned into a one minded way of thinking ever since Bush took office. I don't like it and I complain when I see it at its worst.

Re:Its comical

[haxor.dk]

1) Yeah, I guess the libbies are real crybabies for the murderes and conspirators at Guantanamo.

2) So, I guess the electoral results were faked, huh ?

3) So ?

4) The IC / UN is a wussie coffeeclub that holds the hand over opressive regimes. To support it would to support opression and centralisation. And to add salt to ythe wound, buerocracy.

5) No WMD's ? Lie. Maybe no nukes, but there certainly have been found Anthrax, VX gas. Selective amnesia on your part, perhaps?

6) War with china might not be winnable. Especially since China most certainly has nukes, and long range delivery systems.

*shrug*

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a shit

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Keebler71]

Flat-out wrong. The incidents you mention occurred on Feb 26 and Feb 27 of 1991. Cease-fire negotiations did not begin unitl March 1st and were not accepted until the 3rd of March. In doing this research, I did find some scant references to Iraq agreeing with a Russian plan to withdraw from Kuwait. This is irrelevant since it did not meet all of the US or UN demands, nevermind the fact that Iraq was at war with coalition forces, of which Russia was not a part. This would be somewhat like Nazi Germany agreeing with Italy to end WW2.

I can find no reference that details any proof what-so-ever that there were civilians in the convoy, again just scant claims that that was the case (no pictures of references of course).

As for the Geneva convention, being a military officer, I dare say that I am more educated than you in this matter but again, a simple web search clears things up.

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

The Geneva convention outlaws attacking civilians not engaged in hostilites and outlaws attacking surrendering combatants. Unfortunately, the Geneva Convention is poorly written on this point, as it refers to civilians and surrendering combatants in the same sentance. This leads to the misinterpretation that combatants not currently engaged in combat are somehow protected. There is a tremendous difference between retreat and surrender.

It was within our right to invade

[Anonymous Coward]

It was within our rights to invade. With or without weapons of mass destruction.

The articles of surrender established no fly zones, reporting requirements and other requirements that Iraq refused to cooperate with. They also shot at US planes on patrol. They were in violation of the terms of surrender with or without WMDs. The US could have launched without going through all the silly UN crap that it did. That just gave time to Iraq to hide things and hope that the US would back down if we were forced to allow the UN inspectors in and they found nothing. Big surprise, they didn't find anything. With 2 months, lots of sand and invisibility from satellite with sand storms who couldn't have hidden stuff that wouldn't be able to be found.

I watched a show on television a month or so ago. They were estimating that they will still be finding live shells in France from WW2 for the next hundred years. They blow up farmers every so often when they run over them in their tractors. There are millions of landmines in all these countries. It's a huge operation to find the millions of them that are placed. And a bunch of fools think we're going to find a few containers of biologicals in a few months. I'd be surprised if they are ever found. This is a game of hide and go seek with someone that owned a whole country.

Re:It was within our right to invade

[Bedouin X]

If it were that simple then why didn't the U.S. just do it? Because even with the technicalities that you cite, there is a right and wrong way to do things. Particularly with respect to a conflict that was initially backed almost universally. In the end they ended up doing it half right and that tokened half is has more to do with U.S. credibility than what you and the administration may perceive as our right.

The U.S. isn't going to be the sole superpower forever. Perhaps a little humility now could help us in the future.

WAIT!!! The Most Important thing!

[The Iconoclast]

People are forgetting the most important things:

"Hot GRiTs down SADDAMS PANTS!"

"Can you Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Saddams?"

"In soviet Russia, Saddam captured YOU!"

Re:WAIT!!! The Most Important thing!

[sethstorm]

Can you Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Saddams?
Yep, and as long there are thousands of him, Bush wouldnt have a chance. At least somebody's thinking the correct direction w/ this one.
In soviet Russia, Saddam captured YOU!
Well, if the Russians decided to side with Saddam, and there were still Soviets, the US would be handed its ass over in hostile territory - giving Saddam another shot at Iraq.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[squarooticus]

No, you are the one with the comprehension problem. That's not what I said.

Sure it is. Can't you even remember what you wrote? Geez.

Let's just say that's incredibly unlikely, looking at your current (and most likely permanent) lowly position in life.

LOL. Yeah, you've got my life all figured out. You certainly know more about it than I do. I wholly submit to your clearly superior intellect, Keanu.

A dickweed *and* a bit slow on the uptake! You must be a devil with the ladies!

I have yet to see anything but ad hominem attacks from you, so I'll refrain from replying to any more of your inanity. Your lack of ability to form coherent arguments based on elementary logic demonstrates that you, not me, are unlikely to progress far in life. I'm willing to stand by that judgment.

Re:Good. Period.

[nelazul]

That's true, it's not irrelevant to US security interests. It made the US less safe. That's relevant.

Re:The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lie

[sethstorm]

Saddam was only defending against terrorists as the USA does. I celebrate 9/11 as the day someone took some action to screw the US over via the use of their own implements used by the Magnificent 19. As far as I care, Bush is an elected dictator. No real checks or balances.

Dear President Bush.

[Osrin]

Congratulations on your re-election victory.

Re:Dear President Bush.

[tsaler]

Ho Chi Minh died during the Vietnam War, and that didn't stop the DRV and the Vietcong from attacking Americans and South Vietnamese. Don't think, even for a second, that Saddam being in U.S. custody means the violence and terrorism in Iraq will slow down or come to an end. Bush has a long, tough road ahead, one that he paved himself through over-spending and war-mongering.

Re:Dear President Bush.

[kableh]

Very true. A friend of a friend just returned from Iraq, and based on what he said it looked like things were only getting worse there.

As much as Bush and Co. disgust me though, I can only hope this takes the wind out of the any Baathist resistance.

And if we can find Saddam in his own country, maybe this gives hope to finding Osama some day?

Re:Dear President Bush.

[tsaler]

Once again, why does it matter if we find one person when we've created hundreds, maybe thousands more terrorists from our own reckless behavior in the post-9/11 world? Osama bin Laden is, more or less, irrelevant now, much the same way as Saddam Hussein is irrelevant and was irrelevant. Terrorists don't require a top man to operate. Capturing the head means you have a body that's even more angry. ;)

Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[El Camino SS]

The US's record in Latin America is laughable, such as the 1973 CIA-backed coup in Chile [cnn.com] that overthrew the democratically elected President President Salvador Allende in favour of a facist dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, who then proceeded to tortured and murdered tens of thousands. If that's the kind of example you want to bring up of how the US helps bring self-determination to the world then perhaps you want to think twice.


Perhaps you need to read a history book, and not forget to mention that Allende was a SOCIALIST.

Look, I don't mean to bust out the history book here, but if you know anything about the history of Chile you have to understand that the US backed that butcher Pinochet because the US couldn't stomach backing a socialist double-butcher like Allende. No matter how you slice it, at the time that the US was fighting communist pop-ups the world over, they had just taken a good, hard look at what socialist leaders like Joseph Stalin could do, and well, let's say that the prospect of those guys popping up all over the world was not a happy thought.

I think that is hilarious that you think that you can ignore the fact that it was in the time where people like Che Guevarra were running around in South America starting insurgencies, and that you can just ignore the ENTIRE HISTORY of the region at a time when the US was knee deep in its 'not im my back yard' anti-Communist agenda.

Yeah, the US did horrible things back then. The sixties were a turbulent time in the Cold War. Everyone knows that. You make scant mention of it... like Communism in South America didn't exsist, and that all of the terrible, terrible things that we did in South America somehow didn't bring about Democracy for an ENTIRE CONTINENT AND ETHNIC GROUP.

Look, Latin America has always been a wonderful friend, there was no way that we were going to let it turn into the absolute freaking paradise that Cuba has become, where one man rules FOREVER. And whether you like to admit it or not, Communism is no one's friend. You can't gloss over Allende without mentioning him being a socialist, and then not mention what SOCIALISTS DO, which is some pretty un-socialist things, like killing their "comrades" and "peers."

It was a bad choice between two terrible butchers. But sure as you and I are standing here, that choice was the best of two terrible choices that had to be made. Otherwise you probably would have all of Latin America and South America under the rule of communists, would you have been a lot happier with that?

Please, are there any farkers from down there with some insight please?

Typos

[Anonymous Coward]

...reporting that Saddam Hissein was arrested...

Poor bastard. He's probably sharing a cell with poor Mr. Buttle.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the crimes Saddam Hussein has committed against people of several countries, would it not be logical for his ultimate trial to be held in the form of an international war crimes tribunal, a la Nuremberg?

No. International courts are bad business all around, because they undermine the notion of national sovereignty.

If Saddam Hussein is to be treated as a civilian, the only acceptable forum for his trial is an Iraqi supreme court, once one is established.

If he is to be treated as a military prisoner, then he can be tried on a drumhead and executed that afternoon, for all I care.

Whether he should be treated as a civilian or a military prisoner is up to the Iraqi interim governing council.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[joss]

The last thing the US wants is to start trying people for breaches of international law. It was made clear at the Nuremburg trials that the gravest crime a statesman can commit is to wage war on a sovereign nation.

Indictments

Count One: Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War
This count helped address the crimes committed before the war began, showing a plan to commit crimes during the war.

Count Two: Waging Aggressive War, or "Crimes Against Peace"
Including "the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances."
Count Three: War Crimes
These were the more "traditional" violations of the law of war including treatment of prisoners of war, slave labor, and use of outlaws weapons.
Count Four: Crimes Against Humanity
This count involved the actions in concentration camps and other death rampages.

So in international law, crimes against humanity are considered less significant than waging an agressive war. Saddam will be tried by Iraqis [appointed by Americans].

WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

This was never the issue. This was a stalling point that France, Germany, and the Soviets used to hide their illegal (i.e. against sanctions) business relationships with Iraq. Bush got tied down in the political mess that is the U.N., and the WMD issue was picked a part ad nauseum by other governments who are highly skilled at spin doctoring. The only reason they wanted to this to be brough to the UN, was to stall the issue.

The real issue in my mind is, shortly after 911, Saddam Hussien up'd the pay out for the families of suicide bombers. That association alone makes Iraq a state that harbors/supports terrorist. The old Iraq had to go, Saddam was in charge of the old Iraq.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

Well, if you want to be the conservative conspiracy theorist, then I think this post deserves just the opposite. Here's the story I heard.

Iraq switched it's oil from USD to the Euro. The Euro soared to 2x the USD. Iraq made a LOT of money (twice as much as they would have). OPEC contemplated the same. Bush starts his campaign against Iraq on faked evidence without questioning it at all. He accuses Saddam of attacking his own people with mustard gas, but the people he attacked were the Kurds that Turkey attack every day, but are still our allies. He accuses Saddam of helping in 9/11 with no verifiable evidence to back it up. He accuses Saddam of developing and having biological weapons when the UN inspectors said otherwise. Most of Europe are pissed because he wants to attack and has never given a good reason other than "overthrow Saddam", which of itself is not a reason for war. Now we have "won" the war, the oil will be sold on the USD instead of the Euro, and the OPEC will think twice before any of it's members switch to the Euro.

If oil was traded in the Euro, every oil trader with USD in their bank would have to switch over to Euro, which would flood the market with USD, and make the Euro scarce. The biggest longterm effect would be us having to pay as much or more than the Europeans for our gas. This was very much over oil, but only because Saddam found a way to stick a knife in our side with it. I don't condone the use of violence for economical reasons. You'll have to admit, or be a small minority of people, that this war was economical, because that's what the history books will show, because no compelling evidence was shown for any other reason. I don't think many people are going to buy the "Liberation" since the Kurds won't get their own place to live, and will be killed, harassed, and oppressed by Turkey, Iran, and Iraq for many more years.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[randyest]

Read news much?

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

I think you're digging pretty deap. One of them even said something about "nuclear material", which we happen to know to be false. The others were full of speculation. So, what you're telling me is, I can choose between these three stories, only one of which that reports to have any information beyond speculation, and it brings up a topic we know to have been false. I'm not buying it.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

Well, if you want to be the conservative conspiracy theorist, then I think this post deserves just the opposite.

What conspiracy theory? Saddam stated that he was upping the pay out for families of suicide terrorist. This is going to down in the history books as a war on terror. Indirectly or directly, Saddam supported terrorist and terrorism. Bush stated any state in alliance with terrorist has to go. Your Euro USD thing may have some basis, but at the end of the day, I can sleep at night knowing that Saddam was supporting terror and this war was just.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

they've caught plenty of terrorists in Iraq not long after the fall of Saddam's govt. if videotapes were found of Saddam and Ossama agreeing to attack the West followed by giving each other blowjobs, the left would turn it into an issue about what concenting adults do in private.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that, as is well know, the blessed United States of God's America have probably given more money and munitions to terrorists than Saddam ever did. Saddam only ran an oppressive regime; the USA has helped overthrow democratically elected leaders and installed regimes every bit as bad. Saddam has used WMD on civilians? Hey, so have we! Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Agent Orange. What fun this is!

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[lscoughlin]

Which is a nice set of convient theorys that back some politcal agenda you must have, except that...

Since 1991, Iraq could only trade oil for food, and were under severe econimic sanctions.

They couldn't engage in the currency transactions.. they couldn't trade oil in money.

-t

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

Yeah, that last point he made was completely insane... It's almost like people forget that the number one arms buyer in the world, and Bush's closest friend, is Saudi Arabia, where most terrorists come from, and amputations are common punishment. Every time you buy a gallon of gas, you're funding an oppresive dictatorship, mostly thanks to Bush, his family, and his friends.

Besides, if someone showed up here killing and bombing trying to destroy Bush and our government, that would be viewed as terrorism as well, but for some reason a lot wacky conservatives don't see it being the same when we invade another country? I don't understand the double standard. When war is declared, there is no such thing as terrorism, it's friggen war! Don't expect people to jump out in front of your rifles like nice soldiers. If the world was under attack, and I could strap a nuclear weapon on my chest and destroy the alien invaders, you better believe I would, and it's called defending one's loved ones and society. Which is exactly what those Iraqi "terrorists" are trying to do. I can't blame them for wanting to control their own land. They're invaded, resistance in inevitable.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

http://www.notinournames.org/iht/articles/vonspone ck-oil-revenues.html

Just read the internet, and you'll see that Iraq did indeed sell oil, and the oil for food program didn't begin until 1996. You'll also see how it's a miracle they even survived through the sanctions. Their oil production was severly limited, and a lot of oil was lost because of poorly maintained equipment that they couldn't get parts for. It's been estimated that a million children have died in Iraq due to unclean water because they couldn't import Chlorine. Compare that to the "terrorism" that has occured in the last decade, and I think it won't be hard for you to decide who the bad guys are.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

Oh, and here is the best write up (with sources) that I could find that contained information about Iraq switching it's oil reserves from the dollar to the Euro.

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/iraq.h tm l

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

Nice straw man. Let me refresh your memory in case you forgot...no one declared war on us at 9/11. They did try to destroy our Government through our mail system. Remember, the anthrax trick they tried to pull. Finally, we want them to control their own land. Don't confuse our occupation as run of the mill hostile occupation. We're setting them up to run the place, but better than before...

Also, don't think for a second that if Bush thought it was politically possible UN wise, we wouldn't stomp all over Suadi Arabia, Syria, and Iran.

If my points seem insane, it's because they're not filled with conspiracy theories, rhetoric, and strawman arguments.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

I don't think he has a political agenda. He is someone who thinks he knows something that everyone else doesn't. Probably, read a few websites, maybe, and seems to think these issues are the ones behind it all and not the fact that Saddam threatens stability, supports terrorism, and in general causes mayhem.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[kubrick]

Oil is definitely the issue. 9/11 means that the Saudi oil supply can't be assured in the long term, so it was best to go after the the world's second biggest source instead... after all, the House of Saud are dangerous thugs too, but they're currently America's "friends".

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

Saddam has been under sanctions since 1996 (food for oil or something). Euro wasn't activated in any banks until 2000. What part of violating UN sanction don't you understand? USD or Euros. None of it should have been changing hands or passing through Iraq. The argument you heard is irrelevant, and would only support my so called "conspiracy theory" about European countries and companies violating sanctions.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

Sanctions would have been lifted if he had let the UN inspectors do their job. Again, oil and WMD wasn't the issue. Violating sanctions and supporting terror was. Take the tinfoil hat off or you'll put your eye out.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[ElGanzoLoco]

The Euro soared to 2x the USD

Errr... No.

Please, please, plese, check your facts before posting.
Thanks.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed something. Saudi Arabia is an ALLY to the United States. Syria is the next target, with Iran and Korea to follow. Mark these words. They will ring true.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

ALLY like a fox. Mark these words, "we'll get them too".

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[thirdrock]

If my points seem insane, it's because they're not filled with conspiracy theories, rhetoric, and strawman arguments.

Your points don't seem insane, just ignorant, ill-informed, nonsensical and stupid, but not insane.

In fact, your points are entirely sane ie. they represent the government line perfectly, they are just completely wrong.

Let me refresh your memory in case you forgot...no one declared war on us at 9/11.

Correct, but the United States does not declare war either, and has not since 1945. There are very specific reasons for this, theory of limited warfare, declaration of war would require the use of all neccessary force (eg. nuclear weapons) and other political reasons too long to go into here.

They did try to destroy our Government through our mail system. Remember, the anthrax trick they tried to pull.

Who is 'they'. The Anthrax investigation stalled and then stopped when the trail led to a government building.

Finally, we want them to control their own land.
Who is 'them', and which is 'their' land. Do you mean Sunnis, Kurds, Shia, secular moderates or fanatical clerics? . Do you mean go forward with the current artificial boundary known as 'Iraq' or 'Iraq' and 'Kurdistan'. Or 'Iraq', 'Kurdistan' and 'Persia'. Or 'Ottoman Empire'?

Don't confuse our occupation as run of the mill hostile occupation. We're setting them up to run the place, but better than before...

Funny that. After Gulf War I, even with economic sanctions and the 'food for oil program', the Iraqi's under Saddam Hussein managed to rebuild more than 140 bridges, resume oil production, law and order, a food distribution programme, and even the hospitals (although without most medicines as they were unable to import them due to the sanctions).

Certainly you are setting them up, but 'better than before' still remains to be seen. Bang up job so far. Most of Bhagdad is still on limited electricity, clean running water.

However, to be fair, the Macarthur Administration was in Japan until 1952, about 6.5 years after the cease of hostilities, so it probably unreasonable for the MTV generation to expect Iraq to be a shining beacon of prosperity and democracy before the Shrub Administration needs to rig the next election. Of course, during the occupation of Japan the US Army wasn't an employee of Haliburton...

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

Correct, but the United States does not declare war either, and has not since 1945. There are very specific reasons for this, theory of limited warfare, declaration of war would require the use of all neccessary force (eg. nuclear weapons) and other political reasons too long to go into here.

If only it were so simple. If there was a specific nation that was responsible, I guarantee there would be a declaration of a war. Instead we had to throw down the gauntlet to would-be terrorist and the nations that harbor them. We wouldn't have to use nuclear weapons either, you are forgetting many of the nuclear treaties already signed.

Who is 'they'. The Anthrax investigation stalled and then stopped when the trail led to a government building.

So? Are you saying it's not possible to have spies/sympathizers/etc in our own Government? Chances are who ever it was, is on some unnamed dock somewhere in a shipping container while Virginia farm boys practice their interrogation techniques on them.

Who is 'them', and which is 'their' land. Do you mean Sunnis, Kurds, Shia, secular moderates or fanatical clerics? . Do you mean go forward with the current artificial boundary known as 'Iraq' or 'Iraq' and 'Kurdistan'. Or 'Iraq', 'Kurdistan' and 'Persia'. Or 'Ottoman Empire'?

Yeah, I do mean them, and by them I mean them as a group of people with the power to vote. If they want to chop it up into seperate states, fine. The current artificial boundary is fine, I guess. No different that the artificial/imaginary line that exists between Canada and the US, or Germany and France. If you're suggesting we make a real one in the sand, feel free.

However, to be fair, the Macarthur Administration was in Japan until 1952, about 6.5 years after the cease of hostilities, so it probably unreasonable for the MTV generation to expect Iraq to be a shining beacon of prosperity and democracy before the Shrub Administration needs to rig the next election. Of course, during the occupation of Japan the US Army wasn't an employee of Haliburton...

You're right. It's going to take a while. Trust me. It'll be better.

As for the bringing about another government party line...rig the next election? Gore was a loser. He couldn't even win his own state. He couldn't even win Florida decisively. Yet, Bush in spite of his pundits claims "has found Saddam" through his current policies. I expect for the Democrats to focus on something like this now, "well, did you look at how much it cost to find Saddam? Was it worth it? What intel have we gotten?"

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[HiThere]

That's possibly true. But did he believe this? Did he have good cause to believe it? Do you?

I don't know, and am agnostic about what "would have happened". I've seen enough pieces of paper ignored by those with power that I don't believe something just because it's written down. For that matter, I tend to be a bit skeptical of the reported "news" unless there are independant secondary sources. Especially when someone benefits notably from something, and the news says they weren't involved in it.

Remember:
The media is owned by a small number (5? 7?) of mega-corps, and what benefit them isn't necessarily the same as what benefits you. But they get to say what news will be broadcast, and how often. Reporters can report, but the editors decide what will appear, and the editors answer to their publishers.

Even 5 years ago the printed and broadcast news media were much freer. I.e., there were many more independant voices. I've witness the purchasing of local newspapers by the chains, and the degradation of the news as this has happened. They tell you what they want you to hear, not what's important to you. If I want to check local crime, e.g., I now check the web. The local newspaper doesn't cover that much any more.

Now I don't know about foreign news. But I know what happens when all the local news is controlled by a "monopolistic"* publishing corp. And I assume that the same kind of mangling happens to the foreign news, because I have no reason not to. (And a few reasons to. Comparing British & US reports on the same incident yield a few interesting anomolies. Plus noticing how rapidly some important stories disappear, while others linger like a miasma.)

Do you think this doesn't affect you? If you don't notice it affecting you, then you REALLY need to start paying more attention to your own thoughts. (As opposed to those that someone else, like, e.g., me, gives to you.)

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

Damn, I almost don't want to respond to you because you're obviously an ill-informed troll. Syria doesn't pose a threat to us right now, not even economically, and they don't have significant oil. I very much doubt any movement after them. Bush will depend on China to screw around with N.Korea (don't call it just Korea... S.Korea is a pretty good place). Do you think China wants any more people around them with Nukes? That being said, they are the #2 thread behind China, but we aren't going to do anything to China unless they attack Taiwan, then you can expect another US-Russian style long drawn out war.

As for the Saudi issue, you are completely on crack.
1) Saudi Arabia is the #1 investor in the US (Trillions of $$$'s)
2) Saudi Arabia pumps most of our oil
3) Saudi Arabia buys a lot of our goods (mostly weapons to keep their citizens in line)
4) Saudi Arabia calls the Bush family his second family.
5) Bush's businesses are mostly funded by the Bin Ladens and other Saudis
I could go on forever, but suffice it to say that Shrub grew up with the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, and he's not going to attack them. He's also good buddies with Sharon from Israel know for his cruelty as well.

If want a good summary of Bush and his ties to Saudi Arabia and the Bin Laden's, just read "Dude, Where's My Country?". It has nice little nuggets of information about Saudi privet jets that flew around the country days after sept 11, picking up Bin Laden's family and taking them to Paris without letting the FBI or any other agency question them really. I swear if I ever hear anything about the "Liberal Media" again, I'll never talk to that person again, because it's the media's fault you haven't heard these stories in the main stream media. Doesn't sound too liberal to me. These are facts, not rumors.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

Hans Blix (cheif inspector) didn't have any problems at all saying that with reasonable certainty that Iraq didn't have any WMD. So, it sounds to me that the UN ispectors were doing a decent enough job. If you keep believing everything Fox News tells you, you're going to be a sad old paranoid man thinking that Clinton "not inhaling" is better than Bush's definate snorting. Or that getting a blow job is terribly morally wrong, but being good buddies with dictators from Saudi Arabia that hold public executions via beheading for religious and political reasons is OK.

I'll take my tin foil hat off when people like you actually take your responsibility as a citizen seriously and stop taking superficial evidence as fact. When we stop living in a facist regime of our own here in the US, I may judge it safe to take my tin foil hat off :)

(I don't really wear a tin foil hat, it's a metaphore... maybe I'll actually wear one now as a political symbol to end the facist big-brother attitudes of the government in general. Maybe I'll make an chrome plated Fedora. Maybe think geek would make one out of Aluminum duct tape.)

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Vess V.]

http://www.cpa-iraq.org/essential_services/electri city.html

Actually, Iraq has more electricity now than it did before the war.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/11/01112000 160846.asp

It was actually approved by the UN for them to operate under the Euro.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

According to your comments:
I'm an ill-informed troll. That means you lose right? You called me a troll first? Wait, I also want to live under facist government. So I am facist too? Does that mean you lose double?

Look, I'm making the point that this isn't about WMD and oil. You've clearly stated what I am saying. Why is it so hard for you to believe that this is more about terrorism. Yes, there are ancillary benefits to going into Iraq, but they are NOT the sole reason we are there.

Seriously, if you spent half as much time reading between the lines about what really is going on, instead of finding obscure reasons to hate "Shrub" I think you would find that the war in Iraq is not a bad thing. You seem determined and able to find facts that piece together your conspiracy theories. Try looking at them with less of a slant. Free your mind, and your ass will follow.

BTW, I don't watch any network news (FOX or otherwise), I think they are all out to lunch. However, I can tell exactly which books you have read from your posts, and if you were to reflect on your comments critically you would see you are not speaking from a position of objective reason.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[thirdrock]

If only it were so simple. If there was a specific nation that was responsible, I guarantee there would be a declaration of a war.

I thought Iraq was a specific nation, silly me. Or are you talking about terrorism. Then wouldn't that be Osama Bin Laden. Oh wait a minute, didn't Bush claim that the US would catch him 'dead or alive'. Or did that prove beyond the capabilities of the US military? Much easier to invade a country that has had an economic stanglehold over it for 10 years.

Instead we had to throw down the gauntlet to would-be terrorist and the nations that harbor them.

I call bullshit. Half of the world's terrorists were trained, armed and supported by the CIA, but I don't see the Pentagon sending the B52's to Langley, Virginia. Now that we have the 'War on Terror', a piece of Orwellian genius, the US can selectively decide who are terrorists and who are 'freedom fighters'. Terrorists are anyone who disagrees with US policy or who would prefer more equitable terms of trade so that their people are not economic slaves to US businessmen. 'Freedom fighters'on the other hand are murdering scumbag death squads fighting against the tyranny of communism. Like the Albanians in Kosovo.

Yeah, I do mean them, and by them I mean them as a group of people with the power to vote.

They already did vote, but the elections were declared invalid by the Coalition Provisional Authority. What Iraqi's didn't realise is that they were supposed to vote for the people the Americans like.

You're right. It's going to take a while. Trust me. It'll be better.

a) Why should I trust you? (b) Better for whom?

As for the bringing about another government party line...rig the next election? Gore was a loser. He couldn't even win his own state. He couldn't even win Florida decisively.

Well, there's the facts. Well researched, comprehensive, but not well publicised. And then there are opinions like the one above, mass marketed through a compliant media, but bullshit none-the-less.

Yet, Bush in spite of his pundits claims "has found Saddam" through his current policies.

Oh really, how old are you? The US Army found Saddam Hussein, and quite frankly So Fucking What? It seems to be the American way to get so excited about frivolous things while the important issues get swept under the carpet in the hysteria.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[thirdrock]

http://www.cpa-iraq.org/essential_services/electri city.html

Actually, Iraq has more electricity now than it did before the war.

Interesting link, however it only shows total output, not distribution. I imagine that the CPA uses quite a lot of power, while until recently the lights went out at 9pm in most Bhagdad suburbs. Suitable for curfew conditions anyway.

Close examination of the satelite photo shows that it is only the center of the city, not the surrounding suburbs.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[infiniphonic]

i thought the anthrax thing turned out to be a fat white guy ?

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

Look, if Afghanistan was more accessible, it would be an entirely different story for that whole countries history. You can arm chair General all you want, but the facts remain, a man hunt take time, intelligence, and resources to execute them. Bush's policies as Commander and Chief of the military made sure the military was there to find the people we are looking for.

I call bullshit on your CIA training thing. How much training does it take to strap a bomb to yourself and blow up a bus? Terror is fairly low tech and it doesn't take CIA training to figure it out.

Well, there's the facts. Well researched, comprehensive, but not well publicised. And then there are opinions like the one above, mass marketed through a compliant media, but bullshit none-the-less.

Well double dumb ass on me. I guess your right. Wait, what did you just prove? I stated fact, and you stated what? Compliant media rhetoric? Come again?

Oh really, how old are you? The US Army found Saddam Hussein, and quite frankly So Fucking What? It seems to be the American way to get so excited about frivolous things while the important issues get swept under the carpet in the hysteria.

Ha! Saddam is captured. One of many heavy weights has been lifted from the Iraqi people today, and all you can do is rain on the parade. I'm sorry if all the pundits have to rewrite their speeches especially the part "and Bush can't even find Saddam". Frankly, I have hope that Osama will be next. Unlike the left, atleast some of what the right says comes true. I'm young and I should be a democrat, but the entire party is too fragmented, too disorganized, and needs to get it's damn shit together before I invest a vote that way. Like it or not....that's where I come out.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit on your CIA training thing

In his book on al Qaeda, "Holy War," Peter Bergen said of the Mogadishu battle: "A U.S. official told me that the skills involved in shooting down those helicopters were not skills that the Somalis could have learned on their own." In other words, the training that the United States supplied to Islamists in the Afghan War in the 1980s, when the emphasis was on bringing down Soviet helicopters, is still coming back to haunt the United States today. That training, according to author George Crile, author of "Charlie Wilson's War," about the CIA's arming of Islamists during the Afghan War, even included "urban terror, with instruction in car bombings, bicycle bombings, camel bombings, and assassination."

BTW, there was a bicycle bombing in Afghanistan just two days ago.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[valmont]

you, like 99.9% of the world's entire population, are absolutely unable to understand and/or see some very basic concepts and facts of international policy related to Iraq.

Let me refresh your memory. Over 10 years ago, when France, Germany, U.S. and all other U.N. constituants voted for the embargo on Iraq, they essentially signed the death certificates of thousands upon thousands of starving Iraqi children every single month. For 10 fucking years this has been going on and NO ONE, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, has done ANYTHING concrete to put an end to this. People see bombs, planes, tanks and "the big invasion" as the worst thing Iraq has endured over the last 10 years, WAKE THE FUCK UP, you clueless masses, IRAQ, HAS ALREADY been at war for over 10 years.

You may agree or disagree, approve or disapprove, hide behind the same old rehashed conspiracy theories behind the U.S.'s motives for going there. But in the end, this invasion is the very very first chance for Iraq at a brighter future. Even if only U.S. companies obtain Iraqi contracts, guess where that U.S. money is guna go? The Iraqi PEOPLE. Not to some dictator who constantly remains eager to build himself new pools and palaces, while his children starve.

This is not about getting rid of all oppressive regimes in the world. This is about fixing a mess that the U.S. and Europe started over a decade ago, it is about bringing closure to a campaign that had been started back in 1989 that may have ephemerously freed the Kurds, but has also immediately thrown the Iraqi People in the middle of economic sanctions and subsequent starvation, under a dictator that never ever gave a shit about his People, all to see the U.N. bitch, moan, and do absolutely nothing concrete for 10 years to hold saddam accountable and lift sanctions. For 10 years, the Iraq situation has been a can of worms no leader in the world has been willing to open, while U.S. and Europe enjoyed a prosperous economic expansion.

Even if saddam was never himself involved with terrorist activities, his regime has set the stage to feed extremist Muslim movements with the hate, anger and desperation they so direly need to formulate their anti-Occident brainwash and bring-in new recruits. Until now, if you're an Iraqi struggling to make ends meet to feed your family, here were your only two options at a better life:

• join saddam's army and be guaranteed 3 meals a day.
• join bin laden's army and guarantee your family a hefty reward after your death.

Why would young, strong Iraqi Men NOT choose one of those two routes? For all they knew, they'd be fighting the western cultures that oppress them.

My guess is these are the real reasons why we went to war with Iraq. Sure this administration's lack of credibility sticks out like a sore fucking thumb in this whole mess, what fucking WMD? what fucking 9/11? But this all goes back to what i started this post with: 99.9% of people in the world are clueless numbnuts who just LIVE for hair-brained conspiracy theories to make simple sense out of a complicated mess. From there, it isn't hard to see why the U.S. administration tried to rally their citizens and the rest of the world with simple concepts simpletons could grok: "WMD, 9/11".

How did we get here? Simple. For decades Arab countries have been the bitch to either one of two entities: Capitalist Factions and Communist Factions. Since Arab countries never evolved to even simple forms of democracy, no ruler of Iran or Iraq ever was truly accountable for their actions, and was therefore free to more or less secretely broker deals with the U.S., Europe or the USSR. Russians were racing for oil interests thru Iran, Americans thru Iraq, who all sat back and watched Arab Brothers kill oneanother, while feeding them weapons.

Arab countries have GOT to demo

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I didn't bother to read through all of your rant but let me just play with my HTML a little bit and start with this: You're a fucking moron

The UN did try to lift the sanctions but was unable to do so because of the veto powers US holds in the security council.

There has been several attempts by the UN to ease the sanctions due to humanitarian reasons but it was clear that one country, USA, would not allow that to pass in the security council.

So would you now shut the fuck up you illiterate retard.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that, as is well know, the blessed United States of God's America have probably given more money and munitions to terrorists than Saddam ever did.

The US being one of only two countries on the planet who refused to put their name to a UN statement condeming state sponsored terrorism. The US was perfectly happy with the idea of an international criminal court when one didn't exist. But as soon as one actually comes into existance they want special exclusion.

Saddam only ran an oppressive regime; the USA has helped overthrow democratically elected leaders and installed regimes every bit as bad.

Saddam was one of the dictators the US helped into power. As for installing a tyrant over a democratically elected government that happened in Iran.

Saddam has used WMD on civilians?

He "Gassed his own people" so did the Russians then there's Waco.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

When war is declared, there is no such thing as terrorism, it's friggen war! Don't expect people to jump out in front of your rifles like nice soldiers. If the world was under attack, and I could strap a nuclear weapon on my chest and destroy the alien invaders, you better believe I would, and it's called defending one's loved ones and society. Which is exactly what those Iraqi "terrorists" are trying to do.

The Iraqis shooting at occupying forces arn't "terrorists" they are "militiamen".

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[mpe]

You missed something. Saudi Arabia is an ALLY to the United States. Syria is the next target, with Iran and Korea to follow.

Since it was discovered that North Korea actually has nuclear deterrant capabilities the spotlight has kind of moved of them. There may not even be a "next target", since US forces appear to be overextended with Afghanistan and Iraq.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[mpe]

Who is 'they'. The Anthrax investigation stalled and then stopped when the trail led to a government building.

It lead not to a Arab but to a racist who didn't like Arabs. So instead they decided to go and harass someone unconnected.

Funny that. After Gulf War I, even with economic sanctions and the 'food for oil program', the Iraqi's under Saddam Hussein managed to rebuild more than 140 bridges, resume oil production, law and order, a food distribution programme, and even the hospitals (although without most medicines as they were unable to import them due to the sanctions).

Iraqi engineers are astonished at the size of the construction contracts which have been handed out to US companies. Since they are orders of magnitude greater than their own estimates to fix the damage. These being the same engineers who sorted out fixing things after the last war.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Iraq was a specific nation, silly me. Or are you talking about terrorism. Then wouldn't that be Osama Bin Laden. Oh wait a minute, didn't Bush claim that the US would catch him 'dead or alive'. Or did that prove beyond the capabilities of the US military? Much easier to invade a country that has had an economic stanglehold over it for 10 years.

Even easier if you can get that country to disarm and verify that they are disarmed just before invading.

I call bullshit. Half of the world's terrorists were trained, armed and supported by the CIA, but I don't see the Pentagon sending the B52's to Langley, Virginia.

Which would have been a lot easier than sending them half way around the planet. Anyway "half" is probably a conservative (or is that "neo-con") estimate. Similarly the US is quite happy to continue sending money to the Israeli government who's claims of wanting peace are so hollow even plenty of Israelis have stopped believing them.

Now that we have the 'War on Terror', a piece of Orwellian genius, the US can selectively decide who are terrorists and who are 'freedom fighters'.

With these definitions being subject to quick revision.

Terrorists are anyone who disagrees with US policy or who would prefer more equitable terms of trade so that their people are not economic slaves to US businessmen.

Which includes those who's like a strong, patriotic, democratic government. Which will protect their countries resources and people without being pushed around by foreign business and government.

They already did vote, but the elections were declared invalid by the Coalition Provisional Authority. What Iraqi's didn't realise is that they were supposed to vote for the people the Americans like.

They probably realised that, just that they didn't go along with it. The average Iraqi may well be better educated in the issues than the average American.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

>Iraqi engineers are astonished at the size of the construction contracts which
>have been handed out to US companies. Since they are orders of magnitude greater
>than their own estimates to fix the damage.

Yeah, but I bet the Iraqi engineers are even worse than Irish pikeys! I'm assuming that the stuff that is rebuilt should work for more than a few days.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[mpe]

This is about fixing a mess that the U.S. and Europe started over a decade ago, it is about bringing closure to a campaign that had been started back in 1989 that may have ephemerously freed the Kurds

The "start" here isn't 1989, the most definite point at which this mess could have been said to have been started is the carving up of the Ottoman empire in the 1920's.

Since Arab countries never evolved to even simple forms of democracy, no ruler of Iran or Iraq ever was truly accountable for their actions, and was therefore free to more or less secretely broker deals with the U.S., Europe or the USSR.

Iran actually had a democratic government, which was removed and replaced by an American friendly tyrant. Anyway the Iranians are Persians rather than Arabs.

Arab countries have GOT to democratize themselves in one way or another, their leaders must be accountable to the people , and this holds especially true for Arab countries who sit on top of precious natural resources.

The last thing "The West" especially the US wants is democracy in Arabia. Democratic governments are only accountable to their citizens. They are not accountable to foreign governments and business interests.

You simply cannot let a dictatorship regime in sole uncontested, unaccountable control of such resources without ensuring the misery of their People and that of any entity who'd dare question their hegemony. Natural resources in the hands of a dictator means money that never reaches the local economy,

It makes it very easy for a foreign mineral extraction company to make a big profit. Dictators don't care if people are paid a fair wage or if appropriate safety standards are in place. If workers attempt to form unions they will be of collision course with their own government long before they are in a position to present any demands of their employeers.

The bulk of the challenge remains in its reconstruction and the establishment of a prosperous democracy and be an example to the rest of the Arab World.

As long as the US remains in Iraq there will be no democracy there. Democracy simply cannot exists in a country under foreign military occupation.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

Yeah, but you couldn't tell me which books I haven't read, like I can you. This is a more important measure than "Which books have you read?" because it shows a bias to actually aquiring information vs. aquiring biased information.

I didn't say war with Iraq is a bad thing, I'm just saying there has been nothing, including the capture, to justify the costs that couldn't have been obtained through the UN by loosening the sanctions. It's not our place to institute democracy in third world countries despite the better judgement of the world/UN.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

Go for it. Which books haven't I read?

That's an odd way to take what I said. Answer me this, how would I know what books you have read, without reading them myself and ascertaining the ideas you borrowed to fill your comments? Does FOX news also update it's viewers with a list of what books its pundits read every night? Maybe they do book reports at the end of the half hour or hour or whatever it is.

Don't believe everything you read. Just because someone took the time to write it down in a book doesn't make it so. Propoganda takes many forms.

It's not our place to institute democracy in third world countries despite the better judgement of the world/UN.

Maybe. Maybe not. We've been successful before, we've also failed before. Honestly, I believe if anyone can pull it off it's us.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

That's the most egotistical BS I've read in a long time. The US knows better than the collective world? Let me give you an instant replay of where we've gone wrong in the past.

1) We let our companies completely take over all the sugar cane farms of Cuba, and we left the people there to starve. This made the situation ripe for Fidel Castro to take control, and left a very negative image of the US in their minds. This later almost caused the destruction of the world due to nuclear war.

2) We funded and trained Osama, and most of his crew to fight against Russia. Later, this turned out to cost us life in a war with the Taliban, as well as some of his power that gave him the opportunity to plan and fund Sept 11 (If you believe he did it.).

3) We trained Iranian police to assasinate their leader, then we placed a weak leader in power. This was discovered soon there after, thus Iran is still angry with us. This also lead to 4.

4) We placed Saddam in power because of his strength... the weak leader in Iran didn't work, so we realized someone stronger needed to be in power. We trained his army and equiped them. We gave them the delivery technology to attack Iran, and the biological weapons, which he also used on the Kurds. He also used these rockets to fire at Israel, and used them to attack Kuwait. You know my position on the current situation, and it's entirely our fault from day 1.

5) We don't argue with Turkey, even though they gun down the Kurds quite frequently.

6) The most atrocious nation for human rights violations (Saudi Arabia) is the number one arms buyer from the US. The also have trillions of dollars invested in our markets, and the removal of which could cause more devistation than the great depression, not to mention that our oil prices would soar if they pulled their oil from the market. The US economy is dependant on Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship that we keep in power despite barbaric practices of amputation and public execution to keep their people in line. Most terrorists are from Saudi Arabia, and they hate America because we interfere in their government by keeping the dictatorship there up. We are responsible for our own actions of provoking terrorism by not only condoning human rights violations, but by being an active supporter with our arms and foreign policy.

I think it would be easier to list the problems we haven't been partially or entirely responsible for in the last 50-60 years. We aren't really responsible for N. Korea (that's China's doing). We aren't responsible for China or North Vietnam. We aren't responsible for Hitler (one of the few good things we've done, but our support wasn't as critical as popular English literature would have one believe, because of the deep feer and hatred of the USSR/communism). We didn't cause any of the wars in Croatia, etc. That's about it.

The US has been involved in just about every screw up since using the nuclear bomb. In order to justify using the nuke, you would have to justify terrorism (the killing of civilians during a time of war). We have caused a hell of a lot of screw ups with the policy that we know what's best for the rest of the world. The rest of the world can take care of themselves, if they needed our help, they would ask for it at the UN. That's how the world should be run, not by one large government hell bent on bullying the rest of the world with our massive "defence". What we use the armed forces for is very much the oposite of "defence" in a very Orwellian sense.

Why don't you at least point out at least a few cases where we've done some good to compensate for the near destruction kind of danger we've put the world in? We let the Philipines go? Republicans hate the whole Bosnia thing. I can't think of a single time that the UN has endangered the entire world, but I can name plenty of times where they've done good (with our help, not our domination) like the first Gulf War. The UN may make mistakes, but it has the wisdom of

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Great post. Except do you really think the oil companies pay in cash?

If oil was traded in the Euro, every oil trader with USD in their bank would have to switch over to Euro, which would flood the market with USD, and make the Euro scarce.

Um... no. Electronic transfers in Euros will do little to make Euros scarce. It's not like a huge freighter full of Euros is sent accross the sea when someone in the EU buys oil from the middle East.

It's these little details that conspiricy people forget about when coming up with their great explanations.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[j3110]

Actually, the bank does have to keep Euro's on hand, and they have do have to dump a lot of USD. Do you understand how much money the bank would loose if they kept their money in USD, and the Euro climbed even 10%. There are probably a trillion dollars/Euros in these banks, they would loose 100 Billion dollars in that scenario, and the Euro has been as high as 1.40$ from as low as 70 cents. That would cost a bank half a trillion dollars, and they would be out of business instantly. You have to keep sperate bank accounts for differenc currencies, and often you have to use a different bank that deals in just that currency. This way the bank doesn't loose money dealing an currencies that shift value, the actual client takes most of the loss if the currency drops in value on the market.

Moving your cash from a USD bank to a Euro bank equates to removing all your money from being invested in American companies to being invested in European one's. This actually does make the market contain more USD than needed, and less Euro, because in the very least, the bank or the person has to transfer these dollars to an exchange or another bank that has Euro's in order to pay their debt, which when the exchanges run out of actual Euro's that can exchange, and they have way too many dollars, the exchange rate has to go up. I understand very well that there aren't really finite amounts of USD on the market, but banks are limited in what they can do because of our experiences during the 30's.

When you convert wealth between forms, it actually has to occur, it's not faked. It would be fraudulent for a bank that has dollars to magically convert them to Euro's. That's about on par with inventing gold when you invest in gold. The exchange has to take place, even if it is in some computer, and it is fictitious as far as actually peices of paper. When that exchange occurs, whoever did it now has more of one than before and less of the other.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[thirdrock]

Look, if Afghanistan was more accessible, it would be an entirely different story for that whole countries history.

Aw, diddums, are the big bad mountains making things difficult?

You can arm chair General all you want, but the facts remain, a man hunt take time, intelligence, and resources to execute them.

That's why time, itelligence and resources were diverted to Iraq right? To help catch Osama Bin Laden?


Bush's policies as Commander and Chief of the military made sure the military was there to find the people we are looking for.

No so far.

I call bullshit on your CIA training thing.
Well then, you don't know a thing.

How much training does it take to strap a bomb to yourself and blow up a bus? Terror is fairly low tech and it doesn't take CIA training to figure it out.

Lots. Training on how to construct the bomb and trigger. Psychological training on how to recruit martyrs. Training on insertion so you make it over the border and on to the bus. And that's just for suicide bombings. There's more training to be had for other operations too.

Ha! Saddam is captured. One of many heavy weights has been lifted from the Iraqi people today, and all you can do is rain on the parade. I'm sorry if all the pundits have to rewrite their speeches especially the part "and Bush can't even find Saddam".

Saddam Hussein is the former commander in chief of a sovereign nation, and as such has certain rights and expectations under the Geneva convention. So far these have not materialised.

Unlike the left, atleast some of what the right says comes true.
You mean like the right said they were going into Iraq, and they did!! Wow, you are right, the right-wing all truth tellers after all!

I'm young and I should be a democrat, but the entire party is too fragmented, too disorganized, and needs to get it's damn shit together before I invest a vote that way. Like it or not....that's where I come out.

It's not about left and right. It's about money and power. Follow the money, and you will see who is in power.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[thirdrock]

>Iraqi engineers are astonished at the size of the construction contracts which
>have been handed out to US companies. Since they are orders of magnitude greater
>than their own estimates to fix the damage.

Yeah, but I bet the Iraqi engineers are even worse than Irish pikeys! I'm assuming that the stuff that is rebuilt should work for more than a few days.


You moron. What do you think the US army used to get to Bhagdad, Basra and Mosul. Yes, bridges, built by Iraqi engineers, that took hundreds of tanks and thousands of troops.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

It's not about left and right. It's about money and power. Follow the money, and you will see who is in power.
Cyash mwoney you say? Power? No, you're kidding, right? Wait, I know, you are one of those geniuses, right?

Not so far
I think there are quite a few people who have been captured or killed. Bush stuck it out against the nancy boy whiners who can't tolerate a bloody a nose. Not so far? Yeah, so far his policies have.

Lots. Training on how to construct the bomb and trigger. Psychological training on how to recruit martyrs. Training on insertion so you make it over the border and on to the bus. And that's just for suicide bombings. There's more training to be had for other operations too.

As for the training, please. Car bombs? Umm, retarded mafia goons named Lenny "the torch" have been doing this. Bicycle bombs? Can't afford a car, fine, I sympathize. Slip past the border? Mexicans and everyone else in the world have been doing that in this country for years. Suicide death cults? Hrrm, I think there is precedent. I'm sure you're right, the terrorists and the aforementioned, probably would have never figured this out without the CIA.

Saddam Hussein is the former commander in chief of a sovereign nation, and as such has certain rights and expectations under the Geneva convention. So far these have not materialised.

Aww, diddums? Poor Saddam has no rights? Under military law, I think cowardice is often punishable by death. I agree lets give him back to "his people", so they can give him his Geneva convention rights.

You mean like the right said they were going into Iraq, and they did!! Wow, you are right, the right-wing all truth tellers after all!

Yeah, just like that. Going into Afghanistan and removing the Taliban from power. Going into Iraq and protecting our interests. Finding Saddam. Improving the economy. All the important things. Finding WMDs? Who cares, it was suppose to be a ticket and a wink wink nudge nudge with the security council. Some of the other members fucked us to protect their own interests. Oh well, we won't forget or make that mistake again.

Don't think it's fair? Too damn bad, that's what happens when countries disagree. If France, Germany and Russia had real reasons to stop us, they would have supported Saddam and put their military where their mouth is. If those countries went to war, the UN would be right out the window and irrelevant anyway. The US is the big dog on this planet, and have interests everywhere. The US didn't get to be number one, by not protecting those interests. If that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, pick up a rifle and stand up for what you believe in. The people in power (and pretty much anyone else) is going to demand nothing less.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[thirdrock]

Cyash mwoney you say? Power? No, you're kidding, right? Wait, I know, you are one of those geniuses, right?

Yes, I am, but that is irrelevant. You seem to be getting smarter too, maybe you are one of those government astroturfers.

Aww, diddums? Poor Saddam has no rights? Under military law, I think cowardice is often punishable by death. I agree lets give him back to "his people", so they can give him his Geneva convention rights.

Great idea! We finally agree on something. Still, might be too much pride to swallow on the part of the US forces. How will the Iraqi's try him? They don't have a constitution, a justice system or a government yet.

Finding WMDs? Who cares, it was suppose to be a ticket and a wink wink nudge nudge with the security council.

I am starting to see some light.

The US is the big dog on this planet, and have interests everywhere. The US didn't get to be number one, by not protecting those interests.

And the truth shall set you FREE !!.

So now it's clear that going into Iraq is in America's interest not Iraq's interest.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[vt0asta]

I'm the one who started the aforementioned subject thread. WMD && Oil is not the issue. Why don't you read what I wrote previously before you take my comments and mis-construe them. Everyone felt the need to basically agree with what I said, but had to sound off at how smart they think they are.

Saddam sponsored terrorism. I don't care if Russia, Germany, or France is upset that we picked on their little nest egg of a country. In fact their involvement only made Iraq the most likely candidate.

I agree that our troops should be over there. I am all too happy that going into Iraq screwed over Germany, France, and Russia. The old alliances disappeared with the Cold War. This is the new war, if the other countries want to get in the game and defy us, fine, I say bring it.

Re:WMD && Oil != the issue

[lscoughlin]

Hans Blix didn't say any such thing until well after the fact. At the time he seemed reather blase on the subject, additionally, he firmly and repetedly stated that Iraq was hiding things from them, and were clearly in violation of UN resolutions. The UN resolutions themselves were sufficient to go to war (again) in the first place.

Wacko thought of the day

[ka9dgx]

If he doesn't get killed first, in 2 years, Saddam will be running Iraq again, with our blessing.

Yes, stupid, improbably, and unlikely... but there... I've said it on the record.

We don't dare put him through a fair public trial. We'll either keep him drugged up to prevent a fair defense, or we'll just play it safe, and Jack Ruby him.

--Mike--

Re:And not 1 american died on US soil from terrori

[BTWR]

And not 1 american died on US soil from terrorism Before Bush and his cronies were in office either

Um... you're an idoot on 2 counts. Were you sleeping during the original WTC bombings? And, do you think that the terrorists REALLY HATED Bush's first 8 months in office that they attacked during his presidency? If Gore won, 9/11 wouldn't have happened, right?

you misspelled "misspelled"

[musselm]

sorry

Operation Red Dawn?

[Branch_Dravidian]

WOLVERINES!!!!!

Re:Operation Red Dawn?

[Gorobei]

At least someone noticed that. Pretty funny naming an operation for a paranoid Commie movie fantasy from the 1980s.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[k98sven]

The US could not join any ICC treaty, as the terms of the treaty are not acceptable under the US constitution.

That is quite debatable. A good number of politicians feel differently.
In any case, it's a question best decided by the Supreme Court. So why not let them?

More pragmatically, it seems quite likely that the tranzis would use the ICC to bring frivilous charges against various officials in the US.

That is simply the paranoid mode of thought which leads to unilateralism. It's ridiculous.
The same argument could be used by any nation. Are we supposed to belive the USA is somehow unique?

Using the ICC for frivolous politically motivated indictments is in nobodys best interest. Any and all systems of justice require faith in the legitimacy of the legal process, you can't have justice otherwise.

War-crimes tribunals suffer from this lack of faith. A trial of the vanquished by the victors can never be considered impartial.

Faith in justice is one of the American ideals I mentioned. There is no reason besides xenophobia to think that America should not extend this faith to the international scene.

For christ sake...

[Jugalator]

"Saddam Hissein was arrested"

Over thousand comments and you guys have still not even got his name right. What a great illustration of the sloppiness of the slashdot editors doing everything in their power to turn the articles into amateur quality. :-P

War was never about just WMDs

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

The war was NEVER about "weapons of mass destruction". And GWB never said that, just as Al "The Wooden Plank" Gore NEVER sead he was the inventor of the Internet. Certainly the American president wanted to find WMDs, but there have always been other issues.

Re:War was never about just WMDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably wise of you to switch sides Saeed, but you're no more convincing than you ever were.

Father and son, bedtime chat

[aled]

Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction.
Q: But the inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction.
A: That's because the Iraqis were hiding them.
Q: And that's why we invaded Iraq?
A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.
Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn't find any weapons Of mass destruction, did we?
A: That's because the weapons are so well hidden. Don't worry, we'll find something, probably right before the 2004 election.
Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?
A: To use them in a war, silly.
Q: I'm confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn't they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?
A: Well, obviously they didn't want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.
Q: That doesn't make sense. Why would they choose to die if They had all those big weapons with which they could have fought back?
A: It's a different culture. It's not supposed to make sense.
Q: I don't know about you, but I don't think they had any of those weapons our government said they did.
A: Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway.
Q: And what was that?
A: Even if Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.
Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to Invade his country?
A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.
Q: Kind of like what they do in China?
A: Don't go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer.
Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it's a good country, even if that country tortures people?
A: Right.
Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?
A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Isn't that exactly what happens in China?
A: I told you, China is different.
Q: What's the difference between China and Iraq?
A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath party, while China is Communist.
Q: Didn't you once tell me Communists were bad?
A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.
Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?
A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Like in Iraq?
A: Exactly.
Q: And like in China, too?
A: I told you, China's a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not.
Q: How come Cuba isn't a good economic competitor?
A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government Passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being
communists and started being capitalists like us.
Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn't that help the Cubans become capitalists?
A: Don't be a smart-ass.
Q: I didn't think I was being one.
A: Well, anyway, they also don't have freedom of religion in Cuba.
Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement?
A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he's not really a Legitimate leader anyway.
Q: What's a military coup?
A: That's when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.
Q: Didn't the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?
A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend.
Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?
A: I never said Pervez Musharraf

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

Great dialogue. Too bad that the parent violated the copyright license to this dialogue when he wholesale copied it from AnarchieBunker and removed the authorship statement.

Is there a moderation along the lines of -1, CopyrightMoron?

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[aled]

In fact I copied it shamelesy from dailyroxette and forgot to mention it.
I like the CopyrightMoron moderation idea. I propose also that ./ adds Satire +1, Ironic +1, Sarcastic +3, stupid -1 and ACbrag -1 moderations.

This post should be at Insightful +5, if it isn't use your moderation points to correct the error.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[anthony_dipierro]

Daddy, what is a strawman argument?

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmmm....
No. I don't think it is really fair to compare China to Iraq.
If you had to choose between living in China or living in Iraq - which one do you choose? For myself I will go to China.
Of course I have never been to Iraq(I would be scared to go and for good reason). I did just get back from China where I met many locals. None of them seemed worried about being tortured by the government. Most of them work very hard and have dreams of one day being very successful. A very different attitude and circumstance the Iraqi people were in under Sadams rule (from the interviews of local citizens I saw on tv). Ok, maybe I have been brainwashed by western media but it seemed to me that most Iraqis know of someone close to them who has been tortured by Sadams regime. Yes, China does torture people (so i've read) but the Chinese people do not live in fear - rather they have great hope of being successful and enjoy their lives.
Sadam is captured and people are celebrating in the streets and shooting guns in the air. If Jiang Zemin was captured most Chinese would scratch their heads and wonder what the problem was.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like the Chinese gov too much however I do see that the Chinese people are not ruled by an iron fist that leaves everyone in fear for their lives. I tell you I would consider living in China, but there is no way in all of hell that I would ever willingly live in a country ruled by Sadam.

One last comment: If all I knew about the american gov came from reading comments on Slashdot I would think it is the most corrupt goverenment on earth. I would feel so sorry for the wonderful Mr Hussien who was captured by my horrible government. No, the truth as we all know it is that the U.S. government is the best in the world and is therefore (and rightfully so) held to a much much higher standard than any other government on the planet. This is why we get criticized so heavily. Also our country is the only one in a position to take out guys like Sadam. I do believe that is part of the reason some Europeans don't like us.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

Bravo!
Tour de force!
Props de jour!

Make copies; for this is to be a classic!

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the reason they invaded was generally two things. The WOMDs and because Saddam is a vicious leader. Your argument only answers the first, and it's the second that now carries the most weight.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Richard Allen]

Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2F news%2F2003%2F12%2F14%2Fwterr14.xml&secureRefresh= true&_requestid=53162

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't it that central european countries tend to castrate themselves these days in the hopes of having everybody just getting along? certainly if you look at european history there is plenty of bloodshed.

On the other hoof, the US reserves its option to use its ability to oust a weak opponent when there is potentially great economic benefit.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[bitrott]

Nice. Very classy way to NOT deal with any raised issues. For every "strawman" argument you see, there's a body count not far behind.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[anthony_dipierro]

The raised issues are being dealt with in lots of other threads. If you'd like to discuss an issue with me, go ahead and bring it up. Or would you rather I respond with a strawman of my own?

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[aled]

This is the first time this link is mentioned, until now even US intelligence services downplayed it. Wait a minute, this suposed Niger uranium shipment isn't the one that was previously reported as non existant by ex ambassador Wilson refuting Mr Bush? I'll wait a few days to see what solid turns to be this news.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

omg, so fucking long, i have add

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Hooya]

i know of several countries where thousends and thousends of people are being 'deprived of their heads' by vicious leaders. when can i expect US to intervene? and btw, the countries in question don't have oil.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[0x0d0a]

His argument addressed the "vicious leader" aspect many times, with comparisons to China and Afghanistan.

Furthermore, I think it's a pretty tough argument that we invaded because Saddam is a vicious leader. It makes a nice justification, because human issues sell well in the media, but I don't think folks seriously think we invaded because of Saddam's crimes against his people. There are many equally nasty governments around the world.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

Not insightful, not a strawman, original premise is correct - the war was instituted to remove WMD.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[bitrott]

Not really my point. Nor am I particualrly interested in reading your opinions when there's such a flood of them out there right now. You were scolding the parent poster for strawman arguments and I was chastizing you for backhandedly ignoring any of his concerns raised. You were smarmy, he put in some effort. I'm all for calling a spade a spade, but at least be productive.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

pot, kettle, black.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[anthony_dipierro]

You were smarmy, he put in some effort.

Actually, he copy pasted it from someone else. The first time I read this post, I did respond to the points it made. This time I didn't. Nothing smarmy about that.

I'm all for calling a spade a spade, but at least be productive.

Pointing out that the argument was a strawman was productive.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[anthony_dipierro]

i know of several countries where thousends and thousends of people are being 'deprived of their heads' by vicious leaders. when can i expect US to intervene?

Whenever we can do so without facing major retaliation.

and btw, the countries in question don't have oil.

i know of several countries where thousands and thousands of barrels of oil are located. when can i expect US to intervene?

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[batura]

You forgot that key step at the top, when the weapons inpectors were not allowed to do their job.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[coopaq]

Thank you anthony!

I bet that guy's son would understand the whole
capitalist pig argument real quick if offered
some candy or toys or threatened with them being
taken away and never having them again.

Kinda like daddy's computer!

Yeah... time to invade China alright.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

It hasn't been all that great for the U.S. economy, at least nothing that guarentees anyones re-election.

I guess there is two ways to look at it: 1. Don't mess with Saddam so that everyone can 'just get along' or 2. take out Saddam so that evenryone can 'just get along'.

If you lived anywhere but the middle east you would probably favor option 1. If you live in the middle east you might favor option 2 however you would also be very afraid of a larger scale war that could break out or some cruel retailiation from Saddam. That is why some middle eastern countries still favored option 1.

I am guessing that most of Iraqs neighbors are very happy with the way things worked out. Saddam is not in power, there was no huge war, there were no cruel chemical attacks on neighboring countries. Iran, Kuwait, and Israel (maybe others) are probably better off now. The Iraqi people seem to be very happy Saddam is gone.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Coryoth]

i know of several countries where thousends and thousends of people are being 'deprived of their heads' by vicious leaders. when can i expect US to intervene?

Whenever we can do so without facing major retaliation.

Excellent. So we can expect to see the Zimbabwe invasion plans drawn up next week then?

Jedidiah.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[anthony_dipierro]

Excellent. So we can expect to see the Zimbabwe invasion plans drawn up next week then?

I think we'd see quite a bit of retaliation if we suddenly went into Zimbabwe.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Coryoth]

Given how the recent Commonwealth conference went, and the fact that there was only neligible regional support for Mugabe, I suspect there would be little retaliation.

Besides, I'm not suggesting you INVADE next week, merely that you start drawing up the invasion plans. Look at the nice long campaign from when invasion of Iraq was first countenanced, till it was executed. I imagine we could have a similar deal here. Certainly it wouldn't be hard to swing the support of a great many commonwealth countries behind you. You could probably even manage to get UN approval if you threw as much effort into the campaign to gather support as you did for Iraq.

So, tell me again, exactly who are you expecting to have retaliate?

Jedidiah.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[anthony_dipierro]

Besides, I'm not suggesting you INVADE next week, merely that you start drawing up the invasion plans.

Well, we certainly won't have any retaliation for that, as no one is going to know about it. In fact, maybe the plans already are drawn up.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Coryoth]

I meant publically draw up the plans. Wasn't that how news of the possible Iraq invasion started. Sketch invasion plans being aired in public. And where is the push to have the UN sanction an invasion. I haven't seen much of that going on.

You seem to be dodging the point here, which is:

(1) You could probably get a fair amount of international support to remove Mugabe. If you throw in the sort of level of effort that went into trying to convince the UN to invade Iraq you could probably get full UN support. That means international retaliation is going to be minimal.

(2) It's not like the feared Zimbabwe military are going to provide much in the way of retaliation. It might be reasonable to tread a little softly with North korea because they could do some serious damage on the way down, but I don't think Zimbabwe is really much threat to anyone.

So, the question is, if the US really is providing worldwide peacekeeping/knock of the evil dictator services, why haven't we heard anything about Zimbabwe, because it seems like a pretty ripe target?

Jedidiah.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that you think liberating Iraq was bad, but then say we should invade another country? If you father beat his sister, sorry, you call her mom and he is put in jail. Would you then say "hey why not put my neighbor in jail" or "Mr Rogers down the street should be in jail"?

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Coryoth]

I am in no way claiming that seeing Hussein deposed is a bad thing. Neither, to be honest, would I want to see troops marched in Zimbabwe to remove Mugabe - I think a little more backbone in condemning and cutting of his regime from trade and foreign aid would be a good start instead. If that fails to work, then further action could be contemplated. I am merely trying to point out that the reasons given for the invasion of Iraq don't make an awful lot of sense. don't worry, I'm not one of those "it's all about the oil" types. But I don't think the publically stated reasons are very credible.

So, you still haven't really answered my question - if the reason for invading Iraq was to liberate the people and free them from a dictator, why aren't they doing that elsewhere?

Jedidiah.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[anthony_dipierro]

I meant publically draw up the plans. Wasn't that how news of the possible Iraq invasion started. Sketch invasion plans being aired in public.

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. We knew of a possible Iraq invasion ever since Iraq annexed Kuwait. The first time I heard of speculation of actually going into Baghdad and removing Saddam was around the time we went into Pakistan. Ever since that point the speculation grew rather smoothly.

You could probably get a fair amount of international support to remove Mugabe. If you throw in the sort of level of effort that went into trying to convince the UN to invade Iraq you could probably get full UN support. That means international retaliation is going to be minimal.

OK...

It's not like the feared Zimbabwe military are going to provide much in the way of retaliation. It might be reasonable to tread a little softly with North korea because they could do some serious damage on the way down, but I don't think Zimbabwe is really much threat to anyone.

OK... Still waiting for a punch line...

So, the question is, if the US really is providing worldwide peacekeeping/knock of the evil dictator services, why haven't we heard anything about Zimbabwe, because it seems like a pretty ripe target?

What do you think? Maybe that will help me understand your question. What specific things are you wondering why we're not hearing? What would you suggest we do?

By the way, I never stated that the US was "providing worldwide peacekeeping/knock of the evil dictator services."

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Coryoth]

What do you think? Maybe that will help me understand your question. What specific things are you wondering why we're not hearing? What would you suggest we do?

I'm wondering why the systematic torture, death threats, random killing, and all round human rights abuses in Zimbabwe are going largely unnoticed and uncommented upon by the current US regime. I've heard comments from Blair, from Chirac, from Howard, but nothing from Bush. It was a hot topic at the recent Commonwealth conference, and could soon be rearing it's head in the UN. But still we haven't heard a single comment, or suggestion from Bush, or any other US representative of note, about possible actions to be taken. On its own, that would be fine and normal - it's just that as long as the prime justification for taking such swift action with Iraq was to liberate them from a tyrranical dictator, that kind of implies that tyrranical dictators are something the US is worried about. Because of that the lack of comment on Zimbabwe seems odd.

Why do I think we haven't heard anything about Zimbabwe? Because I don't really think that liberating the Iraqi people was the prime goal of the invasion. It was definitely a nice bonus, and I'm glad that Hussein has been deposed, but I don't think it was the reason. What do I think was the reason? That's the problem - I really don't know. None of the publically stated reasons make a lot of sense. WMD - well, where are they? Liberating Iraq - why Iraq and not all the other places in similar need of liberation? I think the "it's all about the oil" people are being horribly simplistic. At best the oil was a convenient bonus. The best explanations I've heard are to do with a desire to impose a certain degree of American power and authority on the area - certainly the middle east in general is the prime breeding ground for anti american terrorism, so managing to stamp some authority there could be percieved as a good thing. But even that doesn't really make that much sense. I'm lacking any understanding of the reason, and that is what troubles me.

By the way, I never stated that the US was "providing worldwide peacekeeping/knock of the evil dictator services."

Nope, I agree, you never claimed that - I was simply doing a hypothetical generalisation of the principle that the US wants to liberate the people out from under oppressive regimes - presuming that that was the reason for their invasion of Iraq. That was my generalisation, not yours.

Jedidiah.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[anthony_dipierro]

As far as the "prime goal of the invasion," presumably you're talking about the prime goal of George Bush with regard to the invasion. That's an important point, though, because all the reasons you give were probably key to some in supporting the invasion. But it really was a Bush thing, and if I were going to speculate on his reasoning I think he did it because that's all he's good at.

Now, I'm definately no fan of Bush. When I heard he won the election in 2000 I was sick to my stomach. And even after September 11th I didn't rally around Bush like so many others were doing. I agreed that Al Qaeda needed to be eliminated, but I didn't feel that going to war with Afghanistan was something we needed to do.

But that's when Bush really took charge of things. (Maybe it was one of his advisors, but from the public's perspective these were his actions). He didn't debate and equivicate, he made Afghanistan an offer they couldn't refuse, and when they refused it he took quick and direct action. And it's around this time that my father, who referred to Bush as "the enemy" back in 2000, mentioned to me that Iraq was going to be next.

I thought at the time there was no way it was going to happen. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and the rest of the world wasn't going to go along like they did with Afghanistan. But Bush pulled it off again, though not nearly as elegantly as he did with the Taliban (Hussein played the public relations game much better than they did). Bush managed to pull out enough reasons for a majority of the US to support him, and he managed to tread the UN waters in a way which avoided a direct resolution against war, and even falls under the previous resolutions authorizing force.

Why did he do it? Well, I think it's clear that capturing or killing Saddam Hussein was a goal of the United States at least since Gulf War I. Bush saw this as something he could accomplish both to enhance his popularity and to add to his legacy. Obviously he's not going to say this, and I don't think there's any reason to expect him to. When you ask Bush what are the reasons for going into Iraq, you're really asking him what the justifications are.

Now, do I think we're going to go into Zimbabwe? I don't know, but I don't think the United States is going to remain at peace for very long as long as Bush is the President. Bush has managed to find the only thing he's good at, war.

Or were you talking about my reasons why I support (or at least accept) the invasion? For me it's mainly a matter of Saddam being an evil dictator, and secondarily because I believe that Saddam was at least a potential threat to the US. The secondary reason is seeming less and less real, though. There's the lack of very much evidence of weapons programs (*), there's the lack of very much opposition to our invasion of Baghdad, and most recently, there's the lack of a fight from Saddam himself upon his capture (he didn't even have anyone protecting him as far as I know). And even then, I didn't so much support the invasion, so much as accept it. I can't say I support having soldiers go to Iraq and be killed. But this is something the soldiers themselves feel is necessary, and so I'm not going to oppose the war on those grounds.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I made a point or not, so I'll end by responding something you said in response to an AC in this thread: "I am merely trying to point out that the reasons given for the invasion of Iraq don't make an awful lot of sense. don't worry, I'm not one of those 'it's all about the oil' types. But I don't think the publically stated reasons are very credible." "So, you still haven't really answered my question - if the reason for invading Iraq was to liberate the people and free them from a dictator, why aren't they doing that elsewhere?"

Liberating the people was more offered up as a justification for the war than a reason for it. But even if you want to call it a reason, it was never touted as the only reason.

(*) That part

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Nintendork]

China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer.

Actually, China artificially lowers their export prices to create unfair competition in order to boost their own economy.

Before you go expressing your completely biased opinion, at least get your facts straight.

-Lucas

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! Someone has waaaay too much time on their hands. Get a freaking job or something.

This could only have come from the twisted mind of a Vegan Jewish Lesbian (VJL).

Whoever came up with this is a serious leftist extremeist whose thought processes and dedication to their "cause" is on par with Al Qaida.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[haxor.dk]

...and while a lot of people are babbling about the illigetimacy of the USA making war, a lot of people are starving, dying, being tortured and generally having a very bad time at the hands of dictators and psychos around the world.

Those of you, who bash the USA for its involvement in the war, on whatever reason - you are too well off. You have forgotten that freedom is not free. You are taking it for granted, and hence, you are the greatest threat to democracy.

Not only because if your inherent arrogance.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

alot of my people are starving and dying in the us, how is that any different?

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[lovebyte]

flew three of them into buildings, killing over 3,000 Americans.

You mean people, not americans. About half of the victims were not US nationals.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Coryoth]

That part is just eerie. Even the UN thought there was a really good chance *something* was going on, which is why they passed all those resolutions. Am I to believe that the Iraqi regime had destroyed the weapons all along, yet was willing to be destroyed rather than allow the UN to verify it?

I think, in the end, the weapon inspector hassles were largely attempted gamesmanship on Hussein's part. At the very least he wanted his immediate neighbours to be worried that he might have something. Yeah, stupid, but quite likely given his style.

As to the rest - mostly fair. I think, in the end, we agree far more than we disagree. My issues with the Iraq invasion are not so much that it was done, but how it was done: a lot of media hype and propaganda followed by some unilateral action. It was mostly the "We must attack now, now, NOW!" approach that concerns me. It was good to liberate the country - it would have been far better to have done so in a careful controlled manner with full international support and a better organised plan for the end of hostilities. There was a big rush to attack, and that meant forgoing a careful, multilateral action. The rush was founded on WMD, which looks very dubious now.

Thanks for some intelligent discussion (on slashdot even!)

Jedidiah.

Re:Father and son, bedtime chat

[Anonymous Coward]

Great post!

I doubt there will be a public trial

[koi88]

The first thought would be,of course, that International Law should be applied.
In whatever law system, it should be no problem to convict Saddam Hussein. He has killed, and ordered to kill, thousands of people.

International law - which the US flouts whenever it suits them?
Good point: if the US uses it, that could be interpreted as they accept it. Other nations might demand this law to be applied to American soldiers and politicians. Yet that seems the only logical solution to me...

I can't help, but somehow, I can't imagine there will be a publice trial on Saddam Hussein, both because this would give the impression the USA accepts International Law or even International Courts, and because Saddam might tell too much about his old friends Cheney, Bush Sr., Reagan, the CIA... about those who not only illegaly delivered weapons to him (during Iran-Iraq war) but also sullpied him with chemical weapons.

As I can't imagine this to happen, I suspect an accident might happen where he's killed by a crazy Islamic fundamentalist (paid by CIA). Hey, they could even blame Osama Bin Laden.
Or, of course, there yould be secret trials but that would ruin the whole victory-thing for the media.
Or could you imagine anybody could possible WANT this trial to happen?

Now What . . .

[Dausha]

IMO, this will herald a couple of weeks of increased attacks against US troops as his supporters lash out, but then a marked decrease as the futility of it becomes aparent.

Then, what will the Dems have to say?
WMD?--The final report is due out next Summer, and I opine that the verdict will bear out favorably for the Pres. Those who say there were no WMD will be proven wrong.
911?--We'll find a much closer tie b/w OBL and Saddam.
Quagmire?--Nope.

The political ads next Summer will have the Republicans pointing out that, had there been a Dem president, there would still be rape facilities managed by the Hussain government (pictures of Dean), then perhaps a sound bite of the Iraqi woman who named her son George W Bush and said, "thank you for saving my people."

We'll give the Iraqi people first bite at the "convict Saddam" apple, but I think we may end up trying him as a plea bargain agreement to milk information from him. The Iraqis will likely kill him soon, so a plea out may be his only hope at living a full life.

I expect to be modded down by a moderator who can't bear to hear my point of view. I'd rather have rebuttals. Thank you.

Go troops!

Re:Now What . . .

[Chris Johnson]

But terrorism isn't futile- just evil. When "even the little kids and old ladies are VC" you can't win. Terrorism only happens when the opponent can't fight traditionally, when their situation is futility. If the situation is still intolerable, they turn to terrorism, preferring to die fighting than to be destroyed anyhow. Iraq hasn't really been into terrorism so much as it's been into outright warfare against other Middle Eastern states, but even so Iraq is not and has not been 'Saddam's supporters'. He's only a figurehead and got to be too much to bear anyhow. Without him- the Middle East will continue to be the Middle East. I'm not sure you quite understand what that means. Call this your rebuttal, FWIW.

You're right

[Patik]

I figure if it's important enough for me to know, it'll show up as a News Flash on Fark.com. Otherwise, it's just the same old crap (Bush promises this, Man kills 40 people for that, Economy down because of this, Iraqi war doing bad because of that, etc etc). Since CNN/MSNBC/FOXNews/Reuters report ALL the news, I need a filter to just show me the really important things.

MOD PARENT UP!!!

[KiranWolf]

Mod parent up!

Latest shocking developments

[fuxoft]

Have a look at this screenshot

smug European bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

"Our European 'allies' are smug, fat-bottomed, and morally useles."

--George Will, mid-1980s

Re:smug European bastards

[schwartzon]

anyone that has to quote George Will should be taken out of circulation. Its bad enough that George Will exists, but to quote him....thats only helping to ensure that him and his ilk continue to be heard by the masses. Go kill yourself soon, and save the rest of us from whatever dribble might come out of your mouth.

Re:smug European bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

An american accusing europeans of being fat bottomed?

ROFFLE!!

Cheating on the first post

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it possible to first post before the story gets posted? If this works, then yes.

In our interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this in the interest of the US?

Is this positive for the World as a whole?

Everything else is spin and political BS.

You lose.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the billionth time I read that.

MOD PARENT UP!!

[love2hateMS]

GREAT POST.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the US opposes the Rome treaty. So would anybody with half a brain that read the damn thing. But that's not the point. The point is that the treaty, if it were signed, would be unconstitutional.

The Constitution of the United States guarantees all citizens of this country access to what we call "due process." That means that everybody who's accused of a crime will get treated in the same way. The Rome treaty (that would have, if ratified, formed the ICC) includes no provisions for respecting the due process provisions of our Constitution. Since treaties signed by the president and ratified by the Senate carry the full weight of federal law, and since all federal laws must act only within the limits set out in the Constitution, the Rome treaty would, if ratified, be immediately struck down by the Supreme Court.

Todays unilateral foreign policy is a shame on America

Wrong. The rest of the world has shamed America, not the other way around.

to answer your question...

[soccerisgod]

...it doesn't matter as long as everyone except you and me believe he's the real thing.

Do you even know what a Shiite is?

[muzzynat]

Ok, so lets say that Iraq is turned into a democracy, and they elect shiite leaders... then what... ummm I dont recall Islamic people attacking the United States because we let them control their government. "The really funny part is that Saddam was fighting those shiites leader. For our safety, it would have been better to keep Saddam or at least keep the old regime." So what you're saying is you would rather have a leader that attacks his nieghbors and commits genocide on his own people, that risk having a religious man at the helm of a country? Well, if thats your opinion, lets ship Saddam here, that way he can run against Bush, and beat back our oppresive Christian regime.

Re:Do you even know what a Shiite is?

[William Baric]

I dont recall Islamic people attacking the United States because we let them control their government.

The problem is Bush has no intention of letting them control their government. That's why there was no election in Iraq up to now and that's why a constitution need to be created BEFORE any election. One of the goal of the war in Iraq was to take control of the region, not to let the Iraqi people control their government.

So what you're saying is you would rather have a leader that attacks his nieghbors and commits genocide on his own people, that risk having a religious man at the helm of a country?

I don't give a damn about Koweit (they were stealing oil from Iraq anyway) and even less about the Kurds (you know the ones that are also persecuted by the Turkish government). So please, cut the propaganda crap.

As for a religious man at the helm of a country... They are not only religious, they are fundamentalists. And, after all these years of frustration, they are fundamentalists with a vengeance. They will want the US out of Iraq, and they will want no part of any kind of american culture or influence in their nice religious country.

Re:Do you even know what a Shiite is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:Do you even know what a Shiite is?

Of course, I've watched Trainspotting about 100 times or so!

It's Shiite being Scottish! ;-)

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Oh, so it's OK to back coups against democratically-elected governments if they are socialist?

Ah, I see now. It doesn't matter that the people of Chile elected Allende in free and fair elections. It only matters that his election wasn't desirable in Washington.

Do you even have a clue at what the word "socialist" means or even how many governments in Europe would be called socialist? Tony Blair's Labour Party may have reinvented itself, but it's essentially a socialist party. Do you see Blair ordering the murder of "comrades" and "peers"? Has the election of a Labour government ever been a justifiable reason for the US deciding to overthrow the British government?

Frankly, your post is full of lies and rubbish. "It was a bad choice between two terrible butchers", you say. Well, care to provide any evidence that Allende was a butcher?

Face facts: the CIA-led overthrow of a democratically-elected government and installation of a fascist dictator is not something in which the US should take pride. Even Colin Powell, when asked about it by a teenager on a MTV debate called it "unfortunate". If Mr Powell recognises it was wrong then why can't you?

The unstoppable Mullet

[$lashdot]

Surely, I am not the only one who noticed that the US Army group that got him was called Task Force "Wolverine," and that the codename for the extraction was "Red Dawn." . The US capture of Saddam name-checked a Patrick Swayze movie. Bow before our Dirty Dancing!

Wait until task force Julie Newmar nabs Bin Laden in Operation To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything!

Re:Saddam ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, "one person" is much easier to move around and hide than any significant quantity of WMD.

WMD

[penguinoid]

A few posters pointed out that the US supplied weapons to Saddam. If the US gave him WMD and he didn't use them all, then I bet that's how the US knows* they have WMD. How embarrassing.

*Disclaimer: I am not claiming that Iran does have WMD.

Re:No invasion != pro Saddam

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you haven't done anything about it, you were by force of action in favor of it."

So you basicly you mean that if I'm not in favour of nuking Saddam, I'm pro Saddam? Do you mean that death of innocent people is irrelevant? Do you realize that nuking/invasion/etc might not be the only option? That it might not be the most favourable one?

I'm wasn't against the invasion, I was against the invasion without UN approval. How come? Because I trust the UN to do a better job informing the public than the US and the Bush administration. (Oops, where did those WMDs go?)

Painting the world in black and white with statements like "If you're not with us, you're against us!" is wrong and dangerous and only leads to ignorance and singlemindedness instead of empathy (you know, understanding how others feel/think). Do try to realize that the matter is much more complicated than that.

Saddam-9/11 Link

[edibleplastic]

You're Wrong. The Telegraph published a report this week that the Iraqi Coalition government has found documents showing that Mohammed Atta was trained by the Palestinian Terrorist Abu Nidal in Baghdad shortly before the attacks on New York and Washington.

Details of Atta's visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001, just weeks before he launched the most devastating terrorist attack in US history, are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day "work programme" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ ne ws/2003/12/14/wterr14.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/1 4/ixportaltop.html

These documents are proof that Iraq and Saddam was tied to 9/11. Capturing Saddam is a wonderful victory on its own merits, but since you need proof connecting him with 9/11, here it is.

Re:Saddam-9/11 Link

[Hasdi Hashim]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2003/12/14/wterr14.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/1 4/ixportaltop.html

These documents are proof that Iraq and Saddam was tied to 9/11. Capturing Saddam is a wonderful victory on its own merits, but since you need proof connecting him with 9/11, here it is.


Good. so if Iraq is responsible, why attack Afghanistan?

Re:Saddam-9/11 Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes,

And we've all seen those documents that "proved" Saddam was making nukes too.

What you say, they were fake? Opps!

*yawn*

Re:Saddam-9/11 Link

[superyooser]

I couldn't get that link to work. I had to lop off the end. Here's the clickable link:

Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam

Other highlights:

"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaida," said Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man presidential committee, according to the London paper.

"But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far," he said. "It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaida, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

Re:Saddam-9/11 Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this really convince you? Over the last year we've had heaps of supposed evidence for Iraq's involvement in 9/11 and weapons of mass destruction, which was later debunked.
And now they find a memo which at the same time provides evidence for two stories that were already falsified before:
1) The Mohammed Atta-Bagdad link
2) The Niger-Iraq uranium shipment
Yeah, right!

For further 'evidence' see that same newspaper you like to cite:
- Iraq link to Sept 11 attack and anthrax is ruled out
- Bush under pressure over 'dodgy' Iraq weapons claim

Re:Saddam-9/11 Link

[xutopia]

I'd like to remind you that some terrorists were trained in the US as well. Does that tie Bush with the terrorists as well? Should we capture Bush and overthrow the US regime?

Give us a break. The fact that one terrorist was trained in Bagdad is meaningless and shows no link between Al Quaeda and Saddam Hussein. None. So stop seeing things where there aren't any.

Re:Saddam-9/11 Link

[sheldon]

I'm not sure that evidence is convincing enough.

We'll see. I'm not entirely convinced one way or another, but there has been a an incredibly large amount of "documentation" proving things in Iraq that has turned out to have been fabricated.

The payments to the British Prime Minister, the Niger uranium, etc. etc.

Bin Laden and Hussein served two different causes. Bin Laden was highly religious, Hussein was secular. They both thought each other was as big of a problem to their own power as the US. Why would they have cooperated together?

Again, we'll see, but I still have my doubts.

Frisk him!

[FurryFeet]

I'm sure he's packing WMDs...

And there was much rejoicing!

[steve buttgereit]

I only hope they let the Iraqis exercise justice than some limp-wristed international court.

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[WildBeast]

There will be no fair trial. He wants to embarass the big super powers and France and the US have a lot to loose if Saddam gets a lawyer and a fair trial.

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[GeneralCern]

What would the US have to lose? Please expand on your insightful arguement.

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[chunkwhite86]

There will be no fair trial. He wants to embarass the big super powers and France and the US have a lot to loose if Saddam gets a lawyer and a fair trial.

First of all, there is more than a perponderance of evidence against him - there is no doubt in anyone's mind that he is guilty of the mass murders which he committed - he's admitted to them even.

Secondly, he is not a US citizen i.e. he does not have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. He is a military prisoner who will be treated according to the Geneva convention.

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[AceCaseOR]

Well, if the Iraqui people try Saddam, of course he won't get a fair trial. The trial is basically going to come down to: Beheading by sword, firing squad, hanging, or "other" (other being any one of Saddam's sons' favored means of executing someone).

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[WildBeast]

Them encouraging him for the war on Iran, providing him with WMD's, etc.

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[GeneralCern]

And you think that if you are posting this on slashdot, the rest of the world doesn't know it too? The justification is simple, if we made the mess with Saddam, don't we have a responsiblity to clean it up? And if we gave him the WMDs, why are all the liberals shouting that he didn't have any? If we gave them to him, don't we know he has them? Isn't that justification for getting in and taking him out?

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[geekoid]

if that was the case, he would of been killed.

They knew where is was, a simple airstrike would of been all that was required.

Of course they could have also planted chemical weapons.

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[WildBeast]

No you don't have the responsibility to clean it up, because Bush is not in there to clean it up. Iraq is only a first step towards invading more countries.

You know, WMD's don't last decades, besides they where destroyed.

His country was invaded, his sons where killed and he was captured. When exactly is he supposed to use those WMD's that he should've been able to launch within 45 minutes? Are you really that simple minded that you believe whatever Bush tells you? That whole invasion proved without a doubt that Saddam was not even close to being a threat.

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the US going to let loose?

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[GeneralCern]

WMDs don't last decades? Really, seems the US still has a large number cold war era stockpile lieing around. What is the shelf live of weapons grade plutonium these days? How about sarin gas? Didn't know it had an expiration date printed on it. Bush isn't there to clean it up? What is he doing then? Removing a murderous dictator, and his rapist sons. If you think that is spin, do a little Clinton era research into his sons. I remember a Maxim magazine article as far back as 1998 detailing the atrocities of poor old Uday and Quasi. He didn't use the WMD because he didn't adequetly prepare for an invasion because he didn't take it seriously. 12 years of the very effective inspections and crusie missles lobbed by Clinton caused him to think this was nothing more than a political manuever by Bush, much like the manuevers of the past. Why didn't he use them after the invasion proved to be real? Becasue he was still in Iraq. Saddam didn't think the game was over. He figured on waiting us out. Why fight back when the liberals and the Dixie Chicks can do it for him, at home no less? Saddam fully believed he would ride this out, as he had in the past. Saddam was a threat. 9/11 proved that. "But Saddam wasn't connected!" the liberals cry. (And you call me simple minded.) Saddam wasn't connected, but the middle east as a whole sure was. The situation over there has not gotten any better, nor will it if they are left to their own devices. Democracy needs to be played over there, and once it takes root it will spread, thereby stabilizing the whole region. Now if we needed to go about doing that, what country are we going to pick to become the first democratic nation over there? Jordan? Saudi Arabia? Or Iraq? Do not forget that our lone ally in the middle east at this point is Israel, and Saddam was involved with rewarding agreesive terrorist acts commited by Arafat and his boys. Saddam may not have been a threat to you, sitting in your ivory tower, jamming to Barbara Streisdand, but he was a threat to Joe Iraqi, and the world will be a better place for his removal and capture. "But Iraq is a quagmire, we are fighting a losing battle." I hate it when an American loses one drop of blood in combat, but I would rather see Al Queda dukinh it out with Marines in Iraq rather than see them over here taking out accountants and lawyers in our cities, and I am pretty sure the members of our fine armed forces agree. Your post may have inspried a new sig, "I would rather believe George W. Bush than Barbara Streisand, the Dixie Chicks, or Michael Moore."

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are aware that the Geneva convention does not allow you to lock them up in Guantamo Bay and torture them until they tell you what you want, right?

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[WildBeast]

No they don't do much without maintenance. Besides, they where destroyed.

How about removing the murderous dictators in North Korea or Saudi Arabia or Egypt? Shall I really go on?

Here's a guy who's a genius at hiding WMD yet he doesn't seem to know that the game is over for him? Please. How dumb do you think he is? I mean sure he's a tyrant but you'd have to be quit a retard not to know that your country is being invaded and that your days are over.

Saddam gave the families of all those who die in the Israeli/Palestinian war money. I don't see how is that rewarding terrorist acts.

My Iraqi relatives no longer have a country thanks to the invasion. It might be a game for you to try to pull Al-Qaeda members into Iraq so that Iraqis blood will be shed instead of yours but I see this as a cowardly act.

The invasion of Iraq created new Al-Qaeda members and the support for that group is growing more and more popular. Soon we'll have no choice but to nuke the whole region if we don't wanna get involved in more wars.

The excuses for war get more ridiculous as we go on.

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[GeneralCern]

So WMDs will last as long as they were maintained. OK, good to know. As far as removing other murderous dictators, if Bush did that you would call him a tyrant, murderer, imperialist, etc. So what exactly do you want? Remove them, or leave them?

Maybe he was retarded, but captured senior Iraqi officers said Saddam dismissed the invasion even as it was underway. Do some research. If he thought this was the end game, why was he still in Iraq? The guy has millions of dollars, why not run? The borders are not secure, if Al Queda can get in and out?

"Saddam gave the families of all those who die in the Israeli/Palestinian war money. I don't see how is that rewarding terrorist acts.

This is the dumbest comment I have ever seen. Take your goddamned head out of your ass. He gave money to the families of SUICIDE BOMBERS. HE ENCOURAGED NAD REWARDED SUICIDE BOMBING OF CIVILLIANS. Do you think any Israeli families got any of that money? If you don't see how this rewards terrorist acts, you must have a mental deficiency.

Unless your Iraqi family members were Baathists, they didn't have much of a country before the invasion. If they were Baathists, I won't have much sympathy for them.

Antagonizing terrorists into open combat is a cowardly act? But subsidizing suicide bombing is honorable? You really aren't worth even arguing with.

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[WildBeast]

Leave them of course; but since we're on a mission of getting rid of dictators, then how about the others? Oh, sorry, I forgot that God is the one telling Bush which country to invade. I don't want to interfere with such plans.

Because it was never his intention to run away from Iraq, if he wanted to he would've accepted the exile deal and left.

He gave money to the families of Palestinians who died in the war wether they're suicide bombers or not.

No, they had no affiliations, they left the country since the invasion.

Yes it is a cowardly act when you're doing it on foreign soil and paying someone else's blood.

Besides, now that Saddam is captured we should know for sure wether he's got those WMD's or not. But I guess you'll be inventing something about Aliens from outer space stealing Saddam's WMD'S.

Re:And there was much rejoicing!

[steve buttgereit]

If you are simple minded to believe everything Bush tells you, you must be at least as simple minded to believe everything the Arab press says or our own Democrat candidate Howard Dean. I've read over the arguments since my original posting and really need to bring some clarity.

First, having lived less than 40 miles from a chemical weapons dump for many years, I can tell you first hand that those weapons need no special maintenance to be deadly. Most of those weapons were decades old and they were treated gingerly and with great respect by those that handled them I assure you. They burn them in small batches as to exercise the uptmost care.

Second: The U.S. and France will be embarassed by Hussein getting a fair trail? Perhaps France at this juncture, but any embarassing details about the U.S. seems to be public knowledge... afterall, you know about it. Did the U.S. support and supply Saddam? Yes we did. We support Pervez Musharraf now and he is not exactly a saint either. Nonetheless, we need him and so we support him... this may change with time as it did with Saddam. However, this support is broadly and publicly known already.

Third: To even worry that Saddam won't get a fair trial is silly. He has a far better chance of the Iraqi interim authorities giving him a fair trial than did those that he punished. Indeed, the likelihood is that Saddam's trial will be quite public and open. It is in the innterest of the U.S., the Iraqi interim authorities and, yes, the Iraqi people to have a public airing of the horror he perpetuated on his people. Which brings me to number four...

Forth: You mention your Iraqi relatives being without a country... why is the Arab world so hell bent on selling out their brethern to ruthless, Hitlerian, dictators for some perceived honor gained in standinng up to the west (a west largely that could give a rats ass about the region, provided Oil isn't used as a political weapon)? I see nothing that the Palestinians have gained nor anyone else in the Arab world by any of this support of terrorism. Yet, they would rather rally about the killers of women and children (and I mean in the context of them being primary targets as opposed to being unfortunate bystanders, I'm not trying to gloss over the innocents that died in the Iraq war). I'd be more concerned about my own kind than the Americans given how readily my own people are to stand by my oppressors (if I were Arab that is).

Fifth: The presence of WMD in Iraq now is largely irrelevant to justification of the war. U.N. resolution 1441 made clear that Iraq needed to produce evidence that they had, in fact, destroyed them. The relevant section of 1441 says: "3. Decides that, in order to begin to comply with its disarmament obligations, in addition to submitting the required biannual declarations, the Government of Iraq shall provide to UNMOVIC, the IAEA, and the Council, not later than 30 days from the date of this resolution, a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, including any holdings and precise locations of such weapons, components, sub-components, stocks of agents, and related material and equipment, the locations and work of its research, development and production facilities, as well as all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material;

4. Decides that false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the Council for assessment in accordance with paragraphs 11 and 12 below;"

I

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Apreche]

Yeah, the US does oppose it. Why you ask? Well, because it happens to be fair and just!

Why go all the way to China?

[Anonymous Coward]

China?

Why go across the world to fight terrorism?

If the U.S. would like to depose a dictator that:

-has murdered all his political opposition, killing many tens of thousands to maintain himself in power

-has dungeons and labor camps full of political prisoners and dissenters

-has long been torturing and starving his people into submission while reducing a once-prosperous country to rubble

-has exported terrorism not only to his neighbors but around the entire planet

-is now destabilizing all of South America - a process that will seriously affect North America

-has a well-developed biotechnological program capable of producing agents for weapons of mass destruction, and exports this knowledge to hostile terrorist nations

-while in Iran in April of 2001, helping to set them up with this biological know-how, publicly said that together they would bring the U.S. to its knees

then it only has to go ninety miles south and remove Cuba's Fidel Castro.

The people of Cuba would really like that. They have suffered their dictator and his ruling gang for FORTY FIVE YEARS!

I can take the war on terrorism seriously only when that dictator is seen for what he is, and his hatred and danger for the U.S. recognized.

Cuba would be a far, far easier target than China.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Tom Rothamel]

That is quite debatable. A good number of politicians feel differently.

Not really. A treaty can't take precedence over the constitution. (Would the US be allowed to abridge free speech just because a treaty demanded it of us? Then why should it be the case with double jeopardy?)

The same argument could be used by any nation. Are we supposed to belive the USA is somehow unique?

Ignoring the fact that the US (as an economic and military hyperpower) is unique, no. It's a bad treaty for everyone.

Faith in justice is one of the American ideals I mentioned. There is no reason besides xenophobia to think that America should not extend this faith to the international scene.

I have faith in the decision of 12 randomly-picked Americans, coming from a society in which many people have a common background and ideas. I don't have much faith in the members of an international tribunal, picked not by people by by governments, which do not share my ideals. Indeed, the problem with many international organizations (such as thew UN) is that they derive legitimacy from governments, rather than from people.

Wh00p, who cares, get the lights back on

[wobedraggled]

Yeah, this is greeat. Let's get some power and clean water to these people, I think that is a bit more important. Don't forget that this doesn't mean SHITE, this is so far from over.

Hillary beats Dean in the Iraq War Lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a subplot to this marvelous event. Presidental candidate Dean has been betting his campaign on the news continuing to be bad in the aftermath to the Iraqi war from now until next November. In contrast, Presidental non-candidate Hillary Clinton has been talking about as tough about the war as a liberal can get away with.

With Saddam captured, the chance that bad will dominate good in Iraqi news well into next fall's election is far less likely. Angry Dean's candidacy is in trouble. Hillary may or may not become a candidate in 2004, but she is well-positioned for 2008.

I doubt either cares a twit for the long-suffering Iraqi people, and this event says nothing about the ability of either to lead. But Hillary has played and won this war lottery, while Dean has lost and lost badly.

And those who deserve praise are the US soldiers and Iraqi informants who made the capture possible not those who've been playing politics with the war.

Re:Hillary beats Dean in the Iraq War Lottery

[Trurl's Machine]

With Saddam captured, the chance that bad will dominate good in Iraqi news well into next fall's election is far less likely.

You mean, not as many Allied soldiers will return from Iraq in coffins? I'd like it to happen, but I'm not that optimistic.

Re:Hillary beats Dean in the Iraq War Lottery

[Chris Johnson]

Are you joking? The guy was hiding out in a hole in the ground, not coordinating anything.
If they dragged him from an armed bunker with lots of communications lines I might see your point, but he was always a lousy figurehead for radical Muslim aggression. He wasn't even backing Al Quaeda.
Some of you guys have got to learn to quit trying to associate social forces with single individuals. The funny thing is, even the 'enemy' could be sort of grateful Saddam was captured, because although he was a figurehead he was also a total creep who apparently tortured his own people and had insane sons who ran completely amok with power. If it was up to me I'd rather have my enemy led by someone like that, because it's less likeable. Be worried that some guy will come to light leading extreme radical Muslim aggression who is not a bastard to his own people. I am given to understand Bin Laden used to win loyalty by working as a paramedic for his own troops. Saddam wasn't that cagey.

Oh, BULLSHIT!

[werdna]

Where the #$%#$ were you when conservatives were criticizing intervention to prevent genocide in Europe?

Oh, that was because it was a Clinton administration who would benefit from general assent to "freedom at any cost."

Sure, Saddam wasn't close to tolerable as a human being, but tell me what you think about our "allies" who do the same thing, and by the way, why aren't we warring against Korea?

To pretend that higher principles drive these decisions is a joke. A few conservatives, and a few liberals, have taken consistent positions on such things, but very very few.

After decades of ignoring the virtues and benefits of liberal administration policies, because it was so inconvenient when you want to excoriate the administration, the vast majority of foxnews, dittohead clones no longer have standing to complain.

Fact is, Iraq cost Americans far more than it gained. Sure we gave Iraq a gift --and there are wonderful benefits for some, perhaps most, Iraqis, perhaps, in time, once they have an infrastructure again--, but it is the gift that keeps us giving, and it is precisely wrong in precisely the same way that all interventions are wrong.

So decide, please, are you an isolationist or an interventionist? But please don't change your mind based upon the party of the administration -- or at least, when you do, please don't accuse others of hypocrisy.

Re:Oh, BULLSHIT!

[geekoid]

"...and by the way, why aren't we warring against Korea?"

Korea is a very touchy situation.

What you have is someone who is insane running a country with an active nuclear arsinal, and millions of troops.

"So decide, please, are you an isolationist or an interventionist? But please don't change your mind based upon the party of the administration -- or at least, when you do, please don't accuse others of hypocrisy."

How about we decide on the situation at hand?

"Fact is, Iraq cost Americans far more than it gained."
not so sure about that. Yes it will cost billions of dollars, but the value of an allie in the middle east is substantial. what if over the next 15 year Americans save a trillion dollar becuase of cheaper oil?

stuff that matters

[gyratedotorg]

you know, if this wasnt posted on slashdot, i probably wouldnt't have found about about it for a few days. =)

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[FurryFeet]

Please, are there any farkers from down there with some insight please?

First of all, wrong site.
Second, I am a farker from "down here". Also a slashdotter.
Third, Allende was not a butcher. He was a very well liked oposition leader who WON democratic elections. Pinochet was not even a politician; he was an Army general who turned into a bloody murderer.
So, what you are saying is: The US was right in overthrowing a democratically elected president and support a military coup and dictatorship.
Care to rephrase your position?

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[rjamestaylor]

Saddam's capture also has nothing to do with returning my overdue library books (2 weeks late!) but what's your point?

Saddam was flaunting terms of armistice after Gulf War I, acting as if he believed he had WMDs. Looks like he didn't, and that he didn't is due to the deceit of his scientists, who lead him on to thinking they were carrying out his orders to pursue WMD development. A few years of continued indecision by the "United Nations" (ironic designation if there ever was one) lead by the complicit French and insidious Germans could have given enough time to expose the scientists' scheme and allow Saddam to replace them with willing scientists.

Remember, there was no doubt in the UN that Saddam did in fact HAVE WMD -- just that the French lead opposition to the ENFORCEMENT of UN resolutions was hearlded under the banner that Saddam was beginning to comply with their distruction after years of resistance! That we didn't find the WMDs which even the French assumed he had is truly immaterial -- he was willing to pursue them and proved time and time again he would use them.

Terrorism: he paid a bounty to Palestinian families of suicide bombers. He was a funding source of international terrorism. Maybe unrelated to 9/11 directly, but still an International Terror sponsor with an agenda to obtain WMDs.

America safer:
We are. The world recognizes that we are resolute in our determination to take the war to the terrorists. Also, we gave weight to the UN's heretofore meaningless resolutions.

War on Terrorism:
It wasn't just anti-NY or even just anti-US terrorism that Bush declared our enemy. (I'm sure you'd be yelling the other direction had he limited the battle to our enemies alone; am I not right?) It was terrorism. The Middle East is a hot-bed of terrorism with the leaders (politico-religious) inciting the common people to acts of terrorism teaching hate at every turn. Having a foothold in the Middle East in strategically positioned Iraq is a critical move to bring the war to the source of the terror.

Did you notice that we have control of two borders of Iran (Afghanistan and Iraq)? Did you notice how easily the Iranians caved in on the production of weapons grade uranium? Think that is a coincidence?

Think it is a coincidence that the third Saudi Cleric came out denouncing militaristic Islam?

Wake Up

[ITR81]

You've been in a closet way too long.

Talking monkey in Washington

[Anonymous Coward]

For the rest of the world Osama isn't such a big issue. Rather, someone should go to Washington to arrest that dyslectic war criminal and his mafia gang. They are much more dangerous than a Saudi millionaire's prodigal son and his desert team will ever be. The real dangerous people in Washington not only are ruthless and mad, but they also are technically frightfully advanced and they have a cult following of tens of millions, who blindly seem to believe all their stories and deliria. Through their secret police and media manipulation they are quieting their opposition and making all views not in their favor either just non-acceptable, "unpatriotic" - or even illegal. It is them the armies should be after.

Hear! Hear!

[werdna]

although "vast majority" is too great an understatement. The remark in a "West Wing" episode is brought to mind:

Muslim : Muslim Extremist ::: Christian : ?

the answer was: Ku Klux Clan.

Muslim extremist, in this sense, refers to a scope of incivility, bigotry and inhumanity so great as to be no longer analogous to that of the general population. Yes, many of us share bits and pieces of bigotry, and war with them to varying degrees. But the extremism with which we too often brush all muslims, is precisely as bad as stating that, because many Chistians share some xenophobic bigotry to some extent, all wear a hood and hang people by burning crosses.

Only originally!

[zCyl]

Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about? Or has that all been forgotten?

It was originally about WMD's, and the imminent threat. Of course then we discovered that wasn't quite true, so we conveniently relabeled it to being about bringing democracy to the middle east. This is of course entirely consistent with our Taiwan/China policy... Err, wait...

Oh never mind. Have faith! If there's one thing the the administration in D.C. is good at it's relabeling things after the fact. I'm sure they'll think of something that we'll believe.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. By violation of the Nuremberg laws I mean the same kind of crimes for which people were hanged in Nuremberg. And Nuremberg means Nuremberg and Tokyo. So first of all you've got to think back as to what people were hanged for at Nuremberg and Tokyo. And once you think back, the question doesn't even require a moment's waste of time. For example, one general at the Tokyo trials, which were the worst, General Yamashita, was hanged on the grounds that troops in the Philippines, which were technically under his command (though it was so late in the war that he had no contact with them -- it was the very end of the war and there were some troops running around the Philippines who he had no contact with), had carried out atrocities, so he was hanged. Well, try that one out and you've already wiped out everybody.

But getting closer to the sort of core of the Nuremberg-Tokyo tribunals, in Truman's case at the Tokyo tribunal, there was one authentic, independent Asian justice, an Indian, who was also the one person in the court who had any background in international law [Radhabinod Pal], and he dissented from the whole judgment, dissented from the whole thing. He wrote a very interesting and important dissent, seven hundred pages -- you can find it in the Harvard Law Library, that's where I found it, maybe somewhere else, and it's interesting reading. He goes through the trial record and shows, I think pretty convincingly, it was pretty farcical. He ends up by saying something like this: if there is any crime in the Pacific theater that compares with the crimes of the Nazis, for which they're being hanged at Nuremberg, it was the dropping of the two atom bombs. And he says nothing of that sort can be attributed to the present accused. Well, that's a plausible argument, I think, if you look at the background. Truman proceeded to organize a major counter-insurgency campaign in Greece which killed off about one hundred and sixty thousand people, sixty thousand refugees, another sixty thousand or so people tortured, political system dismantled, right-wing regime. American corporations came in and took it over. I think that's a crime under Nuremberg.

Well, what about Eisenhower? You could argue over whether his overthrow of the government of Guatemala was a crime. There was a CIA-backed army, which went in under U.S. threats and bombing and so on to undermine that capitalist democracy. I think that's a crime. The invasion of Lebanon in 1958, I don't know, you could argue. A lot of people were killed. The overthrow of the government of Iran is another one -- through a CIA-backed coup. But Guatemala suffices for Eisenhower and there's plenty more.

Kennedy is easy. The invasion of Cuba was outright aggression. Eisenhower planned it, incidentally, so he was involved in a conspiracy to invade another country, which we can add to his score. After the invasion of Cuba, Kennedy launched a huge terrorist campaign against Cuba, which was very serious. No joke. Bombardment of industrial installations with killing of plenty of people, bombing hotels, sinking fishing boats, sabotage. Later, under Nixon, it even went as far as poisoning livestock and so on. Big affair. And then came Vietnam; he invaded Vietnam. He invaded South Vietnam in 1962. He sent the U.S. Air Force to start bombing. Okay. We took care of Kennedy.

Johnson is trivial. The Indochina war alone, forget the invasion of the Dominican Republic, was a major war crime.

Nixon the same. Nixon invaded Cambodia. The Nixon-Kissinger bombing of Cambodia in the early '70's was not all that different from the Khmer Rouge atrocities, in scale somewhat less, but not much less. Same was true in Laos. I could go on case after case with them, that's easy.

Ford was only there for a very short time so he didn't have time for a lot of crimes, but he managed one major one. He supported the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which was near ge

Bin Laden

[js7a]

I thought several audiotapes and one 2003 videotape from Bin Laden had been confirmed as genuine.

President's Speach Download

[Anonymous Coward]

The president's speach is avalible for download in MP3 and Ogg Vorbis at www.writersblockmedia.com/~radar/speach/

Re:President's Speach Download

[Dh2000]

You call that a speech? It was like 15 sentences or so..

The only thing good about it was that he actually told the truth.. the "terrorists" will keep fighting.

A suitable slap in the face of anyone who thinks or thought otherwise.

thinking differently

[bikerguy99]

Just imagine Apple Computer using a picture of bearded and dirty Saddam right out of his hole in their Think Different add compaign.

It has to be posted...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.toccionline.com/creations/realhussein/
Will the real hussein please stand up?

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[leviramsey]

The Supreme Court considers treaties to be of equal precedence to the Constitution. Thus the WIPO treaty supercedes the first amendment (which is why a first amendment challenge to the DMCA cannot work).

Clinton and Bush

[Peaker]

Who did Clinton back-stab? When did he lie about meaningful things, without a justifiable reason?

I am personally happy whenever a dictatorship and dictators are being threatened. I have never given a damn about the supposed WMD's but I was happy that another dictatorship will fall.

People deserve a democracy, and any step in that direction is a positive one.

People died to make America a democracy, and to keep it that way. People will die for other democracies, many believe its worth it.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[tomstdenis]

"People deserve a democracy, and any step in that direction is a positive one."

It's funny you should say that... Oh right, the republicans were elected... sure....

Tom

Re:Clinton and Bush

[the_mad_poster]

And, as usually happens when I post this sort of rant, the response is to a completely different topic.

The point isn't that something good came of the attack on Iraq. I have NO qualms about blowing away nutjobs like Hussien. HOWEVER "freeing the Iraqi people" is not the reason that was originally given, it's just what the asshole is playing up now. The administration subtly drew connections between Saddam and Al Quaeda that DO NOT exist. It lied about a current WMD program. It lied about Iraq being a significant threat to the U.S. It put out garbage like "they could sell their weapons" or "the weapons could be stolen" as if Iraq was a serious threat for this happening. Newsflash people: N. Korea has threatened to nuke portions of the U.S. and has been selling shit to countries like Iran for years. No mention of them anywhere.

The POINT is not WHAT he did, but HOW he did it. He's a liar. He's a sniveling crybaby that can't play nice with anyone else, so he grabs his ball and heads home. Fuck it - I'm tired of him doing this sort of shit. I want to see the 9/11 evidence. I want to see these WMDs. I want to see credible reports that Iraq was a significant threat to the U.S. in early 2003. I want to see credible reports showing how terrorism has been affected since 9/11/01.

I will never see them while Bush is in office. Because they don't exist. They won't exist until another President requests them, because they will prove that GWB is a total... fucking... liar.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[randyest]

No, it wasn't about WMD, nor can you back up your claim that it ever was supposed to be all about WMD.

It's about this.

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got an idea!

Why don't we just blow up the earth?

Yeah, it's quite drastic, but it will solve everyone's problems all at once.

People fucking act like democracy is the end-all, be-all of government. When the US ISN'T EVEN A FUCKING DEMOCRACY IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Give me billions of dollars, and I'll set up a benign dictatorship, where the right to freedom is more important than the right to safety. Because, after all, safety dissolves quite quickly, while freedom is enjoyed by future generations.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

"The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Re:Clinton and Bush

[the_mad_poster]

Awesome evidence there, buddy. I'm sure inclined to believe incomplete conclusions drawn from indirect comparisons when stories include quotes like:

"Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?" - Newsmax

and

Another intriguing coincidence... - Newsmax

And of course, "proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist." obviously proves everything, right? Yes, of course. We're not drawing more irrelevant conclusions here, are we? Nooooo... not at all! A terrorist IN a country must mean that the country is responsible for what the terrorist does! Yes, of course! It makes sense now! Of course, that means we just implicated ourselves in 9/11 since they LEARNED TO FLY THE FUCKING PLANES IN THE U.S.

As for backing up my claims about the administrations bullshit WMD garbage, I think Dubya's boys and girls can do that for themselves, thank you:

In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons... - Cheney

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. - Cheney

We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. - Rice

Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. - Bush

Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. - Bush

The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. - Bush

After eleven years .. Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. - Bush

Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists... - Cheney

And, here's a real kick in the nuts for you if you were going to try and tell me that this doesn't prove that's why he started the war:

If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us. - Powell

And I'll kick you in the nuts about the 2 "mobile factories" that were found before you get a chance to bring them up:

They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were -- facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons. - British Weapons Inspector

Come on then. The Telegraph link and the Newsmax link both draw baseless conclusions on current unknowns and TWP link doesn't really say much of anything the proves there's a connection. It just says that there's potentially new evidence that there was one. Once that new intel has been scrutinized and verified, THEN I'll look. Got any evidence for me NOW, or am I supposed to just infer things from your BS links and pretend that my guesses prove something?

There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.

Nice to know. Go pester THEM and leave ME the fuck alone until you have real evidence, not a bunch of opinionated bullshit on new developments. My point stands, as of 12/14/03 at 2:19 P.M. EST, the real reasons for the war in Iraq are as yet unproven claims about terrorist links and Weapons of Mass Destruction. And, I might point out before we get too deep into that, why the fuck is this idiot even TRYING to justify a war AFTER it's over!? I'd say that starting a war without evidence of its necessity is grounds for impeachment, wouldn't you?

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Malcontent]

"People deserve a democracy, and any step in that direction is a positive one."

Which people? The tibetians, north koreans, chinese, taiwanese, east timorese, saudi arabians, iranians, palestenians, africans from all over? I think what you meant to say was that people with oil who don't contribute to US campaigns deserve democracy right?

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Peaker]

All those people also deserve Democracies.

Load planes with bombs - I say.

Its probably not really practical in many of the cases, or too dangerous.

It is also obvious the US also has interests in Iraqi oil - which is why Iraq was liberated and not other countries. To me, that's irrelevant - I still applaud a positive action when I see one, regardless of motive.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Peaker]

When people say "Demo-cracy", they mean government of the people. The US is perhaps considered "A federal republic with strong democratic tradition", but people usually say "Democracy" for short.

Where all authorities are in check and can be replaced by free voting - and the people have some influence and some basic rights - its a "democracy".

This may not be the "end-all, be-all" government, but that's not to say it isn't far better than all forms of dictatorships [including the one you propose], and worth the lives of good men willing to die for it.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Malcontent]

"I still applaud a positive action when I see one, regardless of motive."

I don't. If on the way to murdering somebody you helped an old lady cross the street then I would still insist that you go to jail.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[0x0d0a]

Have you read these articles? The link you're claiming for reasonable justification for bombing a country, invading it, occupying it at UN censure, jailing its leaders, and taking its oil was the fact that one person had training in the same country that we attacked...how recent was that news again? Gee, it seems we discovered this *after the fact*. The Provisional Authority is tickled pink about this...*after the fact*. They managed to find a tiny shred of legitimacy.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

How many times am I going to see you cut and paste this comment into different threads anyways? Jesus...

Re:Clinton and Bush

[toddhisattva]

The things you say are lies from Bush are actually invented by his political opponents. Go read his State of the Union message. You will not find any of your assertions in it.

I understand that leftists have a hard time reading words that are actually in print, and like to imagine all sorts of other words that aren't there, to make the world fit their stupid little retarded minds. So let's make it personal: I dare you to read Bush's State of the Union. Do not just swallow whatever shit dribbles from Howard Dean's ass. Go read the source material yourself:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20 030128-19.html

Note especially that he said we cannot wait until the threat is imminent, not that the threat was imminent:

"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. " -President of the United States of America, George Walker Bush

Also, go read (yeah, I know it's hard for you, but try) David Kay's report, available at any serious news outlet. It makes perfectly clear that Iraq's weapons programs were waiting for sanctions to be lifted. Just as pathetic Europeon countries wanted to do all along to aid their little leftist puppet Saddam. Remember the context of a year ago, when every moron on the planet was complaining that the sanctions were killing baby Iraqis, when Saddam had plenty of money for his palaces and was directly responsible for those deaths.

The leftists have destroyed the world's educational systems, and you're probably unable to overcome your political bias to be able to read the two documents I've suggested. But give it a try. You might find you enjoy reading things that challenge your assumptions.

But I suspect you think you're so superior to the President of the United States that you'll snort and close the window the first sentence you read that you don't agree with. You are so superior to David Kay, why didn't he just give you a call to ask about Iraq's weapons programs instead of going to Iraq? You're so smart, you're practically omniscient compared to President Bush and David Kay and Tony Blair. You don't even need to read a speech to know what it says. The Democrat Nazgul have told you what to think, and you are happy to believe them.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[kypper]

Perhaps you're unaware of the fact that everytime an invasion like this happens, there is an inevitable transition of power; initially, it is controlled by the invader (in this case, USA), and then control is finally handed off to the most together, cooperative organization of the indigenous people => translation, either the military or warlords, who want cash and control. Iraq wasn't liberated; Saddam's regime will be a beautiful memory compared to the upcoming governments, and because they will be US pawns, allowing all the oil they want to flow, as well as US military bases and weaponry (read Iran before 1979), NOBODY WILL INTERFERE WITH THE AUTROCITIES THEY COMMIT.

I sure as hell DO give a fucking goddamn about WMDs; the US has single-handedly made a dictatorial country (one of the few not ruled by Islam's fundamentalists, I might add) much, MUCH worse, without a GODDAMNED OUNCE OF PROOF. ...and as for 'the torture'... to quote Bill Mahr "Uh... yeah, during his dad's time, and [Bush Sr.] was so upset about it he almost interrupted his golf game."

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you takling to yourself? It would seem so.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[randyest]

14.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

The quote from the State of the Union address has been added to it, after the fact. Live video from CSPAN of the State of the Union address has no such words.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[the_mad_poster]

Already handed another poster their ass on a plate regarding this. YOU go read the words that are in print. That's a tiny sampling of comments Bush and his administration made on the matter. I merely got tired of quoting them.

Do not just swallow whatever shit dribbles from Howard Dean's ass.

Never said a thing about Howard Dean, don't really like the man, and have no plans to vote for him at the moment. Thanks for the pointless strawman though - just gives me ammo when I point out the fact that you can't respond to the actual issue at hand.

Note especially that he said we cannot wait until the threat is imminent, not that the threat was imminent...

That doesn't mean they weren't lying about the threat level, now does it? You've got a credible report from DoD/CIA/other? Then cough it up or shut up.

...overcome your political bias...

I counted 4 unkind suggestions and/or direct references to "leftists", "democrats", and a democratic Presidential contender in your post. Not considering that you're now attacking me personally at this point (which doesn't bother me in the least as I have no qualms personally attacking you annoying apologists myself), I might suggest you re-read my postings where I've bashed two Presidencies spanning both of the major political parties. Guess that pointless drivel doesn't hold water either.

Oh, and regarding Kay's report - so what? Here's a clue - bitchslap those irritating little European crybabies that wanted to coddle Hussien for their petty contracts and root the motherfucking country out with weapons inspectors. Oooooo.... now THERE'S a tough concept. Rather than sending the inspectors off with their tails between their legs, give the bastard a black eye and tell him to open whatever goddamn door he's told to open.

Real tough concept for bloodthirsty nutjobs looking for re-election material, I know.

Keep it coming boys. I can keep ripping you nuts down as fast as you come. Amazingly, all it takes for me to be force fed my own foot is for ONE of you to offer up credible evidence that there were WMDs in Iraq when the war-mongering started or the production of a credible report showing that Iraq was a significantly greater threat than other hostile countries. Lots of conjecture so far, no proof.

As of 12/14/03 21:10 EST, my point STILL stands.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[bluGill]

I'd like to see evidence too, but unfortunaly most of it cannot be given to me without giving away to the bad guys just who the spys getting this information is.

So I end up having to trust leaders who may or may not tell the truth. I don't like it, but I don't see an alternative. For a moment assume your are president, given the latest intelligence, knowing that now all of it is reliable (which is presented to you) and told to make a decision. Waiting is a decision that if your information is true will get people killed.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, even if they find nukes tomorrow, you will never admit your wrong and support the president. your just a liberal wienie who if he had his way, saddam would still be in power and brutally ruling his people.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Peaker]

I don't. If on the way to murdering somebody you helped an old lady cross the street then I would still insist that you go to jail.

Reread your own reply to see its utter lack of connection to the motive/action issue.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[Malcontent]

Whatever. It does not excuse your lack of morality.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[BiteMeFanboy]

drew connections between Saddam and Al Quaeda that DO NOT exist

So you haven't seen the evidence, but you can make this claim and foraward it as the truth? Which is it jackass.

Go find yourself a cluestick and give yourself a whack. You have no more idea what's going on than anyone else. Stop trying to pass your opinions off as facts fuckstick.

Re:Clinton and Bush

[the_mad_poster]

Wow. You're absolutely brilliant, I must say.

Look buddy.. I don't know whether to just laugh in your face and waltz off, or skewer your idiotic post where it sits. I think I'll take the high road here and skewer it alive.

So you haven't seen the evidence, but you can make this claim and foraward it as the truth? Which is it jackass.

In other words... any claim is true... until proven FALSE? Seriously man, drop the shrooms, you're about to OD. In case you've been MIA for the last 250 years or so, it's generally accepted that if you make a claim, you need to back it up with evidence. There's this whole big thing in this country based on this premise. It's called the.. uh.. "JUSTICE SYSTEM". Usually works pretty well too.

In case you're having trouble straining that awfully complicated concept back into the original point, I'll do it for you:

The man made a bunch of claims. The man has not provided backup for those claims in the year since they started. I'd say a year to justify your claims is plenty of time, especially since the claims have already been acted upon. Now, I don't know about YOUR fucked up little world, but where the smarter people live, if a person consistently fails to provide backup for their claims, that's pretty good justification for dismissing the claims as unsubstantiated bullshit.

Maybe if you spent a little more time actually thinking about something important instead of coming up with lame insults like "fuckstick" you wouldn't have your foot so far down your throat that you're shitting yourself around it right now.

Wrong

[unassimilatible]

The War is illegal because it was never declared. In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991

Technically, the 1991 war remained a cease-fire, a truce which Iraq violated by firing on US patrols during said cease-fire. This invoked the US's right to resume hotilities.

Furthermore, Iraq was in violation of about 2 dozen UN resolutions.

When you've been in possession of a country for months at a time and you've had thousands of people to search it with the co-operation of most of the people in that country, how hard should it be to find anything?

Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.

I'll be interested to learn what Saddam has to say on the matter after intense interrogation.

That, and by all reports and estimates of Saddam's state of mind he'd have used those weapons if he'd had them when we marched on Baghdad.

So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power? All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built woth the Iraqi people's money, and still torturing and killing dissenters.

Santa Saddam's next plan...

[kerb]

...was to wear santa claus clothes and give out WMDs for christmas

http://www.hankstermania.com/SantaSaddam2.jpg

Re:Santa Saddam's next plan...

[WildBeast]

Yeah he does look kinda like Santa. So if you're on the naughty list, Santa Saddam may be coming after you, little kids.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, are there any farkers from down there with some insight please?

Insight like I'D HIT IT or IT'S A TRAP? Seems like a weird place to appeal to.

And who signed up the dead guy for the army?

[Anonymous Coward]

And who signed up the dead guy for the army?
The widow or some random Islamic idiot?
GO PULL YOUR HEAD OUT YOUR ASS

Re:And who signed up the dead guy for the army?

[nyseal]

Hmmmmm....insightful. I guess I need to try pulling my head out of my ass, although I swear to God I don't know how it got up there; I guess I just wasn't paying attention.

Resistance is actually becoming nationalist

[g8oz]

I see a lot speculation as to the make up of the Iraqi resistance. The Dec 15 issue of Time had an excellent overview - they even had a reporter embedded in a Bagdad cell.

(A preview is available at http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101031215/story.h tml)

In any case, what they found directly contradicts most of the speculation here. Most of the resistance is professional and co-ordinated by Baathist elements like the Fedayeen and ex-military. The Fedayeen tend to be more pro-Saddam, while the ex-military are becoming more nationalist - saying in effect we fight for Iraqi freedom not Saddam.

Also, the resistance is a network, meaning cells are independent but share information. This means that while Saddam's capture may discourage those cells motivated by support for him, they will not discourage the large number run by nationalist ex-military men hungry to make up for their poor performance during the war.

Ordinary Iraqis disaffected by the occupation are an increasing demographic as well. A relative accidentally killed, your wife searched for weapons, an aggressive U.S soldier barking orders at you, or nationalist sentiment in general is becoming enough to join or shelter the resistance.

Foreign fighters are few apparently, and not trusted at all. They are used as cannon fodder in suicide bombings. The ones operating outside the secular resistance come under the aegis of Ansar-al-Islam which has reconstituted itself. These guys are focusing on high value attacks e.g suicide bombing the U.N etc.

As an aside, Iran is most definitley NOT part of foreign destabilization efforts as you would realize if did your reading - Iraq has a Shi'ite majority remember, and they are anxiously awaiting democracy.

In any case, the conclusion is that Saddam's capture is highly unlikely to reduce the intensity of the insurgency. It *was* necessary for the U.S to get him, but not sufficient.

I hope to see him at the Hague soon and not at Guantanamo.

Re:I love it. Yes let's be happy.

[WildBeast]

You tend to forget that the US supplied him with chemical weapons and encouraged him to pursue war with Iran.

Why aren't we helping the people in Congo who are begging for our help to go there and stop the war?

We have a president that deports foreign citizens to Syria and Jordan in order to be tortured and yet you come here talking about how we should remove tyrants. It's up to the Iraqis to remove Saddam and it's up to you to vote against Bush unless you are in favor of torturing prisoners and invading countries without proof.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[YAH00]

Umm... what crimes against people of OTHER countries pray tell?

Re:Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germ

[Kymermosst]

In Germany, at least, people can be sure not to be held prisoner without evidence.

Funny... 60-ish years ago Germany had a small problem with that.

Oh wait... they just shot people on the street corners. My mistake.

Not FOX...

[t0ny]

Its not true because Fox News says so. Its true because Rush Limbaugh says so!

I'm having trouble understanding the significance

[PollGuy]

Was Saddam on the US's list of the most wanted Iraqis? Which playing card was he? Help me put this in context, media!!!

Speaking of Nazis

[unassimilatible]

and a good ol' fashioned taste of Nazi propoganda. Where's Osama?!

It took the whole world decades to catch former Nazis like Eichmann, and Mengele lived free into the 1970's.

These things take time. No sense in stomping your feet like a spolied child on such a great day.

Re:Speaking of Nazis

[Anonymous Coward]

The Soviets knew that Hitler was dead in 1945, but they didn't let others in on the secret until the 1950's. (something to do with the Cold War politics at the time.)

Re:Speaking of Nazis

[fishbowl]

Many Soviets didn't even know their own history (e.g., the Tsar was killed, Bloody Sunday, etc.), before The Thaw.

Re:Speaking of Nazis

[mark2003]

Um, I think you'll find that Bloody Sunday refers to a riot in Northern Ireland, not something many Russians would necessarily care about...

Re:Speaking of Nazis

[fishbowl]

Before Northern Ireland had her "Bloody Sunday",

Re:Speaking of Nazis

[fishbowl]

Before Ireland had her "Bloody Sunday", Russia had a much bloodier one. In January 1905, a group of workers went to Nicholas' winter palace to (peaceably) present a petition asking for a standard workday and improved labor conditions. The Tsar wasn't even there at the time, but the army treated it as an attack, and massacred the (unarmed) group.

Bloody Sunday is pretty much acknowledged as the event that started the Russian Revolution which ended the Tsarist rule and eventually put Lenin and the Communists in power.

I know about Ireland's Bloody Sunday.

Saddam lookalike captured

[arobas]

Capture one of the half-dozen Saddam lookalike =
Morale drop for the Iraqi resistance + Re-election prospects for W.

So, you are either with us or against us?

[XSforMe]

Nice way of thinking... I am certain Stalin, Hitler, Musollini, Pinochet, Franco, Castro and even your beloved president Bush will share your way of seeing things. The only diplomacy they ever understood was the way of the guns.

Re:So, you are either with us or against us?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spelling error: the real surname was Mussolini.

WWW.CAFESHOPS.COM/SADDAMSTORE

[Anonymous Coward]

Operation Saddam Satisfaction Denied Accomplished

Re:Good. So?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sentence kinda scares me:

"Bush &c. will get an approval bump out of this, right up until the next terrorist attack"

Wouldn't it be convenient for Bush and his friends if the "next terrorist attack" happened, say, just before the election?

It'd be a way of getting emergency powers, until, say, the "war on terror" is over...

you don't have to like bush to be happy about this

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn good point.
People can't seem to separate the good from the bad.
I don't like cow shit, but I do like to eat chickens raised on it ;)

Shame on you...

[krbvroc1]

This isn't normal Slashdot subject matter, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

You were wrong, keep the war coverage to other venues.

re: who will get the $25Million

[ubiquitin]

from yahoo news....

U.S. Commander: Tip Led to Saddam Capture
By ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC, Associated Press Writer

TIKRIT, Iraq - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was captured based on information from a member of a family "close to him," Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno said Sunday.

Special Coverage

Odierno, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division that captured Saddam, said over the last 10 days soldiers have questioned "five to 10 members" of families "close to Saddam."

"Finally we got the ultimate information from one of these individuals," he said.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[Fnkmaster]

While I appreciate your position, and I think what the CIA/US government did in Chile was probably the wrong approach, I can see why even a "democratically elected" socialist was seen as a sufficient threat to global stability to warrant such action _in the context of the time_. The fear was that a Socialist, whether governing initially with the consent of his people by election or not, would turn into a Soviet pawn and Communist tyrant. "Socialism", at the time, was seen as a thin veil of acceptability over Marxist revolutionary rhetoric, a la Castro.

At the time, the thought of Communism enveloping the entire South American continent was surely a reality and scary as hell. Don't think that the Soviet Union wasn't wielding an equally Machiavellian hand in affairs too, to make sure they generally went their way. It's terrible that at times the US government sacrificed the very values that make us different from the old communist Soviet government in the name of defeating communism, but then again, it's hard for me to judge in the context of that era.

I look at Turkey today as the closest analogy - the majority in Turkey very well might elect an Islamist government - literally, they would be voting away their basic rights and freedom as protected by their secular constitution. The military in Turkey acts as a tool of the educated upper classes to prevent the uneducated masses from voting away everybody's rights. And while the way the government there has treated the Kurds has been reprehensible, the way they handle fundamentally non-democratic Islamists is basically on target.

You can't let stupid people vote away everybody's rights in the name of uneducated religious fervor - that's why we don't have pure democracy in the US either. Tyrany by the masses is sometimes no better than tyrany by a dictator. If you think of Chile in this same light and see that Socialism represented the same sort of fear and threat (i.e. a threat to millions of lives and to our fundamental Western values) as radical Islam does today, you'll see perhaps the thinking behind what happened in Chile and understand why it may have seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[petabyte]

Yes, that was actually my first thought at well; that the ICC should try him. I mean, the alledged reason that we've always opposed joining the ICC was that Americans could be fausly punished or some other unilaterallist rubish.

In this case I don't think that applies. Then I remembered more aptly this administrations policies and, even more important, that its an election year.

And to close talking about your last section: I'd just like to remind you that you're stereotyping America quite a bit. While I will do nothing to defend this administration note that there are a very large number of Americans who don't like unilateralism.

Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein

[Scoria]

[Bush] accomplished his goal

Wasn't his objective target Osama bin Laden? The "aggregate" certainly has become conveniently oblivious of him.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Shaklee39]

Well now that you mentioned it I am sure SOMEONE here has ties to a government agency and will let them know about this whole 'World Court' deal.

OK, now the real question

[Ryunosuke]

Now that the "Dark era is over", can I have my civil righst back?

Re:OK, now the real question

[AceCaseOR]

Welll..... they've still got Osama to capture or kill.

Re:OK, now the real question

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell us exactly and in detail which "civil rights" you have had taken away.

Re:OK, now the real question

[haxor.dk]

I dont like the TIA or the PATRIOT act, either, but tell me how many people have been prosecuted or arrested or in any way molested by these acts ?

The DMCA is worse, believe me. But anyhow, I'd like to see the two aforementioned acts removed ASAP.

Re:OK, now the real question

[Anonymous Coward]

but tell me how many people have been prosecuted or arrested or in any way molested by these acts ?

We don't know, cos they just dissapear and nobody knows what happened to them. Every once and a while one of their horror stories leaks out and gets is verified.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

[TheLink]

Uh. Why should I be that happy? Oh sure I'm happy that the Iraqi leader has been captured, but so what? Get your priorities straight.

I am and have been actually more worried about Bush than Saddam. Bush is a greater threat to the world than Saddam.

What it seems is Bush is gonna throw Saddam to the US public and the US public is gonna be so happy, switch to MTV and forget about all Bush and their Gov said and did.

http://electroniciraq.net/news/1063.shtml

Remember: Bush, the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, said the WMD threat was great and critical, told the UN to get lost, and went ahead and attacked Iraq. Months later the tons of WMD which the US Gov insisted beyond doubt was there, has not appeared. So much of the evidence they showed so far has been soundly refuted - the "bio" trucks, the uranium etc.

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
-George W. Bush January 28, 2003"

Now the citizens of the most powerful nation in the world, people like you and that blogger seem to think that the war is all about getting rid of Saddam, and all the lies Bush and their other leaders told them don't matter.

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney August 26, 2002"

"We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad." --Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003

Most US ppl don't even care about the crappy e-vote stuff. So they place greater importance on who is the "leader" of Iraq than who is the leader of the US. Geniuses.

The most powerful nation in the world chooses its Gov using crappy _tamperable_unauditable evoting systems, supposedly because its States can't afford better and still its citizens are so happy about spending billions in a war against Iraq, a war "justified" by lies. Ignoring the UN, the rest of the world and a few of its close allies.

I dunno what they put in your drinking water in the US. Or maybe it's in your freedom fries and toast.

Re:Happy Happy Joy Joy

[Zonekeeper]

I am and have been actually more worried about Bush than Saddam. Bush is a greater threat to the world than Saddam.

It is comments like this that lead me to believe humanity is lost. ARE YOU INSANE??? You think Bush is a greater threat than a man who drops people in shredders on a whim, lets his sons rape women in front of their husbands (and kills them if they do anything less than smile about it), chops off others body parts for sport, and the list goes on?? GOD. You people are NUTS! I can no longer stand to argue with such STUPIDITY! If you could somehow suddenly know how you look to the rest of us when vomiting this kind of tripe, you would fall over from the sheer shock value. Thank goodness people that feel this way are either A) Not in the U.S. and B) when they are, they are in such a small minority that their votes don't count for anything other than a good laugh. (Except some of us aren't laughing anymore, we're instead wondering when the collective IQ of so many people took such an abysmal plummet.)

Re:Happy Happy Joy Joy

[TheLink]

"It is comments like this that lead me to believe humanity is lost. ARE YOU INSANE??? You think Bush is a greater threat than a man who drops people in shredders on a whim, lets his sons rape women in front of their husbands (and kills them if they do anything less than smile about it), chops off others body parts for sport, and the list goes on?? "

You are either ignorant or stupid. I didn't say nor believe that Saddam is a better man than Bush. I said Bush is a greater threat to the world.

I hope the various Slashdot comments similar to yours aren't a representative sample of US thinking.

But given the popularity of Freedom fries it is hard to see otherwise...

BTW there are more important things to do than wonder _when_ the collective IQ plummetted.

At least I tried to raise it.

Re:Happy Happy Joy Joy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bush is a greater threat to the world than Saddam." "

Bush frees Iraq from a Tyrannical dictator. Russia, France, and Germany, who had lucrative contracts with Hussein supported his regime, and therefore, oppsed the war. And now to show their hypocracy, they are indignant that the US refuses to let them bid on US tax dollars to rebuild IRaq. And now, the three coutries are are jumping on the bandwagon, saying they're happy that Saddam has been captured. Whose the greater threat to freedom, I'd say it's pretty clear France, Germany, and Russia, are the one who are putting money over freedom

Saddam or RMS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was that a picture of Saddam Hussein or Richard Stallman?

And what's revolting is the cheering of US failure

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more important to liberals/progressives/leftists to win a power struggle over how the US will spend a few tenths of a percent of its GDP than it is to remove a despot from power who at the absolute minimum gassed his own populace, invaded several sovereign countries, and lorded over the torture and murder of several hundred thousand innocents - including whole families with children, infants, and babies. And that's the minimum he did. If you listen to Saddam's worst critics he organized and trained the folks responsible to 9/11 and had lots of WMD.

Those that cheer Saddam's late "successes" that are nothing more than terrorist attacks that murder tens of Iraqis just to wound a handful of US troops are sick and utterly revolting. Just head on over to Democratic Underground and read the shite they're spewing:

it was probably set up before the war

Just another CIA client who got too successful and had to be taken out.

of all times, when chimpy's poll numbers were dropping like stones. magnificent timing!

Protect Israel at all costs even if it means innocent American lives. Correct???

Sorry, the BFEE and previous Administrations have told too many lies, and if the pResident is able/willing to pull off a massive deceit to the world so that he can sneak over to parade around with a rubber turkey

What happens to the Halliburton story now?

Those Repub assclowns wills use these pictures over and over. I bet his show trial will start about a week before the election next year. We will be beat up as unpatriotic when those jerks are trying to destroy the country. Don't the people realize Bush is Hitler?

Bush is not our country. Of all people you should know that. And what does Saddam have to do with protecting what we killed all the Indians for anyway?

by what authority and for what crime is he being held?

The US left-wing on display.

I don't think it was fake

[Leynos]

I'm not so sure. I remember watching the crowd form on live television (on the BBC). For the first hour there weren't even any US troops involved, just a bunch of Iraqis trying to pull it down with ropes. There was US troops watching, but they stood well back until it was clear that their help would be useful.

If it was staged, why did they commit the blunder of hanging a US flag from the statue before replacing it with an Iraqi flag handed to them by someone in the crowd?

It was always clear from the shots shown that it wasn't a large crowd, but the mood was there none the less.

Later.

Re:I'm having trouble understanding the significan

[kylearin]

I vaguely remember that he was the Ace of Spades, but this is based on a sub-second flash of the deck on CNN months ago.

Feel free to prove or disprove this. Anyone?

The funny thing about all the liberals...

[Anonymous Coward]

It cracks me up on here...

The Bush Administration caught someone who was destroying the rights of the Iraqi people. Grossly ignoring basic civil rights.

Liberals hate Bush so much (generally for made up reasons) that they can't see what a huge victory this is for Civil rights.

All of you liberals that hate Bush and hate the fact we were in Iraq and hate the fact that we caught him. It's unfortunate you couldn't have lived in Iraq 2 years ago.

If you can't deal with it, stop preaching all your civil rights crap because I'm too busy dealing with civil rights on a scale you don't even comprehend. (I'm Superman)

Re:The funny thing about all the liberals...

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam is very evil. But around 10000 Iraqui civilians are dead, hundreds of US and British troops, $80 billion spent, Iraq contaminated with uranuium for the next million years. An illegal war, justified by the search for weapons of mass destruction. The lack of which is being conveniently ignored now Hussein has been found.

And "dancing in the streets"? There must have been at least six people in the joyful crowds. Still, at least Halliburton and the rest of Bush's oil mates have done all right out of it. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good as they say.

Re:The funny thing about all the liberals...

[ratfynk]

If they do have Sadam, then it is with the help of Syria and the real terrorists. Namely the Bath party.If the Bath party is finally trying to free itself from gun slingin' crazies then the effort made by the US might be worth while. If the Syria and others do not swear off terrorism, and help in the war against it, then the whole excercise will be for naught. Liberal views have nothing to do with this bullshit. But for Liberals and Democrats Hitler would have marched straight into Washington, because of namby pamby Republican isolationism! The Bush/repulican hawk thing is rather recent, historically republicans have been isolationist whimps.

Re:The funny thing about all the liberals...

[Anonymous Coward]

There must have been at least six people in the joyful crowds

If you lie, you fail to make any point you were trying to make. I saw hundreds in the streets cheering. Which newscast were you watching?

Re:The funny thing about all the liberals...

[Elf-friend]

But for Liberals and Democrats Hitler would have marched straight into Washington....

That's being a bit dramatic. In point of fact, if FDR hadn't handled the tariff stiuation with Japan so badly, they never would have bombed us (or would have delayed long enough to ensure German victory in Europe, at any rate). It is a near certainty that the U.S. would never have become involved in a purely European conflict - because both parties, and more importantly the public, were against unprovoked military action. FDR wasn't exactly a hawk - not pro-Nazi certainly, but not exactly a hawk either. Admittedly, though, some Republicans were not just isolationist, but actually pro-Nazi.

...historically republicans have been isolationist....

Well, I can't argue with that, although the Spanish-American War (a Republican conflict) stretched the limits of acting in national self-defense. Some would say the same of the War Between the States (both were Imperialist wars on the part of the U.S. if there ever was one). All that changed under Nixon, though, mostly because the GOP of Nixon and later has relied heavily on the support of people who were "Southern Democrats" before Kennedy alienated them (by espousing the previously Republican cause of civil-rights).

IMHO, the problem with this whole war is that we went in with the goal making Iraq democratic, as if that could fix all their ills; instead of simply saying that we were going to deal with Saddam, because he was in breach of the peace agreement. If the latter were the case, we could now say we're pretty much done. Instead, we're going to try and impose a democratic government on a country that doesn't necessarily want one. Since when is it absolute truth that democracy is the one right form of government, anyway.

Of course, I say that last bit as a monarchist, so take it for what you will. For the record, I'm not anti-war, but I think our reasons for going weren't the best. There were enough good reasons to go after Iraq, so why did Bush have to pick a bad one?

Re:The funny thing about all the liberals...

[ratfynk]

Yes going after Sadam as a goal was not too smart. However if the goal is to go after terrorist supporting states, the job will be almost impossible. Just ask any member of the Mosad. The whole middle east could blow up if the wrong people get taken out. There is a very strong bent toward monarchism in the Middle East, and democratic reforms will not work, yet. Until the Arab people are united as Arab brothers, democracy will not work. You would think that the British of all people would understand and learn from history. The international Oil companies (the real power brokers) do not care if they have to deal with the devil himself. They could care less about people, as long as the crude flows. I can only hope that the wrong people do not get turned into martyrs. If this does occur the blood will be on all our hands, and haunt us every time we turn on an automobile engine.

Re:The funny thing about all the liberals...

[Elf-friend]

However if the goal is to go after terrorist supporting states, the job will be almost impossible.

Very true. Add to that the legal/moral/ethical questionability of preemptive war, and you have a good case against even trying that. I find it interesting that we used as a justification in Afghanistan and Iraq, what we condemned Austria for during WWI - attacking a state which harbored terrorists against it.

...democratic reforms will not work, yet.

I'm not sure democratic "reforms" will ever work. Islam would seem to favor a monarchical system, perhaps even more than traditonal Christianity does.

Until the Arab people are united as Arab brothers, democracy will not work.

And therin lies the crux of the problem, that the Arabs never have been, and probably never will be, united in such a way. There are so many ethnic, cultural, and religious differences amongst the Arabs, that it's a joke that we even speak of them with such a monolithic term as "Arab." The only thing many of them have in common in language. There are several different major factions of Islam, not to mention the dozens of minor sects. There are also at half a dozen different branches of Christianity practiced by some Arabs. Most of the "Arabs" aren't even ethnically Arab. The Egyptians, the Turks, the Syrians, hell even the Iraqis, mostly aren't ethnic Arabs. This is not to mention the many non-Arab groups in the region, such as the Kurds, the Armenians, the Iranians, and so forth. The fact is that the only thing that does unite the Arabs is their hatred for the Jews, and I don't really think we want to be supporting societies that are based in hatred.

Well, I'm starting to rant, so I'll sum up. The point I keep coming back to is this: that region of the world has been in a more or less constant state of war for at least four thousand years; we shouldn't be so arrogant as to think that we can stop all that in a matter of months, or even decades.

Re:The funny thing about all the liberals...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Fox apparently...

Re:The funny thing about all the liberals...

[caitsith01]

"The Bush/repulican hawk thing is rather recent, historically republicans have been isolationist whimps."

I guess it depends on your version of 'isolationist.' True enough, they have been hesitant with respect to open, state to state warfare; however, in covert war, state sponsored terrorism etc, especially in SE Asia and South America, they are second to none. Most Americans probably don't even realise that US forces have seen combat in numerous South American countries, and continue to do so today.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anenga]

Ah, yes, we know how successful the Hauge is with Mussolini! Saddam will just have to wait to be tried in 2021.

Great news for SCO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now those DDoS attacks will stop.

Newsflash! Clueless Slashdot posters amusing . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

After hearing the news on television, I was interested in hearing how the Democratic prez candidates would spin this. Since they are in the public view, they can't really speak their mind, so I decided that tuning in here on Slashdot would provide the amusment I was seeking. Boy was I right! Thanks everyone for a amusing time.

It's obvious that the liberals are just hating that Sadaam was captured. It's there worst nightmare, even worse than at Thanksgiving, when that mean President Bush upstaged the fair princess Hillary on her trip to publicly criticize our troops while they are serving their country.

I'm lovin' this - keep up the good work everyone!

(I'm posting anonymously because the exercise of free speech only extends to people with liberal opinions, so some moderator will surely consider this flamebait, while also marking the anti-Bush rantings as "informative")

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Tom Rothamel]

The Supreme Court considers treaties to be of equal precedence to the Constitution.

No, that's not the case. In Reid v. Covert, the Court wrote: "This Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty."

Yehawww!!!!

[Zonekeeper]

Let the parade begin of slashotters who among other things will be happy he's captured, but scared to death it will make Bush look good!! I can't wait!

How do they know it's him?

[mark-t]

The articles didn't address this point.

How do they know it isn't one of his supposedly many body doubles?

It's all well and fine if it really is the guy, but the articles just say that he's captured and don't even hint at what (if any) mechanisms were used to confirm his identity.

Re:How do they know it's him?

[deja206]

They did a DNA test, and it was him...

But I have no idea with what DNA example they compared his.

Re:How do they know it's him?

[AceCaseOR]

Well, they did have some Hussein family DNA from somewhere. That's what they used (among other things) to confirm Osay and Qusay's (sp?) identities after they were killed. Besides, they also could have just used Osay and Qusay's DNA to confirm Saddam's identity.

Re:How do they know it's him?

[BCW2]

How many toothbrushes and hair brushes were in all those palaces? How about medical records or samples from his sons?

There is no shortage of proof.

How about a fountain of intelligence, we have all the youth we can handle.

Re:How do they know it's him?

[Richard M. Nixon]

But I have no idea with what DNA example they compared his.

He had a full physical when he was being trained at CIA Puppet Dictator / Terrorist school.

CIA Terrorists get excellent health care.
Dental too!

The Allende Myth

[Anenga]

Socialists love to blame the U.S. Government for wrecking their perfect socialist experiment. Oops, too bad that whole thing is one big ass myth.

Fuck 'em

[Anonymous Coward]

I say "thanks." You're not going to get much sympathy from a bunch of anonymous pussies on slashdot of all places, but some of us do appreciate it.

Re:I love it. Yes let's be happy.

[Anonymous Coward]

the truth of the matter is that we aren't helping in the congo because some regions of africa grow terrific coffee's - would you go without your morning coffee? I didn't think so.

Besides, where would you go to read your beat poetry with no coffee shops? You'd have the thick black-framed glasses and no where to go masturbate about the dream of a socialist America.

Turn off NPR

[Anonymous Coward]

And we all know NPR's social agenda... "First, before we get to Saddam Hussein... let's talk about the Israelis and Palestinians"

Wrong, again, but who is counting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam

"The fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with... Al-Qaeda, making America safer, the War On Terrorism, WMDs..."

UH HUH... Next...

Re:Wrong, again, but who is counting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider the source--this is just too convenient. The expatriate Iraqis who depend on US support for their legitimacy would say anything to please their benefactors. CBS news and the NY times are already discrediting the Atta-Baghdad connection (scroll down to middle of page: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/14/iraq/mai n588401.shtml )

The New York Times reported in its Saturday editions that a former Iraqi intelligence officer who was said to have met in Prague with Mohamed Atta, the suspected lead hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks, has told U.S. investigators that the meeting never happened. That casts new doubts on any Iraqi connection to the attacks. The Times cites officials familiar with classified intelligence reports on the matter.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[arobas]

South America and Europe both had their first elected Socialist government removed: around the same time in Italy, Aldo Moro was murdered as he was about to form an alliance to bring the Communist Party to power.

Re:bin laden vs. safer

[ggwood]

Before the war US intelligence said that invading Iraq would not make the US safer.

Senator Bob Graham, ranking Democrat on the Intelligence committee, asked the intelligence community whether or not invading Iraq would make the US safer. The intelligence committee, before the war, said we would be less safe if we invaded. Remember - this is before the war when evidence of WMD was paraded around the world.

This was public knowledge. It ran in major newspapers. All members of congress must have at least heard of it, even if most Americans did not. They voted to give Bush the green light anyhow.

I heard about this on the NPR (American public radio) program This American Life (www.thislife.org). It was broadcast 12/20/02 and you can go to that website and listen for free to Bob Graham say that himself.

Further, he asks the radio staff to question Bush on some issues. Apparently it is not any easier for him to get answers from the administration than it is for anyone else. They try. Have a listen.
_________________________________________ _____

*BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

It is common knowledge that *BSD is dying. Everyone knows that ever hapless *BSD is mired in an irrecoverable and mortifying tangle of fatal trouble. It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which *BSD is the worst off of an admittedly suffering *BSD community. The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The erosion of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of BSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major marketing surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among hobbyist dilettante dabblers. In truth, for all practical purposes *BSD is already dead. It is a dead man walking.

Fact: *BSD is dying

I for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new terrorist-fighting American overlords.

some counter-points

[felesii]

3) Just because Saddam didn't have nukes with "Hi, There!" written on the side doesn't mean he wasn't trying his hardest to get them. Would you rather we waited until he actually had working nuclear weapons to try to stop him? I think the lives lost in this conflict would have been insignificant compared to the lives that would have been lost if we had tried to remove Saddam after he had actually gotten his hands on nukes.

4) The UN agreed that Saddam was a brutal dictator, and the UN has signed resolutions that state that they know that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the burden of proving this wasn't on the US.

5) We still are looking for Osama, he still is a top priority, and we still have people in Afghanistan looking for him, but chances are he has escaped to another terror supporting state. Just because the spotlight is on Iraq now doesn't mean anyone has forgotten about him. The US military has the ability to do more than one thing at a time.

6) Yes, I agree that Saddam must be treated humanely, but if, after a trial, he is proven guilty of everything the rest of the world thinks he has done, I also support execution.

7) I'm pretty sure no one at the CIA was involved in training Osama. He has always hated the US, and I don't think he would ever accept help from them. Besides that he has way more than enough money to train thousands of people without the help of anyone else.

8) Terrorists have already declared war on us, Bush has only just announced that we are now willing to push back, much harder than any terrorist could. If the world is eventually rid of countries that are willing to harbor terrorist, then planning attacks without a base of operations or a country willing to supply them with weapons will be a lot harder.

9) Just because no one on Slashdot has asked this doesn't mean no one is thinking about it. In the past I can't think of an instance where creation of a democracy following a regime change has failed (eg: Germany). Regarding precedents, well I hope that governments aren't just doing things today because they have done it in the past. The whole situation has to be looked at; I think the fact that the US wanted a regime change shows that they already have learned from the first gulf war.
And finally, I too am greatly saddened by laws like the patriot act. Sometimes I guess people in the government get a little overzealous (eg: John Ashcroft). Perhaps the government was just using the 9/11 attack as an excuse to take away some of our freedoms. I only hope that more people notice this and laws like this are challenged and repealed in the future.

10) Turn on the Radio then. :)

Re:some counter-points

[Mmm coffee]

I'd like to reply to all your responses but I need to leave for work in a few so I'll keep it down to the main points.

3) Just because Saddam didn't have nukes with "Hi, There!" written on the side doesn't mean he wasn't trying his hardest to get them. Would you rather we waited until he actually had working nuclear weapons to try to stop him? I think the lives lost in this conflict would have been insignificant compared to the lives that would have been lost if we had tried to remove Saddam after he had actually gotten his hands on nukes.

By all accounts I've heard of Saddam's missiles could go at most a few hundred miles. The worst he could do even if he had nukes is turn 5 miles of Israel into a crater. (And rain radioactive particles a few hundred miles downwind for a few days.) Saddam was by no means a threat to anyone other than his immediate neighbors.

This whole thing leaves a sour taste in my mouth. First off, Clinton tried to do what Bush has now done, and the Republicans cried foul saying that Clinton was trying to get America's minds off his dick. (Which is most likely the case.) Now, if Saddam is/was really such a huge threat then why wasn't Clinton getting bipartisan support back then while Bush gets it now?

Moreover, North Korea may have nuclear capabilities by now, and is actively firing off test missiles into the Sea of Japan. All things considered, their military technology makes Iraq look like the stone age. While not much is known publicly about their military capabilities, I personally believe it fair to say that they either currently have the ability or soon will have the ability to build a ICBM capable of striking somewhere in the North American continent. I doubt that many would argue with me when I say that N. Korea is a huge potential threat not only to all of Asia, but also possibly America.

Why the hell haven't we turned Korea into a crater by now if we're attacking potential threats?

The whole thing seems off. I'm not going to get into any of the usual accusations because lord knows we've all heard them by now. But for every reason given for the war on Iraq there is at least 5 nations that have it much worse, and a lot of oil companies with old ties to people in the Bush administration are getting some very sweet contracts...

Even beyond that, there were many reasons we waited until Pearl Harbor before we got involved. I'll leave it to the reader to crack open a few history books so I don't have to type a few novels out. (Lord knows I've already written a short story on this one reply alone.) ;)

We still are looking for Osama, he still is a top priority

"Osama Bin Laden is no longer a priority" - George W. Bush (paraphrased from memory)

6) Yes, I agree that Saddam must be treated humanely, but if, after a trial, he is proven guilty of everything the rest of the world thinks he has done, I also support execution.

Death is too good for that man. Let him rot in a cell for the rest of his natural life.

7) I'm pretty sure no one at the CIA was involved in training Osama.

A poster below you actually said some very interesting things about this, and I think I'll let his experience speak for me.

If the world is eventually rid of countries that are willing to harbor terrorist, then planning attacks without a base of operations or a country willing to supply them with weapons will be a lot harder.

(Real quick, running out of time) Timothy McVeigh is an American who was trained by the American army. America sure the hell doesn't support having its federal buildings bombed, and yet he got the tools to do it and made OKC go boom.Terrorism is not a country. Terrorism is not a static object. Terrorism is a metho

Hell no, no international court

[Augusto]

Why should he be afforded the priviledge of the "international court"?

Hand him to the Iraqis, and fill the jury with Kurds. They sure deserve to try him after all he's done to his own people, and you can bet the Kurds will reach the right judgement.

Re:Hell no, no international court

[Anonymous Coward]

Hand him to the Iraqis, and fill the jury with Kurds. They sure deserve to try him after all he's done to his own people

Deserve? Deserve?. They deserve nothing of the kind. Saddam should be brought to justice, not left for a revenge killing. We don't owe Iraqis their vengeance. Saddam did terrible things - murdering him now he is defenceless is only going to set a bad example to the Iraqis.

you can bet the Kurds will reach the right judgement.

Is that a polite euphemism for "I don't like Saddam so he should be put to death?"

Re:Hell no, no international court

[festers]

Are you so sure about that? Maybe a fair trial might actually be the best way to discover the facts?

vote democrat

[Anonymous Coward]

"Capturing Saddam is a good thing. He's a Very Bad Man(tm).
The fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with...
Al-Qaeda,
making America safer,
the War On Terrorism,
WMDs,
or any of that other stuff"

Yes, absolutly. This is the Dean position (I believe).
In any case; vote for freedom, vote against rule of-by-for the rich, vote Democrat this fall Americans!!

Slashdot: Propoganda for idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be funny it Iraqi forces caputured George W. Bush hiding in a dirty hole in the ground in Texas? I'm sure there would be celebrations in the streets of our oppressed nation.

DON'T BELIEVE THE LIES

Re:Slashdot: Propoganda for idiots

[Flannelbum]

Put the bong down there, Cheech. Relax you undereducated fool.

The people are happy because they are done getting shit on by a freak (not unlike your boyfriend living behind you in your home town of SoCal, Michael Jackson). Now we still have a few of his (remember now... "boys pants 1/2 off sale" makes him hot) boobs loose out ther but rest sure they will be raped by a full metal jacket between the eyes soon.

Now, we all know your boy Gore will support Dean in his facial hair recovery after he gets smashed by Bush next year. However, can we please keep our heads? Eh???

Merry Christmas, Iraq

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether you appreciate it or not. Merry Christmas.

To bad it took this long

[xile]

To bad it took this long to capture Mr.Saddam..

he could have ran for govenor of california

OT: your sig

[whovian]

It seems to be your quote applies to sexual intercourse as well:

Sex is like war: interesting when viewed from a safe distance, but quite exciting when it's in your face.

is he a hacker, spammer or a pirate?

[axxackall]

Why did they arrest him? What did he do wrong? Was he a hacker or spammer? Or he was sharing *IAA files?

All I want to say...

[Kashif Shaikh]

what he said.

one word - Churchill

[Anonymous Coward]

"a grand victory is always embraced by a leader's people"

Read what happened to Prime Minister Churchill of the United Kingdom (or England to the geography deficient) after WWII - you know 1945? the BIG war?

Link to proof of new ties between Saddam and Osama

[Anonymous Pundit]

But I thought Saddam and Osama were like.. you know.. an item.

You are more correct than you know. Material that recently came to light showing Saddam and Osama are now intimately involved was published earlier this fall in an obscure periodical.

I have the issue and the photographs are incredible.

Re:The funny thing about right wing assholes

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberals hate Bush so much (generally for made up reasons) that they can't see what a huge victory this is for Civil rights.

Which civil rights? The right to have a camera shoved up my ass every time I go to the airport?

All of you liberals that hate Bush and hate the fact we were in Iraq and hate the fact that we caught him. It's unfortunate you couldn't have lived in Iraq 2 years ago.

Hey, it sounded like a good "law and order" kind of place to me, sort of like Texas, or Singapore. If you weren't a criminal you had nothing to worry about, just like in the New America(tm).

is it me

[ShadowRage]

or does this just not feel right?
there's something not right about this.
Like it might be one of his imposters..

anyone else have a strange feeling over this?

Re:is it me

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

No, it's just you. Your tinfoil hat is slightly askew though.

You don't think the U.S. military did DNA testing? Furthermore, don't you think the U.S. is going to open up these DNA tests so that others around the world, specifically the Iraqis, know the truth?

Why didn't he flee?

[gcaseye6677]

Saddam is one dumb (sheep) fucker. Anyone who raids a couple of billion U.S. dollars from the central bank before fleeing Baghdad has no need to stay in Iraq. Why isn't he sipping a pina colada on a beach somewhere? Fortunately, his own stupidity did him in.

Re:Pre-war Intelligence

[ggwood]

From Bob Graham's site, the following quote is from Graham's comments on the Iraq resolution before the war, clearly reflecting US intelligence reports, recently (at that time) declassified, which stated the US would be less safe if we invaded Iraq.

Bob Graham said:

I would also like to reinforce my conviction that this resolution forces the President to focus our military and intelligence on the wrong target. A historical example, which has been used in this debate, is the example of the 1930s- that England, France and other nations would eventually join in the world's greatest alliance, slept, while Hitler's power grew.

They say that passing this resolution is the equivalent of if the Alllies had declared war on Hitler. I disagree with that assessment of what this lesson of history means. In my judgment, passing this resolution tonight will be the equivalent of declaring war on Italy. That is not what we should be doing. We should not just be declaring war on Mussolini's Italy. We should be declaring war on Hitler's Germany.

Now, there are good reasons for considering attacking today's Italy, meaning Iraq. Saddam Hussein's regime has chemical and biological weapons and is trying to get nuclear capacity. But the briefings I have received have shown that trying to block him and any necessary nuclear materials have been largely successful, as evidenced by the recent intercept of centrifuge tubes. And he is years away from having nuclear capability. So why does it make sense to attack this era's Italy, and not Germany, especially when by attacking Italy, we are making Germany a more probable adversary?

Madam President, the CIA has warned us that international terrorist organizations will probably use United States action against Iraq as an indication for striking us here in the homeland.

You might ask, what does the word 'probably' mean in intelligence speak? It probably means that there is a 75 percent greater chance of the event occurring. And the event is that international terrorist organizations will use United States actions against Iraq as a justification for striking us here in the homeland. Let me read a declassified briefing of the CIA report presented to the Select Committee on Intelligence:

"Baghdad, for now, appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical or biological weapons against the U.S.

"Should Saddam conclude that U.S-led attacks could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions.

"Such terrorism might involve conventional means, as with Iraq's unsuccessful attempt at a terrorsit offensive in 1991, or [chemical and biological weapons].

"Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamic terrorists in conducting a [weapon of mass destruction] attack against the United States would be his last chance of exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."

Madam President, in other words, odds of another strike against the people of the United States by Al Qaeda or another international terrorist group goes up when we attack Baghdad.

The President should be in the most advantageous position to protect Americans - to launch pre-emptive strikes and hack off the heads of these snakes. With the resolution before us, we are denying the President that opportunity. And we are sending confusing signals to our people and to our allies as to the sincerity of our commitment to the war on terrorism.


End quote.

Again, this is before the invasion. US intelligence thought the US would be less safe even given that Iraq may have some WMD. _______________________________________________

I HOPE THE BLOODSHED CONTINUES IN IRAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to get rid of this slime bag WASP-Mafia, oil barron ridden cartel of a government, this assault on Americans and anything one could laughingly call "a democracy", relies heavily on what a shit hole Iraq turns into. They need to die so that we can be free. Soldiers usually did that directly--i.e., fight those invading and harming a country. This time they need to die in defense of a lie from a lying adminstration to show these ignorant, dumb Americans that Bush is incompetent. They need to die so that Americans get rid of this deadly scum. It is obscene, Barbie Bush, how other sons (of much nobler blood) have to die to save us from your Rosemary's Baby spawn and his ungodly cohorts.

If it's not illegal, it isn't a crime. Period.

[caveat]

What pray tell makes a crime criminal, other than the breaking of a law? If there isn't a law against an action, commiting that action ISN'T a crime. It might be morally reprehensible, but it's hardly illegal. You might want to look into taking Logic 101 at your local community college - then you won't make blatheringly idiotic statements like that.

Re:If it's not illegal, it isn't a crime. Period.

[torpor]

Listen, you want evidence of your country's criminal activity, go no further ...

Just because the US *changed the law after the fact*, and continues to attempt to modify the law of the International Court in order to provide its leader clique with an 'out', doesn't mean that what was done wasn't *illegal*.

Re:If it's not illegal, it isn't a crime. Period.

[thales]

ROFLMAO.

Why am I not surprised that Ramsey Kook popped up here!

Truth

[Anonymous Coward]

But I felt it was needed to point out how biased the /. community is compared to other forums right now.

If the right wing had been even slightly truthful about why this whole fiasco had gone on maybe the left would be a little more understanding about it. Such as it is, the lies that have been told and the closed door deals that have enriched the rich have made it very hard for many of us who actually think (and thus we are labeled liberals) to accept that this is anything that great. And if you don't even have the grey matter to understand that, well then I can't help you at all.

Re:Truth

[Metaldsa]

"Such as it is, the lies that have been told and the closed door deals that have enriched the rich have made it very hard for many of us who actually think (and thus we are labeled liberals) to accept that this is anything that great. And if you don't even have the grey matter to understand that, well then I can't help you at all."

a.) I don't see why you have to be so far right or so far left. All that means to me is that you will put a spin on any bit of news depending if it is good for your political party or not.

b.) I saw this as a great day for Iraqis and US troops. Shouldn't discussion be on the good news for them and how this will impact their country? Instead it brings topics like Guantanomo Bay and Bush's election 3 years ago. Why bother having a discussion with people like that? Fanatics aren't known for reason in a discussion.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[anthony_dipierro]

Yes it would. There already is such a court, the International Criminal Court..

No. The ICC is a court of last resort. It only has juridiction when no country is able or willing to prosecute the accused.

What's the point you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It will play a key role in who my next president is"

Yes, so Americans, vote for freedom, vote against government of by and for the rich; VOTE DEMOCRAT.

Re:What's the point you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean that the democrats running for President are not rich? Somebody call Howard Dean and inform him that all of his money has just disappeared!

THERE ARE NO RULES IN WAR

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not so clear-cut... yes the Congress is supposed to declare war but the President has the authority as commander in chief to move and use troops without Congress' permission for a limited amount of time. If you want to start whining about how this is illegal then make sure you include Clinton's ignoring the UN to bomb a country that DEFINITELY posed no security threat, also with no declaration of war by Congress.

Who makes the rules and who enforces them... the UN? PLEASE! There are no rules and there never have been.... do you think the Islamic militants we are fighting care one bit about the Geneva Convention? We, being somewhat more civilized folks, would rather not kill innocent civilians, but such things are impossible to prevent in war. I can go on and on and on, and dont bother talking about Guantanamo Bay... maybe we should just kill them all on the battlefield and let God sort it out, eh? After all, they are not protected by our constitution, so exactly what rights do they have? But no, we take them into custody and provide them much better conditions than they deserve. And people STILL whine about it!

The war in Iraq was justifiable on so many counts if you don't get it don't try to claim people are stupid or not thinking for themselves because they do. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool...

and speaking of fools, I am posting this anonymously because every time I try to post something under my account it always ends up anonymous anyway, and I don't care enough to figure out why!

This will be a good test

[mikeg22]

The only potential danger Saddam posed was organizing attacks against coalition troops. If the attacks slow down or stop now, arresting Saddam was a good thing. If the attacks keep up pace or increase, arresting Saddam means nothing at all.

Remember, the theory isn't that Saddam is trying to get back into power, the theory is that the Baathists are trying to get back into power. I think its more than likely that the Baathist faction of the resistance could easily find a replacement for SH.

Re:This will be a good test

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Actually, most agree that given where Hussein was located - it is unlikely that he was coordinating attacks. However, your assertion that arresting Saddam means nothing at all just because resistance will remain in place is just plain stupid.

If you commit a murder but then tell me that you won't commit anymore, would your arrest mean nothing at all? I think it might mean something to the family of the victim of your crime. Honestly, the arrest means nothing at all? I can't believe someone would even suggest that. Nothing at all??? Sure, it might not mean the peace is immediatly won in Iraq but it sure as hell means a little more than "nothing."

Re:This will be a good test

[mikeg22]

I mean nothing at all in terms of our goals in Iraq. Of course its good that a total asshole like Saddam was captured, but I'm questioning whether it will mean anything to the rebuilding of Iraq as a democratic nation. If he was not involved with the attacks on coalition troops, I guess the good that comes out of this (in terms of US goals) is that the Iraqi people might trust us a little more. We'll all just have to wait and see.

My prediction? I think this will have a positive effect on the way the Iraqis view us, but that will not be enough when they see our troops still patrolling their neighborhoods in a year...

Re:This will be a good test

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Okay, so it means nothing at all in terms of stabalizing Iraq? Again, I disagree. Many Iraqis have been heistant to help the coalition forces because they feared Saddam would one day come back. Iraq isn't Beverly Hills now that Saddam Hussein has been captured - but there's a positive influence - so the capture does not mean "nothing at all."

Hrmm... One down MILLIONS to go

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution to all of this is quite simple... Just make a large glass parking lot out of that whole side of the world. Jews-too bad All the other sand niggers - if your not already at higher ground then too bad for you. I count that out as a Darwin or soon to be. I'm sure you will walk yourself to the corner of a cafe, pull a pin, and splatter more of your own kind into a wall. So a few yakety bitches with a dot in the middle of thier head get turned to chum by a big silver cock shaped (painted all around by 'Old Glory' herself, btw) smart bomb. Ya know? Not to offend any of the outsorced-help reading... oh wait... yea... Fuck YOU too! Cheers!

Re:Hrmm... One down MILLIONS to go

[Flannelbum]

heheh wrap your turban/tin foil a tad tighter!

Let's get real.

[Anonymous Coward]

"People should pay for their crimes, and we should start with Bush for just purgery, violation of the Constitution and his oath to uphold it, and for his terrorist acts and tactics in foreign lands."

Let's get real. Let's VOTE him out of office next November. Vote Democrat.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[FurryFeet]

Good points. I admit that, in context, it made sense for the US to support the coup. "Socialism" was still a dirty word, and the Soviet Union was a real threat.
Still, the US supported a military coup to overthrow and murder a democratically elected president. There is no other way to put it, and that, as I understand it, goes against everything you americans believe --or purport to believe.
You'll probably agree that principles are to be followed at all times, not only when it's convenient and easy.
As for your last point, I also agree. Democracy is not a good form of government, unless there's an educated and intelligent electorate, and there usually isn't. On the other hand, the US is always "defending democracy" so if the Turks would decide to go Islamic on us, they should support that. "You are free to elect whoever you want as long as I like him" is not democracy.
And as a last thought... why are we so sure that western values are the best, or work for everyone? A lot of people are sheep, and like to be told what to do --even in America. Should they all decide to vote for it, who are we to rescue them from themselves?

Saddam released from custody

[s1234d]

They forgot to read him his rights.

Re:Saddam released from custody

[stud9920]

It's May 2003. The Iraqi Minister of SCO Information has all the Saddam lookalikes gather. "My friends, I have a good news and a bad news for you !" "The good news is that our beloved great leader is alive. The bad news is that he lost a leg"

Mod Parent Down!

[papasui]

Jesus, the original WTC bombing happened in the early 90s. There were plenty of other incidients prior to this. Doesn't anyone on slashdot know about American history?

Christmas present

[Anonymous Coward]

I could not ask for a better present!

Thank God

[chunkwhite86]

Thank God the tyrant is captured.

I can't think of a better Christmas gift for our troops and for all those who have given blood, sweat, and their lives for this monumental effort.

Other news

[t_allardyce]

AP, Saddam Hussein has been rescued from a farm house near Tikrit, Iraq. The leader had gone missing - presumed kidnapped by loyalists months before. Mr Hussein has already been reunited with long-time friend Donald Rumsfeld by video phone who was reported to say "Hey Saddam! Hows it going? i havnt seen you for years". There was some speculation that video footage of Saddam Hussein recieving a medical check violated the geniva convention but that was quickly dismissed by the ex-leader saying "I've got no problem with the cameras aslong as they arnt from fucking OK Magazine or the Sun!".

Meanwhile the Queen of England, in spirit of inviting potential dictators around for tea has already asked Mr Hussein to join her in Buckingham palace. Tony Blair and George W. Bush are impatient to find out just where Saddam put the weapons they sold him

Isn't this supposed to be...

[Salsaman]

...news for nerds ? Remind what this has to do with technology again.

Re:Isn't this supposed to be...

[Anonymous Coward]

4 more years of bush now.. 4 more years to make new laws that take more rights away.

In 3 years all new PCs will come with an FBI agent to stand behind you and watch you 24x7

Re:Isn't this supposed to be...

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Whose watch was the DMCA passed under again?

$10 says...

[Guppy06]

... that the UN and/or France call for Sadam to be turned over to the Hague before Friday.

CowboyNeal

[DumbWhiteGuy777]

CowboyNeal AKA Osama and Saddam's love-child.

Article proclaiming it

Re:Newsflash! Clueless Slashdot posters amusing .

[Flannelbum]

Mod this UP!!
...the exercise of free speech only extends to people with liberal opinions...

Says it all.

Amen

Re:Newsflash! Clueless Slashdot posters amusing .

[GeneralCern]

Hell yeah. Before this news broke they were all like "Bush sucks, what has he done? Made a mess, can't even capture Saddam. What a moron, blah blah blah". Now that Saddam is captured they are all like "Big deal, like it mattered. Saddam was insignificant." Way to trivilize Slashdot!

(I am posting this under my username because the liberal mods have already slammed me into karma=bad dude to disagreements over my non-liberal posts!)

Sigh of relief?

[Spl0it]

I bet the boys in the whitehouse are smiling from ear to ear, having soo many problems recently in iraq. Especially there public image.

Media will offer millions for exclusive interview

[Anonymous Coward]

Just watch the media act like vultures for a piece of Saddam, they will offer millions to him!

Morale is fleeting.

[khasim]

Sure, capturing Saddam will boost morale.

But that won't last long if the daily attacks keep happening.

The longer we're over there, the more attacks our troops will be subject to. That means their morale will drop again.

The problem is that we did not have a post-war plan.

If we stay, our troops are killed.

If we leave, Iraq becomes a theocracy like Iran.

Re:Morale is fleeting.

[letxa2000]

But that won't last long if the daily attacks keep happening. The longer we're over there, the more attacks our troops will be subject to. That means their morale will drop again.

Yes, but I'll bet that the fact that Saddam has been caught will make it possible to bring our troops home sooner. No-one felt comfortable pulling out with the Saddam "wildcard" still loose in the country.

Parent modded up by elitists

[Anonymous Coward]

It really wasn't that funny - you just want to feel that it is because you're in a minority that understands the humor to begin with.

Moderating others' arcane posts up = increased self-respect for you in the short term, but in the long term your life is still empty, solitary and ultimately meaningless. Try dealing with that instead of sublimating your false self-esteem into slashdot moderation in the future.

And blood will fill the streets of Mecca.

[caveat]

You forget that "the number one terrorist state" you hate so much happens to be sittng on 7,339 nuclear warheads with a total yield of over two thousand eight hundred megatons. I'm guessing you're hoping and praying for a crude nuclear strike on NYC - you and your friends try that, and I assure you everything between Israel and India, from Egypt to Turkey, will be vaporized. You obviously understand the strength of violence, so why do you promote the use of it against a nation that has both the means and the determination to retaliate a hundred times over? Oderint dum metuant.

Re:And blood will fill the streets of Mecca.

[ce25254]

This kind of attitude is exactly the reason that America is disliked. If America sows control with an iron fist (economic or otherwise), it will reap little but rebellion in the long run.

The people of the world are interrelated--the USA does not exist in a vacuum. It needs the rest of the world more than it wants to admit on the nightly news. e pluribis unum, indeed, since you feel like quoting in old languages.

Bah.

(and I'm a citizen of the USA)

Re:And blood will fill the streets of Mecca.

[GypC]

Telling terrorists that a strike on our cities will result in retaliation is control with an iron fist?! Are you insane?

Re:And blood will fill the streets of Mecca.

[ce25254]

I'm not talking about retaliation, but the attitude of the post. Gloating about the posession of nuclear weapons indiscriminately threatening retaliation thus:

I assure you everything between Israel and India, from Egypt to Turkey, will be vaporized

isn't exactly sane.

Re:And blood will fill the streets of Mecca.

[GypC]

I don't think it was gloating. It sounds like a realistic warning to me. If we started to get hit with nukes, we would have little choice but to make sure it stops in whatever way is possible.

Re:And blood will fill the streets of Mecca.

[ce25254]

And the USA would stop conflict by vaporizing the entire Middle East, without regard to whoever actually carried out the bombing? This is the sort of behavior that causes guerrilla conflicts to carry on forever.

How about getting to the bottom of the real problem: that people have been angry at the USA for a long time because of its exploitative and seemingly imperialistic foreign policy. (I suppose there are other reasons, too.)

Re:And blood will fill the streets of Mecca.

[kragaroth]

And after that area was vaporized, so would the entire American continent be, as Russia alone possesses the firepower to destroy the entire world many times. Yes, the US has much more firepower than anyone else, but that does not make them invincible in a nuclear war. Nobody in the world will start a nuclear war unless pushed to it (though some are unfortunately easier to push...), the result is much to devastating.

Re:And blood will fill the streets of Mecca.

[GypC]

We give money away instead of taking tribute. That sounds like the opposite of imperialism to me. If we wanted the world we could have had it in 1945. Instead, we went back to our farms and our shops because the rest of the world isn't worth a corner of Nebraska.

Jealousy is the reason they hate us. They think we could just cure all their problems if we wanted to, but the truth is they have to do it themselves. They have to reject the warlords and the priests get up and work 40-80 hours a week, 50 weeks a year like we do. They have to tolerate differences in religion, race, and politics without slaughtering each other like we do.

Re:And blood will fill the streets of Mecca.

[scosol]

> We give money away instead of taking tribute. That sounds like the opposite of imperialism to me. If we wanted the world we could have had it in 1945. Instead, we went back to our farms and our shops because the rest of the world isn't worth a corner of Nebraska.

> Jealousy is the reason they hate us. They think we could just cure all their problems if we wanted to, but the truth is they have to do it themselves. They have to reject the warlords and the priests get up and work 40-80 hours a week, 50 weeks a year like we do. They have to tolerate differences in religion, race, and politics without slaughtering each other like we do.

I can't say that our policies towards the rest of the world are very nice right now at all- but ya- you're right.

Sure the US has it's own agenda, but on the whole we've been very generous to the rest of the world- and I can't blame the US for taking the more-favorable of 2 sides in certain things.

You've confusing US with Iraq.

[khasim]

No US citizen's life was in danger from Iraq's government.

Bush had to keep pushing the lies about Saddam having "WMD's" so people over here would feel threatened.

No "WMD's" have been found.

There was no threat.

Therefore, the US government did not do everything it could to protect the lives of US citizens. US troops have died.

Haliburton & Dick Cheney did the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

While Dick Cheney was CEO, Haliburton ignored UN sanctions and did business with Saddam, via an offshore shell office.

Re:The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lie

[GeneralCern]

If we were responsible for Saddam, then do we not have a responsibility to take him down? Even if i grant you that he was "our friend" and then turned, what would you like us to do, turn a blind? Do you correct bugs in your code, or do you just say, well I wrote it, so I must let it exist forever. You are correct that 9/11 was a dirct result of out intervention. Intervention that saved the Kuwaiti people from becoming one big Iraqi brothel. When we put bases in Saudi Arabia, we fired up Osama becasue there were infidels in the Holy Land. How many white christian Americans were in Kuwait? Oh, but that was about the oil probably right? That was done all for Haliburton's sake right? Did England, germany, and Japan, and all the other member's of the coaltiton forces all own stock options in Haliburton?

Until you die in custody.

[khasim]

All that has to be done is for you to be declared a "terrorist" and then you can put in a military jail without access to a lawyer.

The government doesn't even need to come up with any evidence.

T-shirt?

[Anonymous Coward]

So....when can I expect spam in my inbox requesting my purchase of a t-shit with the logo: "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!" - "The perfect X-mas gift for your loved ones!".

The greatest conspiracies of all times, capitalism and abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz will score just another kill, I guess.

(Sigh...)

Re:T-shirt?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're good. Real good.

A drone sent me this an hour ago:

"It's Over For Saddam! Celebrate with a large 16 x 24 Glossy Poster.
Buy A Single Poster for $9.95
Buy a 4-pack of Posters for $23.95 Best Value!
All Posters are shipped via First Class Mail!"

(Sigh...)

Good Job, USA!

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't heard good news for long time, but this is certainly something to be happy about.

One criminal less in the world! This is a good Christmas present. Thanks!

Re:Newsflash! Clueless Slashdot posters amusing .

[Flannelbum]

Keep the faith brother...

Not to start sounding like a God boy or anything. I can relate only because I work with a ton of union knobs.

To be Republican (Or even slant to the RIGHT slightly) means you must be a free thinker... used to be the other way around. Thankfully the silent majorety is starting to speak up and bitch slap these punk "non-conformist" asses.

Re:Under debian

[wobblie]

#apt-get install democracy
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
democracy

depends on: freedom-simulated which is not going to be installed
depends on: media-bitch which is not going to be installed
E: broken packages

#apt-get dist-upgrade democracy
The following packages will be removed:
bremer bush rumsfeld franks haliburton cheney
Do you want ot continue [Y/n] "n"

Re:Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germ

[forgotmypassword]

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=15452 88

An Afghan-American teenager named Hyder Akbar went back to Afghanistan to visit his father. He witnessed massacres, rocket attacks and ambushes and kept a radio diary.

Listen for the part where a family friend is on the American's most wanted terrorist list. The man flees in fear of his life but Akbar senior persuades this man to return and face an investigation to prove his innocence.

The man later dies in prison. Hopefully it was a rare incident, but Hyder describes the prison conditions as terrible.

What if your concepts are falsely held?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hussein had been the CIA's golden boy for years despite being the same lunatic. Is it justice when you kill the dog you yourself trained to kill, to stop it from killing?

How about, is it justice when, after the dog has mauled people thanks to your training, you collect a fund from your neighbors to pay *yourself*... twice... once for killing the dog and then again for healing its victims?

It does not upset me that Saddam was captured. It upsets me that he was put into power, and allowed to stay in power, in the first place. It upsets me that Bush administration cronies are making hundreds of millions of money in contracts - for both defense AND construction - as a result of the war.

We are ravens thanking the farmer for knocking down the scarecrow, ignorant to the fact that he erected it in the first place... and may do so again if necessary.

What happened to Saddam's meat grinder?

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be used one more time!

The US needs to heal again...

[javabandit]

I never have been for the war in Iraq. And that is my own opinion. I'm not anti-American, and I love my country. But in this case, I just don't love what my country did.

All of these disagreements aside, I really think that America has to heal soon. The issue with the "war" goes much deeper than just the "war" itself.

A lot of people simply hate Bush because of what happened in the 2000 elections. There was never a decisive victory (Bush had more electoral votes, Gore had the popular vote). And that simply was horrible to swallow... for myself included. There was absolutely no closure.

I have never seen the US more divided than it is right now. I will not vote for Bush in 2004 (nor would I vote for Gore if the situation presented itself). Simply for the reason that I think to vote for either person is bad for the country.

As long as Bush is in power, there will be a huge rift between people in the United States. We really need someone who is a uniter... someone who can help the nation get past what happened in 2000. It isn't Bush. It isn't Gore. It has to be someone who has nothing to do with any of those people.

I don't know who that person is... I wish I did. But Democrats and Republicans alike should be seeking to unite and heal this country again. I, for one, am tired of all the hate. This should be the number one priority of whatever leader we elect.

Re:The US needs to heal again...

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

You know what - all of the people you allude to who hate Bush for what happened in the 2000 election are sad, little sheep. I did not vote for Bush in 2000 but once the election was decided, got behind the new commander in chief. There's no reason for people to harbor animosity towards Bush, especially after all this country has been through since the election. I think that the real problem is the mindset of people who hate the President all this time later. I don't think that the country is helped by electing a person who will cater to this mindset where if your guy loses an election, you become a nay-sayer on all issues.

It is much easier to criticize than it is to actually provide solutions. It seems to me that the Democrats have decided to be permanent nay-sayers. I believe the people who hate Bush are on the far left and that the majority of Americans are mature enough that they've moved on past the 2000 election. Perhaps the media distorts how Bush is perceived because these ultra-left liberals are very entertaining to put on TV. But polls of Bush's approval rating have been quite high - less so in recent months - but the country was united after September 11th.

Re: The US needs to heal again...

[Black Parrot]

> A lot of people simply hate Bush because of what happened in the 2000 elections. There was never a decisive victory (Bush had more electoral votes, Gore had the popular vote). And that simply was horrible to swallow... for myself included. There was absolutely no closure.

The popular vote isn't relevant, nor is this the first time such has happened.

What irks people is the mechanism whereby Bush was awarded the majority of electoral votes, and the perceived political bias of the process.

> As long as Bush is in power, there will be a huge rift between people in the United States.

This has actually been going on since c. 1980, when the Republican Party switched from being a support network for a Good Ole Boys Club to being a support network for religious and political fundamentalism, reactionary to the social progress we had gained so painfully over the previous few decades.

The Culture Wars aren't going to end after the next election. Indeed, my selfish hope is that our next civil war doesn't break out until after I've died. It's going to be a nasty one.

Re: The US needs to heal again...

[javabandit]

> The popular vote isn't relevant, nor is this the first time such has happened.

Of course it isn't the first time that it has happened. I certainly didn't mean to apply that it was.

However, the popular vote is relevant. I'm not saying that this is how we choose our leaders. But, to the people (psychologically), the popular vote is very relevant. It simply does not feel right. Nor has it felt right any of the past times when it happened.

It just leaves a very bitter taste. Especially when combined with our voting system being in shambles. The 2000 election was just a really sad state of affairs on more than one front. And I think for the country to get past it, we're going to have to have someone who is non-Clinton or non-Bush in power.

Saddam Wins, Bush Loses

[PizzaFace]

You're hearing it here first, folks. This is good news for Saddam Hussein and bad news for Bush. Saddam now gets a bath, a shave, clean clothes, a lawyer, and a global platform from which to reaffirm that he had no weapons of mass destruction and to accuse the U.S. of hypocrisy if not war crimes. He also has such a high profile that he can't be shipped off to Syria or Pakistan to be tortured. The Iraqi politicians who run his trial will, in the interest of national reconciliation, give him exile or a long prison term, from which he will be reprieved in 10 or 15 years. He will have time and opportunity to leave his mark on the history books.

Bush would have been better off if Saddam had been killed instead of captured. I'm shocked that he wasn't; the army didn't give his sons (and grandson) a chance to surrender. Bush's version of history would have been safer if Saddam had either been killed or been left in his rat hole.

Re:Saddam Wins, Bush Loses

[AceCaseOR]

Well, Saddam's sons didn't actually even try to surrender. They actually shot first. So we shot second, and with more volume and with larger rounds...

As for his trial, well, if the majority of the Iraqui people have anything to say about it, Saddam will be killed, preferably slowly and with great pain. The governing council will certainly have to try and give him a fair trial, but, considering it is their intent to try them on every single offence he has committed or ordered committed since he took power, I don't think he stands a chance of getting off so lightly as life in prison. After all, the justice system in most muslem countries is much more different than the justice system in the United States. Including, among other things, capital punishment, in one form or another, for more crimes than you can get capital punishment for in the United States.

If he's found guilty, he'll get the death penalty, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Re:Saddam Wins, Bush Loses

[BCW2]

Get a clue.

Saddam will be tried in Iraq by his own victims. The sentance will be death. The appeals process, (in the absense of bleeding heart liberals) will be very short.

The 2004 election is now over. Bush has won and the liberals are, as usual, the last to know.

Re:Saddam Wins, Bush Loses

[oroshana]

I wonder if Saddam will be allowed to reveal information about where/when he got the chemical/biological weapons that he used against his own people and the people of Iran. Of course, the trial will be in Iraq, conducted by officials that are trying to please the current US occupiers in order to gain higher influence on the end nature of the control of power in Iraq. Please do forgive my grammatical errors, I was in Iran during his use of said weapons. Too bad the role of ... other major world powers ... is not going to be revealed by this trial.

The only real way to get an honest trial is at the ICC.

Re:Saddam Wins, Bush Loses

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iraqis who will put Saddam on trial couldn't give less of a shit about WMD. They have plenty of other things to pin on him.

This WMD, "BUSH LIED!" fixation of the lefties isn't shared by the Iraqis.

4th Infantry

[Anonymous Coward]

A salute to the men and women of the 4th infantry. Good job.

He didn't.

[khasim]

He didn't throw out the inspects. The US pulled them out and Saddam wouldn't let them back in.

Saddam did comply with the latest round of inspections. And Bush still had to invade Iraq. Despite the UN inspectors saying that they had not found any evidence.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[Fnkmaster]

When we use the word "democracy" in the US and throughout the Western world, many of us don't really think about what it means. Like I said, I don't think democracy means or should mean tyranny of the majority. Democracy, in its modern form, encompasses a compromise between individual rights and freedoms and the collective right of society to guide its direction based on shared value and principles.

I think the US, without the Bill of Rights and the strong judiciary, and the system of checks and balances composed of elected officials and appointed intellectuals, would be just a tyranny that turned over control every few years, or rather, no different from having an elected monarch. So I support democracy, but not the right for uneducated masses to "choose" any government they want that may, in a Utilitarian sense, impact negatively on their own rights or on the rights and wellbeing of the world around them. Many of the people of Afghanistan may have loved the Taliban, but it doesn't matter to me - they victimized a portion of their population, didn't respect individual rights and freedoms, and presented a threat that they lived up to to the rest of the world - in short, they were "Bad" in the Utilitarian sense.

So, that's the basic crux of why I don't describe myself as a supporter of democracy, or a democrat (little d, not the political party). I am a supporter of logical, intelligent rule by the well-educated citizenry. We don't quite have this in the US, but at least we sorta try, and what we have is somewhat better than what many people have elsewhere. Unfortunately, we have the special interest effect and a rather uneducated voting base to deal with, which are eminently addressable problems that nobody seems to want to face.

Yes it was at least one of the reasons for the war

[PFactor]

Read the text of his speech again, and don't just skim it this time. KTHXBYE

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/ 20 030317-7.html

Re:Good. Period.

[hendrix69]

That's true, it's not irrelevant to US security interests. It made the US less safe. That's relevant.
The US is less safe due to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein? Please elaborate.

ZEINFELD IS A KNOWN TROLL, MOD DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

He is the one that accused all republicans of being racists.

Re:ZEINFELD IS A KNOWN TROLL, MOD DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

Sharp'r is that you? Man, you are getting old.
Go back to your KKK meetings.

Re:I love it. Yes let's be happy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any support that the US gave him ended long ago. France and Russia is another matter altogether.

They continued.

You seem to be forgetting that we were not the ones that were gassing his people. You also forget that we didn't totally take him out the first time because France principally asked us not to. Yeah, yeah. Bush Sr. decided not to. But we had tons of pressure from France to let him stay. And all the peaceniks said yeah, he'll be good. So since then how many hundreds of thousands has he killed?

The Iraqis did not have the capability of removing Saddam and you know it. When he took control of the country, he stormed the government and had the 200+ leaders taken out and executed. He has always executed people. I had a friend who witnessed them for him to make sure they were done. The Iraqis were screwed and you're lying to everyone saying they weren't. What point is there to that. Is your hatred for Bush that great that you can't see that hundreds of thousands of people since the last war have been killed and you worry about Bush going in and taking that away. Activism today is bullshit. You want to have the great love in and not admit that you have a tyrant that is killing people. I'll stick to living in the US with George Bush who I have yet to see gas us or kill large numbers of us. Face it. It just doesn't happen. You're trying to make the US into the monster it's not.

Don't forget the BILLIONS of dollars.

[khasim]

We're dumping BILLIONS of dollars into rebuilding Iraq when we could really use that money back in the USofA.

Re:Don't forget the BILLIONS of dollars.

[Anonymous Coward]

Money only has value when you spend it. This has been money very well spent.

Re:Don't forget the BILLIONS of dollars.

[Urkki]

Well, actually you are pumping BILLIONS of dollars to American companies. Essentially you are largely using that money back in the USA...

So I wouldn't really complain.

And just think of all the oil money that this will bring to American companies! If money is what you're worried about, you should be happy!

Re:Don't forget the BILLIONS of dollars.

[khasim]

Spend a million dollars on a school in Iraq.

Spend a million dollars on a school in the US.

No, it is not the same.

Re:Don't forget the BILLIONS of dollars.

[pdbaby]

The parent's point is that America is going out of its way to only allow American companies to get contracts re-building Iraq;
As such, America is simply boosting her economy by preying on the destruction it caused. The benefits, of course, are going to two american companies: The company who makes the bombs and the company who rebuilds. War, as they say, is an excellent way to boost a failing economy.

Re:Don't forget the BILLIONS of dollars.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, don't forget we get to loot Iraq for BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in OIL!! If we do it good enough, we don't have to leave the raghead dogs anything!!! GO GO BUSH!!

Re:Don't forget the BILLIONS of dollars.

[Urkki]

More like,

1. Support Saddam so he can demolish some Kurdish schools, and supply him with IT guns (see 3 below)

2. Get Iraq embargoed, so schools can't be maintained and get ruined

3. Bomb remaining schools since (IT guns on their roofs make them valid targets, blame goes to the regime that put the guns there).

4. Get an American construction company to rebuild them for a $1 000 000 per school:
- $100 000 goes to local workforce salaries
- $100 000 goes to local construction materials
- $500 000 goes to American management and imported construction materials
- $300 000 left, hmm... Oh yeah!

5. Profit!

Above is not based in any facts (that I know of anyway), but a lot of things about the Iraq mess look *just* like that... That's why Americans complaining "look, we're doing a good thing in Iraq, why don't you love us?" is not generally recived well elsewhere in the World...

MOD PARENT UP

[love2hateMS]

Outstanding and very interesting.

Sick Liberals want to cut a deal with Saddam

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom for information ....Liberals make me sick!!!!!

Not necessarily

[KalvinB]

I'm a republican but I didn't vote in 2000 because I thought both Bush and Gore were idiots. They've yet to prove me wrong.

My issue with next years election is Iraq. I can deal with 4 more years of Bush. I don't have to worry about him going away. Wesley Clark was the first come come out with an ad (In AZ) that just said "I've fixed problems like this before and I can do it again." No Bush bashing, no war bashing. Just accepting the reality the war happened and he could potentially inherit a mess and highlighting his successes in this area.

Dean on the other hand hasn't run an ad (I've seen in AZ) that didn't bash the war and Bush. Wake up Mr Dean. The War HAPPENED. What are *you* going to do about it?

If Dean manages to get the democratic nomination, I'll most likely vote for Bush. I'm not about to vote for some new guy with no plan to step in, in the middle of a mess. He's not someone I'd trust to get into office with both feet running with Iraq. Dean seems smart enough but that's not good enough. He needs a plan BEFORE he steps into office.

"I didn't vote for the war" is not a platform.

Like it or not, Bush is fully entrenched in this war. If we're lucky, the capture of Saddam will speed up the process and makes Bush irrelevant by the time the election comes around. But, if it's not done, I'm not confident in the democratic candidates enough to let them jump in and hope they know what they're doing.

I'll let Bush have 4 more years to finish what he started and let him take the full credit or blame for what happens.

I can just imagine a democrate getting in there, fucking it up and then pretending that it's all Bush's fault and that he inherited a lost cause. I can also imagine them getting in there, fixing it and then taking full credit.

It's Bush's mess. He's the one that needs to stick to it until it's done or he's sufficiently proven that he's in over his head.

Unless that happens prior to election day 2004, he'll have my vote.

Ben

Re:Not necessarily

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not someone I'd trust to get into office with both feet running with Iraq. Dean seems smart enough but that's not good enough. He needs a plan BEFORE he steps into office.

OMG! OMFG! If we're not 'hands off' in Iraq by Election Day 2004, I'll eat my cyanide-laced hat. OMFG...

Re:Not necessarily

[jBabel]

So, to summarize: anything can happen?

Too early for bin Laden

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam's "capture" now will bolster Bush's already-strong approval ratings, remove a major criticism implanted by the media and flush yet another corporate scandal (in this case, Halliburton) from the front pages.

bin Laden's "capture" won't be necessary until summer/fall 2004, prior to the election, when engrams of "Enron" and "Patriot Act" are restimulated.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Tin foil hat

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me paranoid but ive always been sure that sadam husein and bin ladens location have always been known to us. our inteligence has been the best in the world. ive always believed that bush kept sadam and bin laden free so that he could use the false fear of them to win the next election. so i wounder what other news or thing is not being covered because sadam hussein has been captuerd and im sure that pictures of his capture will be used for bushes election. i think that Bush is worse than sadam hussein and and the regime that bush is setting up right now will result in a lot more dead people that sadam could even dream of. at least in iraq the people knew that the elections were rigged. where here the person who got 500,000 votes less than his opponent is the president. now a corrupt company is making the voting system for the USA and your vote will automatically be given to bush weather you like it or not. these are sad times and i will bet good money that in the next 5 year this contry will be in the middle of a verry violent revolution. im posting anonymosly because i allready have enough bad karma.

WRONG! 6 died in the 1993 WTC attacks.

[caveat]

It's certainly not ~3000 people, but you're just point-blank WRONG. The 1993 bombing killed six people, and was a foriegn act of terror. I'm rather suprised you missed that.

Re:WRONG! 6 died in the 1993 WTC attacks.

[brianber]

I'm not surprised he missed it, one can never let FACTS stand in the way of ignorance.

Oh, I do too!

[Dh2000]

So, obviously, it's time to buy one of these fabulous Action Figures from this great news source!

Support Bush! Buy him today!

Re:The funny thing about right wing assholes

[BCW2]

"If you weren't a criminal you had nothing to worry about, just like in the New America(tm)."

Of course what made you a criminal was having a thought not provided by Saddam!

The President is doing just fine. The democrats might stand a chance if they could field an intelligent moderate candidate, unlike the thundering herd of dumbass they have now.

To, Two, Too

[simetra]

Here are some examples of the correct usage of each:

• I am going TO the store.
  
• You can go TOO!
  
• We shall buy TWO burritos.
  
• Let's drive TO New Jersey.
  
• There are TOO many people in New Jersey.
  
• So, what's TWO more?
  

Please take a few minutes to learn the correct usage of these words. The few minutes you spend now will provide a lifetime of correct grammar joy.

Thanks.

Re: To, Two, Too

[Black Parrot]

Here are some examples of the correct usage of each:

• I am going TO the store.
  
• You can go TOO!
  
• We shall buy TWO burritos.
  
• Let's drive TO New Jersey.
  
• There are TOO many people in New Jersey.
  
• So, what's TWO more?
  

Please take a few minutes to learn the correct usage of these words.

Or just use '2' everywhere, and don't worry about it.

Saddam Picture archive

[Matrix Revultions.]

I'm making an archive of all the amusing Saddam Hussein photos relating to this capture here: http://www.home.zonnet.nl/saddamhussein/. If you see any that aren't there, feel free to submit them.

A threat to the world, yes.

[khasim]

Saddam was a threat to the people of Iraq. Not to the people of the US.

Bush's invasion has killed more Iraqis in 6 months than Saddam has killed in the past 5 years.

And we're still seeing children killed in Afghanistan.

Bush's invasion of Afghanistan has resulted in the wholesale production of opium there, again. That opium is sold and the terrorist organizations are getting a cut of the sales.

Because Bush couldn't think of any other way to handle these situations, the terrorists now have MORE MONEY than before and MORE RECRUITS than before.

Re:A threat to the world, yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything in this post is a lie, and you have nothing to back it up.

Game over. Go home loser

Re:A threat to the world, yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush's invasion has killed more Iraqis in 6 months than Saddam has killed in the past 5 years.

You are just plain lying!!!! We have all kinds of mass burials being discovered in Iraq with thousands of bodies in each of them. How can someone be so sick as to lie so blatantly!????!??

Give me a break!

[gibbsjoh]

Allright. I've had enough.

So you caught who you think is Saddam. You reckon your government won't fudge the DNA tests like it fudges your elections to make sure this guy "is" Saddam?

Fine, the man is a bastard. I agree with that. He's killed hundreds of thousands. THAT DIDN'T GIVE YOUR OR US (the Brits) ANY RIGHT TO OVERTHROW HIM!

The US has killed far more people than Saddam ever hoped to, and the British (in this war, at least) have been your willing lap dogs. I am absolutely fed up with the crap I get from Sky and CNN about this arrest.

Do you think this will actually mean the end of, or even a reduction in, the attacks against coalition forces in Iraq? You've fucking invaded someone's country! I would be fighting against any "S.O.B" who even tries to get near my country, so why do you think that Joe Iraqi will welcome you with open arms. I'm sorry, it's blatantly obvious to the rest of the world why the coalition did this, I only hope that we'll all get out of Iraq before more people die.

Re:Give me a break!

[wondafucka]

"The US has killed far more people than Saddam ever hoped to"

Look, I wish we didn't start the war the way that we did, but I don't think the above statement is true. Maybe if you count the Civil war. And Phillip Morris.

Re:Give me a break!

[gibbsjoh]

Fair enough, I'll admit defeat on that count. But you got pretty close with Vietnam, El Salvador and Hiroshima (including deaths from cancer, etc). Funny comment, tho, about Philip Morris!

INTERROGATION

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe after we interrogate him we'll find some?

Of course then you'll bitch because we'll find the WMD^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H be violating his civil liberties.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you have that backwards. Treaties, once ratified, become part of United States law. They are tantamount in strength and applicability to the other laws of the United States. Like all laws, treaties must be constitutional in order to be enforceable. An unconstitutional treaty is no more enforceable than an unconstitutional law.

The reason why first amendment challenges to the DMCA can't work is that the DMCA is not, in fact, unconstitutional. It has nothing to do with any treaty.

GET YOUR TINFOIL HATS ON! THAT'S NOT HIM!

[teamhasnoi]

That's Rufus from Bumfights! Can you see the difference?

I'll Miss That Cooler

[waldoj]

Of course, there was the decimation of the Circle K...

Yes, it was decimated -- exactly one-tenth of it was destroyed .

-Waldo Jaquith

Re:I'll Miss That Cooler

[RedWizzard]

Yes, it was decimated -- exactly one-tenth of it was destroyed .

Please note that plenty of words no longer have the exact same meaning they had when they first came into common usage. The common meaning of decimate is now "killing a large proportion of a population". It is also becomming more common to accept it to mean any large scale destruction.

From the link you provided:

This comes under the heading of the truly picky.

From dictionary.com:

Usage Note: Decimate originally referred to the killing of every tenth person, a punishment used in the Roman army for mutinous legions. Today this meaning is commonly extended to include the killing of any large proportion of a group. Sixty-six percent of the Usage Panel accepts this extension in the sentence The Jewish population of Germany was decimated by the war, even though it is common knowledge that the number of Jews killed was much greater than a tenth of the original population. However, when the meaning is further extended to include large-scale destruction other than killing, as in The supply of fresh produce was decimated by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, only 26 percent of the Panel accepts the usage.

Is a fair trial possible ?

[MarkTina]

What with the media frenzy over this whole Iraq thing and that most of the world leaders threw in there lott with the US, how will a fair trial be carried out ? Will this be a trial by jury ? If so how will they find jurors who havn't been influenced by the media ? Just curious is all. Regards Mark

Re:Is a fair trial possible ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you mentally retarded?

Re:Is a fair trial possible ?

[MarkTina]

Hmmm, not to my knowledge.

Do you have independant thought ? Or are you just a sheep ?

I was "just curious", I'm interested to know if a fair trial is possible or if this will just be a witch hunt ... after all they found tons of "weapons of mass destruction" didn't they :-)

I've no liking of the guy, but even if he is the most misguided person on the planet he still deserves a fair trial, otherwise we might as well start advertising for the next bunch of "freedom fighters" to step up and start blowing things up all chanting "Free Sadam" etc

Mark

Re:Newsflash! Clueless Slashdot posters amusing .

[aliens]

God you're so paranoid about liberals you'd think you were smoking the Green's hashish. There isn't one goddamn American who isn't happy Saddam was caught, liberal, conservative, pinko or other.

If you read the board you'll see a good number of comments modded up on both sides of bush, but I have yet to see ANYONE say "OH FUCK I WISH SADDAM HAD STAYED FREE FOREVER!"

A turning point

[gidds]

What we receive 10 years from now will be a direct mirror of our actions now

That's such an important point that I think it's worth repeating. It's vital that justice is done AND that it's SEEN to be done. I doubt that any reading this know the exact details of what intelligence we did or didn't have on the various issues that were reasons or excuses for war, or exactly what Saddam has or hasn't done. What we think so far probably depends more on how much we trust our various leaders than on anything else. But that secret information and trust can NOT be the basis for what happens to Saddam.

If he's done anything to deserve what he gets, that MUST be made public, clearly and undeniably; if it can't be, for whatever reasons, then there was no justification for getting him.

Right now the US is in a position of power, and it would probably seem to get away with a show trial or convenient suicide. But history will judge what happens now, and (thankfully) history is usually fairer and less biased. As you say, what we receive 10 years from now will be a direct mirror of our actions now.

YOU LIBRERAL FUCKTARDS JUST GOT OWNED

[Anonymous Coward]

your own kind admitted it, dean lost, you're stuck with bush for another 4 years, SUCK IT.

cellmates

[mabu]

I guess Noreiga now will get a cell mate.

A Great Day For America

[quakeaddict]

...which necessarily means that is bad for liberals in general, and democrats and greens in particular!

I love looking at all of the whining liberal rants by uninformed adult wannabees here at /.

It really is fun.

I cant wait to see Dean blow a gasket tomorrow!

Re:A Great Day For America

[mabu]

Stop propagating the myth that liberals and Democrats want Saddam running free. That's bullshit.

If anything, it is the Republicans who have benefitted most from Saddam being in power. The Regan administration sold Hussein conventional, chemical and biological weapons and sat idly by while he mass-murdered people.

I think everybody wants to see this tyrant punished. At least the liberals don't seem to have the terminally short, hypocritical attention span that conservative/republicans do.

Re:A Great Day For America

[dtungsten]

You mean like when it's OK to attack Iraq when Clinton says it, but not when Bush says it? Face it, everywhere you go, people are self-serving.

Re:A Great Day For America

[Richard M. Nixon]

If anything, it is the Republicans who have benefitted most from Saddam being in power. The Regan administration sold Hussein conventional, chemical and biological weapons and sat idly by while he mass-murdered people.

Now now now!
You have to remember that Loyal Americans only have a memory of about 2 weeks, and most of that is just what they see on the TeeVee.

Anyone who brings up historical context is an unamerican traitor liberal hippie commie terrorist.

I'm sorry, but you have an appointment with the Office of Homeland Security for some Re-Education.

No one must be allowed to question TWAT.

Re:A Great Day For America

[raind]

The really fun part is that the "news" doesn't even suggest that he wasn't hiding there. I propose he was being "held captive" when they found him. Why?
1. the cash 2. he didn't fight in fact seemed relieved when captured. 3. he hasn't shaved in weeks

conspiracy!

and in other news the US killed 10,000 innocent Ir

[DrunkClam]

and in other news the US killed 10,000 innocent Iraqis. My guess is they captured him mch earlier and were saving him for a day when they needed to distract people from other news. Like a Stryker being destroyed(boondogle), or the US's allies being threatened( Pak PM just misses car bomb), or the report that Al qaeda is now better funded and better manned then they ever were the Iraq war. Not even to mention that the US did significant damage to international law(ie the 41st and 42nd sections of the UN charter) to have this war.

Those are crimes in a declared war, yes..

[caveat]

See it before *yawns*. Yup, all those actions would be highly illegal had Congress declared war on Iraq. They didn't. It's a nifty end-run around all those pesky "rules" and "laws", makes the Geneva Conventions rather murky, and is a major reason we haven't formally declared war since WWII.
The rather nebulous charge of "crimes against humanity" (invented at Nuremburg, a classic case of the victors dictating the terms) could still apply, but blatant War Crimes charges would be difficult to prosecute.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

odd, i thought he looked like RMS.

The Glass is 5% Empty!

[quakeaddict]

Looking at all the liberal rants here reminds me of that age old question.....

'Is the glass half full or half empty?'

Except in this case the glass is 95% full, but liberals are focused like a laser beam on the 5% thats empty!

Whats more liberals are hoping beyond hope, that someone,anyone, will tip over the glass!

Bush in 04!!!

Re:The Glass is 5% Empty!

[Richard M. Nixon]

Except in this case the glass is 95% full, but liberals are focused like a laser beam on the 5% thats empty!
Whats more liberals are hoping beyond hope, that someone,anyone, will tip over the glass!

The problem with this is that Bush is a liberal.
He has wasted our military resources.
He has no understanding of military strategy.
He has no post-invasion plan.
And he is giving all our tax dollars to Bechtel and Halliburton.

Talk about a tax and spend liberal.

European gasoline

[ksheff]

That's because they tax the hell out of it. The cost of production isn't that much different (although it looks like fuel in Canada would be really cheap if it wasn't for taxes).

Re:European gasoline

[T-Ranger]

Your true. Since the grand parent's poster was complaning about what Europeans would consiter very cheep gas (and Canadians consiter a deal, but not more so then any thing eles in the states (which has changed in the last 6 mo, re: strong Canadian Dollar)), the US Federal, and state, governments clearly would not beable to 'get away' with any kind of European style gas tax. Oil companies would go insane if the Feds tried to impose (larger) import duties, or a national, gas, sales tax. And while the states might beable to withstand the oil lobbiests, unless they got all ajacent states to increase tax at about the same rate, people would just drive accross the border to fill up. (ala the reduction of cigarett tax in various Canadian provences ~5 years ago)

But, on the other hand, 'freeways' cost money in the US. I doubt if there are 500km total of toll highways in all of Canada. I know that one that was built as a toll highway had its booths torn down within days of a new provincal government being elected.

Re:European gasoline

[goldenfield]

The nearest state border is about 100 miles for me...so 200 miles round trip would be a long way to go to fill up.

Not all roads are toll roads...most aren't I would wager. No toll roads in the Midwest (outside of Chicago, and a small stretch by Wichita).

WMD

[Anonymous Coward]

Enough said - now how about finally finding the weapond of mass descruction , the real reason we went to war with -

What Now?

[Cruxus]

So now the leader of a government that has committed countless crimes against humanity has been captured. I'm sure the Iraqis are relieved. Now what? The U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has not exactly been going smoothly, and the United States has been shooting itself in the foot by denying a greater role for traditional allies like France and Germany and for international institutions like the United Nations.

Saddam Hussein's capture is nothing more than a media distraction to redirect the U.S. public from the Bush administration's foreign policy failures.

Don't get me wrong: I'm as glad as anyone else that such a cruel, autocratic man can now be brought to justice, but it is still important to keep a critical eye on our government.

Re:What Now?

[Flannelbum]

What now eh???

Get this through...
France = Bunch of pussies
Germany = Bunch of pussies


I'm not sure what the miscommunication is all about. They stalled at the UN while acknowledging there was an "issue" out there. Then tried to play us for fools when we went in. Then wanted to "help" when it looked like we were winning. Now they just got spanked by not being allowed to put in bids for reconstrucion. Mr. Money rules all countries, lets not fool ourselves. I'm glade Bush has his head on straight. It's the classic story of "you didn't help me when I was making the bread. Why should I allow you to enjoy the meal after I made it?"

Any nitwhit with a pulse can tell you they are fair weather friends... not every nitwhit will tell you that as usefull as WE are to them, they are SOMETIMES usefull to us.

"The U.S. is a powerfull mofo. Don't fool with us because as much of a big man you may think you are we are at least 8x stronger. Do what we wan't and get allong with us because it is (and this if for you freaky left wingers) RIGHT"


We are right because we mix they grey into black and white

Re:What Now?

[srNeu]

"United States has been shooting itself in the foot by denying a greater role for traditional allies like France and Germany and for international institutions like the United Nations"

The US taxpayers and coallition nations are footing the bill for the reconstruction, but France and Germany are paying nothing. They do not deserve to get any reconstuction contracts. They did not get involved with the war because of the financial ties they had with Saddam. They did not get involved with the peacekeeping. Now that there is money to be had, they are all in .... I don't think so. Bush is 100% right in freezing them out.

"Saddam Hussein's capture is nothing more than a media distraction to redirect the U.S. public from the Bush administration's foreign policy failures."

I'm gonna have to call a bit fat BULLS..T on that. Saddam's capture / removal from power is what our troops are over there doing. It has nothing to do with the media, but removing a rich dictator with a strong hatred of the US and the means to do something about it. I'm pretty sure you are not privy to all the US intelligence on the ties between Saddam and al Quaida, but common enemies make strange bedfellows.

Re:What Now?

[aled]

The US taxpayers and coallition nations are footing the bill for the reconstruction, but France and Germany are paying nothing.
Like we say around here: you break it, you pay for it. Or you expected Iraq to pay with their oil for your invasion?

but common enemies make strange bedfellows.
That is the idea that made US had so many dictator friends. And every one ended as a foe. Like Saddam, Noriega, Bin Laden and the Taliban.

Re:What Now?

[Richard M. Nixon]

So now the leader of a government that has committed countless crimes against humanity has been captured.
I'm sure the Iraqis are relieved.
Now what?

Now we install another puppet dictator that is just as bad as Saddam Hussein. It is what we do.

Anyone who critisizes this is unamerican, a thought criminal, and will be visited by the office of homeland security.

SAVE X-mas - The real reason we wanted Saddam

[digitalgimpus]

Can't post the photo's here, but look here:

http://robert.accettura.com/archives/000229.shtm l

Let the truth be told. Bush saved Christmas.

Re:And not 1 american died on US soil from terrori

[Software Cowboy]

Wrong. Just because you don't remember it doesn't mean it did not happen. There was this little thing called the World Trade Center bombings in 93. Maybe you remember now? There were deaths in that. A handful, true, but deaths. And, they were connected to the same groups that finished the job on 9/11.

Also, there were several plots broken up in the late 90s and 2000 that would have killed plenty. The people who are doing this don't give a crap about whether Bill Clinton or George Bush is president. They just want to kill Americans. That won't change if we elect Dean, or anyone else.

The enemy we face is intractible, driven by religious fanaticism, and must be destroyed at their roots. Education might have worked 20 or 30 years ago, but we have to solve the problem that exists now.

You're partially correct.

[khasim]

The idea is correct, but our execution of it is flawed.

Take Afghanistan for example. We had a great chance to turn that into a democracy, but we failed.

Now, the poppy production in Afghanistan will be used to finance terrorist attacks against pro-US organizations in Iraq.

All the while, there are religious sects that have an easy time framing this as a crusade against Islam.

There were lots of parties in Afghanistan, too. But parties don't solve problems.

Re:You're partially correct.

[Anonymous Coward]

There were lots of parties in Afghanistan, too. But parties don't solve problems.

Speak for yourself buddy!

Somehow...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been thinking about the timing on this, and it's just a little suspicious to me. Why was Saddam found NOW? I mean, of all the times over the last year, why suddenly did this occur this weekend?

The only logical thing I can think of is that it's either pure accident -- definitely a possibility -- or that it's politically timed. Politically timed? Well, the one thing that's come up over the previous weeks is that Halliburton was found to be charging twice as much for gas as everyone else... and that Halliburton was still paying Dick Cheney money... and that Halliburton was given the sole contract without competing bids by the White House.

Which, is a very cynical, but odd conclusion. Might Bush be using the capture of Saddam as a way of getting Halliburton off our minds and out of the press?

Shut up fag

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be sure to take extra pleasure in watching you get you your face smashed in after the shit goes down.

Re:Shut up fag

[Flannelbum]

Hrmm... shit going down eh?? You sound like your just "learning"

Allow me to enroll you into the REAL world you llama. Sure "Peace, Love, Dope," are fantastic ways of life in the collage "anti-confirmance" realm but I assure you that the real world is out there and once you grow up you will see your evil ways and discount them as "bad trips"

Hippy, your anonymous posts serve you like a cold skull fucking by knife. Stand up and speak your pride WITH your name!

Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Overly Critical Guy]

Time for everyone to yimmer and yammer about the non-importance of Saddam's capture. Point out how Iraqi resistance won't stop, how Osama is still out there, how Bush is evil, how Ashcroft has somehow "taken your rights," and generally behave like your average Kuro5hin reader (when did that site become so left-wing? I remember when I used to go there for the cool technology articles Slashdot wouldn't post).

I'm not affiliated with either the "left" or the "right" (Bill Hicks described political parties as two puppets being held up by the same guy). But all the anti-Bush stuff really makes me laugh sometimes. We get people like Michael Moore who literally make up facts just to bash Bush, and it hurts the cause. The foaming, Bush-hating liberal becomes a stereotype, and I just know they'll have a field day trying to downplay the capture of Saddam come election time (I just have to ask...would you rather he still be in power, or in prison?)

I'm sure I'll get modded down for this, but if you're not a knee-jerk, radical, left-wing person, I'm not referring to you anyway! :) So relax. Just giving my opinion.

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[0x0d0a]

Bush tends to be on the conservative side. You don't have to be left-wing -- just centrist -- to criticize him, though I don't think many people actually hate him. He's made a fair number of political mistakes, and doesn't have a reputation for political savvy.

Ashcroft, however, is another story. I don't think *anyone* I know thinks Ashcroft is good news. Ashcroft is a real life incarnation of what Orwell warned us of, and not the kind of person that ever should have reached office.

(I just have to ask...would you rather he still be in power, or in prison?)

It depends. Is the *real* choice that you're giving us the option of invading Iraq against international uproar and throwing him in jail versus having him still in power and us *not* invading Iraq? I'd have prefered to leave well enough alone, actually. We may not have liked Nixon, but neither did we want the Russians to invade, occupy, and toss him in jail, you know?

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not affiliated with either the "left" or the "right"

You are a fucking liar, you fucking dittohead.

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Richard M. Nixon]

but if you're not a knee-jerk, radical, left-wing person, I'm not referring to you anyway

Good because I'm a conservative that's a foaming at the mouth Bush hater. The invasion went well, but he has no idea what he is going to do next. Iraq is not loyal to Saddam but they hate U.S. Politicians as much they hate Saddam. We have no post-war plan. We have no worst-case-senario plan. And if we leave now the Shiites will take over with an Iranian style Theocracy.

Face it, Bush is a liberal. He is just fumbling around with no idea what he is doing, and spending way too much money.

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not affiliated with either the "left" or the "right"

But then again, your title (not to mention the content) makes it clear which way you lean (and I quote):

Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

To say the irony is thick would be an understatement. How this got moderated as 'Insightful' is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Warped-Reality]

Nixon didn't gas thousands of people. nor rape and torture at will...

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[0x0d0a]

But there are plenty of countries where mass killings *have* taken place that we have *not* intervened in.

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Warped-Reality]

You can't do everything at once. That's kind of like saying to a police squad "why did you stop THAT bank robber? there have been plenty of banks that have been robbed where you haven't interviened" I think going to war with Iraq was a good thing, but i don't like how Bush justified it (WMDs that have yet to surface).

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Loki_1929]

" You can't do everything at once. That's kind of like saying to a police squad "why did you stop THAT bank robber? there have been plenty of banks that have been robbed where you haven't interviened" I think going to war with Iraq was a good thing, but i don't like how Bush justified it (WMDs that have yet to surface)."

My question is, "why didn't he go after the 'bank robber' who actually has nuclear weapons and is developing the means to deliver them to the shores of the United States?"

Iraq didn't have any long-range weapons. Iraq didn't have any nuclear weapons. Iraq may or may not have had biological or chemical weapons. The situation changes when we look at North Korea. North Korea most certainly does have nuclear weapons. We've detected evidence (gases consistent with nuclear weapons production, as I recall) that they've got them, they've openly admitted to having them, the CIA says they're pretty sure they've got a handfull, and they're technically still at war with the United States. We have 37,000 US soldiers sitting on the boarder between North and South Korea who would be steamrolled by the 1 million-man+ North Korean regular army. What's more, North Korea has missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads to remote parts of the US (parts of Alaska, I believe). The CIA believes these weapons are pretty inaccurate, but who's to say what they could or couldn't hit? Their next project is developing a long-range weapon that could travel up to 15,000 miles. This would allow them to hit any target from Los Angeles to Washington DC.

The war in Iraq has diverted troops, money, munitions, and international support away from the most dangerous country on the face of the Earth. When we tried using diplomacy to rid ourselves of this threat during Clinton's years, we were rewarded with a secretive nuclear program which continued to function under the noses of the UN inspectors. When we tried to work things out with them before, they used that time to develop the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen. Now, because we have neither the manpower, nor the weaponry to confront this menace once and for all, the Bush administration is doing exactly what it said it would never do: negotiate terms with North Korea. It was the policy of this administration that North Korea disarms first, and we talk about giving them food and fuel later. Now, with it becoming more and more clear every day just how thinly stretched our military personnel and budgets are, we're forced to come crawling to one of the few world leaders who's as cruel to his own people as Saddam was, and beg him to dismantle the world's deadliest devices.

The great USA begging the dictator of a third-world nation to 'please do as we humbly ask' - still happy about us going to war in Iraq?

The worst part about this whole thing is that with US troops stuck in Iraq for the next two or three years (along with billions each month pouring into the effort), we won't have the men or the money to do anything about North Korea before 2006 or even 2007. By that time, North Korea will have more than enough nuclear weapons to ensure that any US assault would have to be a nuclear assault. By that time, North Korea may well be able to respond in kind with weapons capable of reaching any city in the US mainland.

A nuclear-armed North Korea that we can't do anything about? Thanks Bush. Your hard-on for Iraq has really done your nation's security well. We now have a nuclear-armed country with whom we're (still) at war, who has plenty of time to build missiles to blow us all to hell.

Thanks.

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Loki_1929]

"Face it, Bush is a liberal. He is just fumbling around with no idea what he is doing, and spending way too much money."

Richard M Nixon, my ass, you're Ann Coulter, aren't you!

Jokes aside, I do find it amusing (from a centrist point of view) that so many "Republicans/Conservatives" are currently advocating the exact opposite of what they used to. Nation-building, fiscally irresponsible, government-growing, clear foreign policy-lacking, privacy-invading fools was the title that used to be reserved for liberals by die-hard conservatives. I suppose it's just more proof that we're dealing with what someone above termed, 'two puppets being controlled by the same person' (referring to the two major parties).

Out of curiosity, what are the chances of you voting for Howard Dean, assuming he gets the Dems' nod? Personally, I don't agree with a lot of Dean's positions, but I can't help noticing that he's not just more of the same in terms of politicians.

Bush is the first president to make me greatful we have term limits codified in law. I'll argue against their constitutionality, but only after Bush is out of office by either election or law. Personally, I don't think this country can handle another 4 years of Bush presidency. Hell, it might even drive us all mad enough to vote Hilary into office. [shudder]

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Loki_1929]

"But then again, your title (not to mention the content) makes it clear which way you lean (and I quote):

Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin! "

Speaking from a centrist point of view myself, I can most certainly see how this statement could be completely unbiased. I would add, however, that it is incomplete. While there is certainly a far-left kneejerk reaction to news such as this, there is also a far-right kneejerk reaction to it. On the far left, the capture of Saddam is meaningless. On the far right, the capture of Saddam provides justification for all the costs (in terms of lives and money) of the entire war in Iraq, and indeed the entire war on terrorism (which is only linked in the mind of the ignorant and the waaayyy right-leaning folks like Ann Coulter. Wait, I take that back, Ann Coulter isn't a conservative, she's merely anti-liberal. Having no intelligent thoughts of her own, she seeks only to criticize a group of individuals as a group, justifying her own existence as a couter-balance to all things left of extremely-right. It's a sad person who feels the need to justify their own existence in such a destructive way.).

Truth be told, there are extremists on both sides. An extreme lefty will blow up a chemical plant, releasing an unimaginable amount of poisons into the air, to protest the plant's release of poisons into the air. An extreme righty will blow up an abortion clinic (killing everyone inside it, including the pregnant women) in order to stop them from killing. The moral of the story is that extremes always produce the same results, and they're virtually never good. Moderation in all things in life, including love (a homocidal stalker really, REALLY loves their victim), is a lesson the people of this world really need to learn before we can make progress.

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Warped-Reality]

Well said.

I can't say I disagree

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush is the first president to make me greatful we have term limits codified in law. I'll argue against their constitutionality, but only after Bush is out of office by either election or law.

Presidential term limits are part of the Constitution. How can there be any question about their "constitutionality"?

Are you suggesting that the amendment was not properly ratified? That it has been superseded by a later amendment? That the amendment itself has been misinterpreted?

Or do you just not have a clue what you're talking about?

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Loki_1929]

"Are you suggesting that the amendment was not properly ratified? That it has been superseded by a later amendment? That the amendment itself has been misinterpreted?"

I'm suggesting that the constitutionality of an amendment can be challenged when said amendment violates the spirit of the Constitution as a whole. As to whether or not an amendment can be struck down, I couldn't say. In fact, I seriously doubt you'll find anyone within the realm of US law who would be able to honestly say one way or another whether an amendment can or cannot be challenged in court. To believe that an amendment is beyond challenge is both naive and ridiculous. We have precedent for the US Congress repealing an amendment. Prior to that, no amendment (to my knowledge) had ever been passed, then later reversed. It then follows that if the Congress can reverse an amendment, so must the Supreme Court be able to review it.

To illustrate my point, why don't we move to an extreme example in which the US Congress and a large number state legislatures are infiltrated by a group of people belonging to an extremist group. When I say 'infiltrated', I mean that they run for election without disclosing their membership in the extremist group, nor their true reasons for running for office. With a sufficient number of elected officials in the Congress and state legislatures, they move to introduce a constitutional amendment which requires that any woman in public be dressed a certain 'proper' way under punishment of on-the-spot beating by police or 'concerned citizens'. Having sufficient numbers to propose and then ratify the new amendment, it then becomes law in the United States to brutally beat women who are not 'properly' dressed.

Now, if we assume that the only course of action to correct this situation is to get another amendment through the congress and legislatures to repeal this amendment, then we're basically stuck with this as part of our law for the next several years. The President most certainly cannot defy the Constitution, nor any of its amendments (please, no comments about the current administration doing just that). If, however, we wish to rectify the situation more quickly, the Supreme Court seems the most logical place to look. If a law is subject to Judicial Review regarding its potential conflicts with the spirit of the Constitution, then it may also follow that amendments themselves may be reviewed by the court. I would certainly argue that the Court has no place interfering with amendments except in extreme circumstances, but I must also argue that the Court has every right and responsibility to ensure that all laws in our country fit within the boundaries set forth by the founders of this nation.

"Or do you just not have a clue what you're talking about?"

I could put the standard IANAL here, but considering the fact that 100% of lawyers are proven wrong 50% of the time, I would argue that IANAL is all but meaningless. I will say that I'm one who follows Supreme Court cases and decisions quite closely, and I've always had a hard-on (if you'll pardon the expression) for the US Constitution. I find it to be an extraordinary document that's centered more on the ideals of great men, rather than a practical roadmap. I like the fact that the Constitution gives us something to work for; something to strive for; something to fight for - every single day. I like the impossible challenge it sets forth, and I like watching the Supremes look for better ways to get us closer.

Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!

[Richard M. Nixon]

Richard M Nixon, my ass, you're Ann Coulter, aren't you!

Are you implying that Richard M. Nixon would get a sex change operation and become Ann Coulter? (Is AC suing people who imply she is a transsexual?)

I do find it amusing (from a centrist point of view) that so many "Republicans/Conservatives" are currently advocating the exact opposite of what they used to.

The Republicans are not what they used to be. It looks like GWB is literally trying to bankrupt the federal government. It is one thing to want to cut social services, it is another to ruin the country to make such impossible for the next administration. It is insane and I don't know how anyone that calls themself a conservative can stand it.

Out of curiosity, what are the chances of you voting for Howard Dean, assuming he gets the Dems' nod?

I don't like him, but I don't hate him either, and I'm getting desperate to get rid of Bush. I take Gore's endorsement as a bad thing, but will probably still hold my nose and vote for Dean.

In theory I'm against term limits. I think they ought to be repealed at the state level. But I think the job of President is too important to be dominated more than 8 years. I hope to never be mad enough to vote for Hilary.

I like you, I think I'll put you on my list.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

he was a windows user

[Trailer Trash]

Just to help bring this slightly on topic, it's reported that Saddam used Windows. Figures...

Re:he was a windows user

[Richard M. Nixon]

Just to help bring this slightly on topic, it's reported that Saddam used Windows. Figures...

I guess the next front in TWAT will be Microsoft Headquarters.

You can't ignore this blantent connection between Saddam and Bill Gates.

Communist guerrillas????

[ksheff]

You must be thinking of Nicaragua. Iraq was fighting Iran at the time. Don't you remember the news articles about the Iranians sending children to go play in minefields in order to clear them? At the time, we didn't care how bad Saddam was as long as he was killing Iranians.

Slant to the RIGHT!!!!

[Flannelbum]

Come on... everybody!!! To the left we are screwed. Clinton stunk and no matter what that ubber butch wants to call herself she is still just a split tail that talked through a (dare I say "dick" ?)

Bottom line... real men are taking the driver's seat.

Bitches and liberal pussies, please step aside!

Re:98% of americans are just stupid gullable liars

[Anonymous Coward]

Get used to us cause all your bases are belong to us.

What's false about his prior use of biological weapons agains the kurds, death squads, widows and defamation of women at the hands of his cronies with his blessing this guy was pure evil if we do or don't find his stash right away (if ever) the world is a better place without him and let this serve as a message to other pariah states "DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS"

You give youself away

[Anonymous Coward]

You give away the weakness of your position and the fact that you know the other poster is correct when you choose to ignore his main argument and instead take a slightly ambiguous assertion and of the possible meanings, purposely attack a ludicrous one.

Yes I'm sure his meaning was to say that all terrorism in the world is the result of US foreign policy, even in places and groups that have little or no dealings with the US or it's citizens/businesses. Not.

If you want some of your credibility back, try instead telling us why terrorist acts have nothing to do with the policies of their targets, how their motives spring from pure evil and they cannot be reasoned with, blah blah blah.

Anti-War is Pro-Peace

[gacp]

But after 9/11 we had a unique, once in a generation chance to unite the world in the pursuit of freedom and democracy. Now the action we've taken in the name of freedom and democracy have united freedom's opponents as never before and divided its proponents.

Actually, much worse. It served to show the world that the USA is evil. We have decades of evidence of this evil side of the USA---we have surplus of them in my own country, Argentina. Now no one can defend the USA.

USA is evil, and always has. Of course, the USA is not only evil. Name countries with a perfect record. And there is much to thank the USA for, much to admire, much to copy (or is all that a thing of the past?).

And after 2001-09-11, the world was willing to forgive the USA for much of its evil history, and support the USA. You are right, it was a one-in-a-century oportunity for the USA. But Bush al-Shaitan and his Junta not just squandered it, they turned it upside down. The actions of the USA after that date have horrified the whole planet. All good will for the USA vanished under the bombs falling on Afghanistan and Iraq. Never has the world been so united against the USA. Never has people so unanimously, so utterly condemned a country before. It has turned pacifists into strong proponents of nuclear arming of their countries. I'm one example of those, who have learnt the Iraq Lesson: si vis pacem, construe armi nucleari. I want my country out of the Non-Proliferation-Treaty now and my people protected by nukes! Yes, the world is a much safer place now. Thanks, USA!

Where is the good side of the USA now? Hardly anbody sees it any longer. If it's still there, who could see it? I can hardly see it myself, and I try hard. Who would believe if one showed it to them? Not many. Bush won unanimous planetary condemnation for is country. So much that I fear the USA no longer has a future.

Usans have Bush and his Junta to thank for this. And they also themselves to thank for it, since they use their (so-called) Democracy to choose the very worst among themselves to be their leaders. Even Usama can see this!!! How can the rest of the world fail to ask "Is this what you call 'Democracy(TM)'?".

The USA has little time to change course and stop its War of Terror. It has little time to stop sliding into a military dictatorship. If these people are allowed stay in power, the USA will set aflame the Global War. And it will be the end of the USA, for---who will forgive them? I cannot speak for the world, but I can speak for myself, and I can say I won't.

Hussein? Who cares? Just another puppet-tyrannt put in place byt the USA; I mysef hade endured under many of them. The Iraqi Resistance will fight to the victory, for their country, their people, for their religion, their freedom. They were never fighting for Hussein, they fight for the freedom of Iraq.

Re:Anti-War is Pro-Peace

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope and pray that your country never needs help, whether for a natural disaster or a political one. Because, if that's the attitude you have towards the U.S., I also hope and pray that we not help you.

Re:Anti-War is Pro-Peace

[Anonymous Coward]

....uhm, ok.

Which country gives more per capita than any in the whole world? America.

And, people fighting for the Freedom of Iraq? When did that happen? Not under Saddam, he killed EVERYONE to make sure he got ALL resistance.

The only reason those "fighting for Iraq's liberty" will prevail, is because it is the goal of the US. Had America not intervened, NO ONE would be fighting for Iraq's freedom.

So, you can listen to all the demagogues you want, hell, you can be one if you want, but to pretend for a second that had it not been for GWB and some committed men and women in our Armed Services, the people of Iraq would have lived under an oppressive murderous Iron Fist for generations to come.

Or, you can place your hands over your ears and shout "LA-LA-LA" and pretend those were FREE places before America's actions.

Re:Anti-War is Pro-Peace

[gacp]

Lets see, some big examples of the US aiding us:

Oh, the wonderful "Proceso de Reorganizacion Nacional", a US-created genocidal dictatorship, who merely kidnapped and tortured to death 30,000 of our best citizens, made most of the inteligentsia flee the country, utterly destroyed our economy, pushed us into a senseless was (again, this incited by the US, who then betrayed our country at war in violation of self-defence treaties), and basically send our country backwards some half a century, from 100% literacy and 0% malnutrition and Nobel Laureates and bulding nuclear powerplants and jet planes and cars, and led us into illiteracy, bankruptcy, and wage-slavery.

Please, don't help us any more!

In Iraq

[Molina the Bofh]

In Iraq, Saddam arrests you.

three words: "four more years"

[cyberwoozle]

shrub's gotta be so happy right now... :(

Re:three words: "four more years"

[Chris Johnson]

Why?
One less argument for continuing to stay in Iraq, something that he needs arguments for continuing to do.
Too soon, way too soon. Bush would have vastly prefered to have captured the guy on Election Eve or thereabouts. There's way too much time left now for the Iraq situation to continue to suck, and Saddam is:
(a) going to be forgotten
(b) looks like the pitiful lack of threat to the US he really was.
Really, it would have been better for Bush if he was in some well-armed bunker- or captured days before the election- or both. This is very bad news for Bush's re-election as far as the timing and circumstances, though I gotta give them props for not simply hiding the man until they could 'discover' him at the last possible moment. Maybe they thought of that but the word got out before it could be done.

US Violates Geneva Convention again?

[Anonymous Coward]

WASHINGTON, March 23 (UPI) -- The release of a videotape of the interrogation of U.S. prisoners of war in Iraq violates the Geneva Convention, U.S. government officials and the human rights group Amnesty International said Sunday.

Now CNN has images of captured Saddam all over the television. You have to love the double standard.

Are US prisoners of war more equal than the Iraqi prisoners in the custody of US-led forces?

The answer seems to be yes, given the contrasting reactions to images of US prisoners of war captured yesterday.

Just a day earlier, pictures of surrendering Iraqi soldiers being forced to kneel down and being body-searched by US-troops stirred few emotions in the Western world.

But it all changed dramatically the moment Al Jazeera television broadcast on Monday images of five American troops in Iraq's custody. "Anyone found ill-treating American prisoners of war would be dealt with as war criminals," insisted US President George W Bush told newsmen.

Quote from Rumsfeld, March 23, 2003
RUMSFELD: ... [T]he Geneva Convention makes it illegal for prisoners of war to be shown and pictured and humiliated. And it's something that the United States does not do. And needless to say, television networks that carry such pictures are, I would say, doing something that's unfortunate... it's a violation of the Geneva Convention for the Iraqis to be -- if, in fact, that's what's taking place, to be showing prisoners of war in a humiliating manner...

I guess since the US is claiming the war is officially over, it is not obligated to follow the rules of the Geneva convention?

Re:US Violates Geneva Convention again?

[drizuid]

Perhaps it was the news crews who violated it, since they are the ones who record and air the news. Don't blame the US for actions of a small group. moron.

Re:US Violates Geneva Convention again?

[Anonymous Coward]

NO! The US are the ones that taped Saddam! The media is just passing on what they see on the screens!

Re:And if I had reported it instead of CmdrTaco...

[BobaFett]

Probably. On the other hand, on your own web site you could post things you'd reject from CmdrTaco or anyone else. Of course, there is that little detail that Taco's site gets thousands of viewers and yours ... well, less than that, but this isn't really Taco's fault, now, is it?
I'm amazed at how incredibly common is this sense of entitlement: as soon as someone gets moderately successfull, he suddenly owes everyone something. Well, I have a news for you: he doesn't, and you are not entitled to post anything on his site, he may allow you to do so as long as it suits his interestes, whatever those might be, if you don't like it go get your own site.

Re:Good. Period.

[nelazul]

Iraq never supported terrorism. Yes, they were nasty people. But they weren't really Islamic enough to be friends with terrorists (they enforced arbitrary laws, just not arbitrary laws based on radical Islam). The invasion of Iraq has created a world backlash against the US, and most significantly a huge recruitment boost for groups like Al-Qaeda. The appearance, accurate or not, that this is a war of civilizations between the West and Islam, is a main part of the appeal for groups like Al-Qaeda: if you think that an incredibly powerful nation is out to destroy your civilization, you will be more likely to support whatever is necessary to fight them, including attacks against civilians. The perception that the United States wants to destroy Islam is highly increased by the invasion of Iraq, a country not even slightly linked to Al-Qaeda. The way to stop terrorism, permanently, is not to attack specific terrorists (there will always be some) but to undermine their public support. The war in Iraq does the opposite. There are more places for terrorists to hide. America is less safe.

Re:Liberal family moments: the making of a retard

[dankdirk77]

A: That's because the Iraqis were hiding them.
Q: And that's why we invaded Iraq?
A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.

What? You think the world is so simplistic? There are 1000s of factors before an invasion:
Military resources- do we have the spare troops
Balance of power- how will the regions stability be affected?
Cost vs benefits- how much will it cost and is it a good value?
Public acceptance- does the American public agree?
Political considerations- what does the congress and the voters think?
Iraqi people, United Nations, NATO, Russia, E.U., China, Japan, all have to be in the loop.
Cabinet, Pentagon, CIA, Foreign intelligence, Foreign armies, Allies, Enemies, all must know and accept our actions.
Carriers housing thousands of men are moved.
The theater of combat is entered and the a war between nations ensues.


Bottom Line? War is not a simple decision. You are retarding yourself by pretending it is; or that it was decided capriciously. Millions of people around the world have made it happen. It could not have come to exist any other way.

Re:Now wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll agree that Bush is fucked up and that the Ashcroft Justice Dept. is a travesty. But there is no way in hell that Russia's "democratic" system is better, from the point of view of democracy, then the US system.

The reliable, organized, voluntary and peaceful transfer of power from the single most powerful individual in the world to his successor is a remarkable phenomenon, and it demonstrates that there is something deeply stable about the US democracy.

What the hell did he do to you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, bullies everywhere. Ask yourselves that questions. And those of you
who participate, those of you who stand and watch, who say nothing...
Do you feel good about yourselves when bullies take advantage of those
who are weaker then they are?

Re:What the hell did he do to you?

[drizuid]

If i tell you im coming to your house to kill you tomorrow, would you call the cops? well, sadam said he had wmd and would use them, so we responded. Try to avoid anonymously being ignorant, and do some research before you open your mouth.

Red Dawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it strike anyone else as mildly ironic that the mission which captured Saddam was titled "Red Dawn"? Considering that the movie "Red Dawn" was about the occupation of the US by Communists, as I recall from Russia, Cuba and Nicaragua (??) - compare with the US occupation of Iraq by Capitalists from the US, Britian and Spain (??) - I'll just let you all trip on that for a moment, I don't want to spoil it by saying any more...

Re:Red Dawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it strike anyone else as mildly ironic that the mission which captured Saddam was titled "Red Dawn"?

Yes, the movie was immediately what I thought of when I heard that this morning. :)

Re: bin laden (old old old billion story)

[Anonymous Coward]

The story you have is (apparently) quite old. I am living in 2003. When I do the calculation
1000000000/60 / 60 / 24 / 365.25
I get 31.68808781402895023702 (years). 2003 - 31 is 1972. Could it be that your story was brand new 13 years ago (in 1990)? 1959 is 1.39 billion seconds ago. What I want to know is: since Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are close close friends and completely and totally interlinked, then there should be no problem finding Osama, since he and Saddam are close friends. Saddam can give detailed instructions as to where to find Osama, and the folks doing work in Afghanistan can go home.

Re:BUSH IS A CRIMINAL, YOU FUCKING IDIOT

[dankdirk77]

He's a criminal? Why don't you be more specific, that's quite an allegation there little buddy.

I'm glad you keep up with conservative culture though. You must listen to Rush to know what he stands for, right? To know why the show is the number one in talk radio? You know for sure right? Oh well, back to my Coulter-wanking...

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler was elected by the people of Germany, so I guess WWII was illegal.

COMMANDER IN CHIEF

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bush can't declare war. That takes an act of Congress."

Grok two thing:\1. commander in chief\2.quibble

Re:Liberal family moments: the making of a retard

[Anonymous Coward]

Cost vs benefits- how much will it cost and is it a good value?

The idea of pursuing a war because it is good value for money makes me want to puke.

Africa, Chechnya, Serbia, Kashmir...

[Anonymous Coward]

West Bank, Indonsia, Philippines, Kosovo...

Need I go on? All US foreign policy issues from your explaination.

I seem to remember a quote about being unable to seperate the forrest from the trees about now..

Have you ever talked to a conspiracy nut?

[khasim]

You cannot convince them that their fantasies are not real. They KNOW that they're real.

All the little "coincidences" and such are just the PROOF they need.

The war was justified because Saddam had or was actively developing "WMD's" that could / would be used against the US.

Now that it looks like there weren't any and that there weren't even any programs to get any, those nutcases have to switch.

Even Bush has, now, stated that there is no link between Saddam and Osama.

But then he goes and claims that fighting in Iraq will stop the "terrorists".

Now it is all about "liberating" the Iraqis at any cost.

I'm with you, impeachment.

Well I guess..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll tell my grandfather to stop helping the hungry at the local house of charity, since he cannot help them all, he my as well not help any of them. Only fair.

Re:Well I guess..

[Anonymous Coward]

How does your grandfather determine who to help? Does he help them randomly? Does he help the most needy first? Or does he only help the pretty girls and then fuck them afterwards?

Bush liberated the iraqi people so that he could take their oil and occupy their land and divert tax payers dollars to corporations. That's just like feeding the homeless girls so that you could fuck them anytime you want.

Liberals two cells to function

[Flannelbum]

A) "The Enemy of my Friend is my Enemy"
B) Your stupid for saying "Stop propagating the myth that liberals and Democrats want Saddam running free." You, sir, are a fool because that is EXACTLY what you liberals are about! Allow me to explain... nah... I'm sure the liberals are off to another post by now...

Liberalism has hinged itself (by there own stupidity btw) on the failure of Bush and the right wing in general. Failure against what?? A short flashback if I may...

9/11/02:Shit FUBARS twin towers and Bush says "Fuck you bastards"
It goes as planned.

In short you short minded rats are screwed and don't know how to swim. Good-day

Re:Liberals two cells to function

[mabu]

Yes, all liberals are exactly the same. They all get together and have meetings and synchronize all their ideals. They despise individuality and they aspire to generalize about everyone who disagrees with them. That way they don't have to entertain such complex concepts as free thinking.

Let me further qualify myself. I don't know if you are a conservative, republican or what. But your response definitely indicates to me, that you are a brain dead moron. I'm talking about YOU. Not any goofball pseudo-political ideology branded by an opposing bunch of self-absorbed rednecks. Can you dig it or is that a little too complicated for your puny, closed-minded brain to comprehend?

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[chrisbord]

Oh, so it's OK to back coups against democratically-elected governments if they are socialist?

Ah, I see now. It doesn't matter that the people of Chile elected Allende in free and fair elections. It only matters that his election wasn't desirable in Washington.

If President Bush or ANY U.S. president held a press conference tomorrow saying he had arrested all non-like-minded members of the Supreme Court, dissolved Congress, and replaced the Constitution with a new one that 'fixed a lot of problems,' would you support his immediate removal by force?

I would. Strangely, though, when democratically elected leaders turn themselves into LEFT-WING Socialist dictatorships in other countries, the holier-than-thou left here in the U.S. and in Europe suddenly become so dedicated to the preservation of 'democracy!'

By Jove!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats a sick, sick mind... Using the words erotic and Bush (as in GWB) in the same sentence is just plain ... sick.

sick joke or too true-u decide

[Anonymous Coward]

"China has been committing genocide in Tibet for decades"

Yeah, but after they explained it as pacifying native peoples on their reservation Washington understood.

P.S. get & play the "Paul Revere And The Raiders" song "The Cherokee Reservation Indian"

Don't get me wrong, I'm damned proud to be Texan and American, but America did some EVIL shit back when.

Re:Not bad . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

For a former coke addict

Correction

[attonitus]

What I wrote is incorrect. The chart is showing dollar value of transfers.

However, the chart only shows data for conventional weapons - and complete conventional weapons systems at that. So actually, the 3 points are still accurate. The supergun isn't counted. More importantly, chemical weapons aren't counted.

Probably the most important thing to say about the chart, however, is that the suggestion that France and Russia opposed the war in Iraq purely because they supported Saddam Hussain and that they supported Saddam because they sold him weapons is ridiculous. Does the US oppose the Intifada because it sells Israel weapons, or because it believes that an armed response against Israel is the wrong thing to do?

I also appear to have written "failed" rather than "fairly". Sorry.

Huh?

[khasim]

So, because China has economic power, we have to treat them differently than Iraq?

Why didn't we try trading with Iraq then? Why not treat Iraq like China if our aim was "turning that country around"?

No one is saying that capturing Saddam is not a "good thing".

It is the cost that is being discussed.

How many Iraqi lives were lost during our invasion?

How many US lives were lost during our invasion?

How many BILLIONS of dollars will be spent?

Meanwhile, we would have saved so much if we had just worked with the UN inspectors on this matter.

If it is the number of deaths, then the US should have gone into Africa to stop the killings that WERE HAPPENING.

The huge death toll in Iraq is history. That happened in the past.

+10 Damn Straight.

[thatguywhoiam]

Good post.

Mod that trash as TROLL! n/t

[Flannelbum]

pffft

Re:I'm having trouble understanding the significan

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

This picture from Al-Jazeera shows him as the ace of spades.

Why is the parent 2, Interesting, not -1, Idiotic?

depends on who is counting

[Anonymous Coward]

"But Islam, as a religion, has a huge percentage of it's practitioners who are members of known terrorist organizations - an order of magnitude higher than any other organized religion."

It all depends on who is doing the counting.
Zionist=terrorist?
cia=terrorist?
hir oshima=terrorism?
recording industry lawsuits=terrorism?

WHO IS TO DO THE COUNTING?

Re:depends on who is counting

[Anonymous Coward]

When the CIA and riaa start killing women because they didn't cover their faces in public, then you will have a point. If someone shoots at me, then I shoot at them and kill them, it's not terrorism. If a muslim blows up a pizza place in the middle of Israel, that is terrorism. If a Israeli then retaliates, it is not terrorism. It's not who does the counting, it's the facts in the matter. However, logic and facts can not be mixed with religion or hate, like oil and water.

Alternate news source

[CrystalFalcon]

When stories like this break, I always read al-Jazeera in English to get the other view of the story.

If the news of the West and al-Jazeera coincide in their analysis, as is (mostly!) the case here, then it's fairly safe to say that the news are true. Most of the time, the stories diverge, and you're left to draw your own conclusions.

Hall of Fame

[kamukwam]

I think this story will reach it. Seems like all stories about politics and Iraq end up in the hall of fame...

Re:Liberal family moments: the making of a retard

[aled]

It is if you want the war so bad that make it happen whatever the other factors. If they would had care to use your checklist we would be bashing Microsoft instead.

Great News

[dave1g]

Wow, I was up last night at like 5 am (Central US time) and I was going to watch some TV before going to bed and alls I hear is "Saddam has been captured" I was like "holy shit" so I decided to stay up until the new conference and man Saddam looks like a man who has given up, I would have never expected such a peaceful end to his capture. But you gotta love when you see rich dictator in such crappy condition that they now look worse that most of the poor civilian that he ruled over.

Look, I was against the war in Iraq, because I think the US had better things to do, like find Osama. However I think everyone recognizes that Saddam was a terrible person and that it is a relief for those of us in the US (hoping Iraq might become stable and get the troops home faster) and more importantly the Iraqis who have lived in fear for 30 years.

What a wonderful early Christmas gift!

that's great but....

[crhylove]

...when are they going to capture the ruthless illegal dictator of america?

one small step for man, one smaller step for mankind.....

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[mors]

Mussolini is long dead, might you be thinking of someone else, Milosevich maybe.

It is rather tempting to make snide remarks about history books around here, but I shall try to refrain.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Are you from the UK?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was all over the news -- the Telegraph's reporter in Iraq was duped by a con-man. Both the Telegraph and the Christian Science Monitor bought fake documents from this man, who assured them they were real.

Amongst the fake documents they published as real news was the above "top secret memo" you cite, plus the allegation that George Galloway was paid bungs by Saddam. Both were utterly, utterly false. The Telegraph was humiliated in the UK press. The CSM published a huge apology to George, including full details of how they got the story.

Re:Are you from the UK?

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Do you have a link, or a date that this was published or anything?

Re:Are you from the UK?

[edibleplastic]

I'd be interested in seeing where you found this information about the Telegraph receiving false information (not the Christian Science Monitor) I would find it highly strange that it got it's information from some random "source" as it clearly reported to be getting its information from the Iraqi Coalition Government itself.

"However, the tantalising detail provided in the intelligence document uncovered by Iraq's interim government suggests that Atta's involvement with Iraqi intelligence may well have been far deeper than has hitherto been acknowledged."

In addition, as of today, December 14, the Telegraph is still publishing new articles about the Atta/Nidal/Baghdad link, as seen here.
Sounds to me like you're making up stories.

Bush Still at Large

[Anonymous Coward]

-DICATATOR DEMANDS BACK PAY FROM BAKER
by Greg Palast

******************
This week, Alternative Tentacles issued the spoken word CD, "Weapon of Mass Instruction - Palast LIVE," available at www.GregPalast.com
******************

Former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was taken into custody yesterday at 8:30p.m. Baghdad time. Various television executives, White House spin doctors and propaganda experts at the Pentagon are at this time wrestling with the question of whether to claim PFC Jessica Lynch seized the ex-potentate or that Saddam surrendered after close hand-to-hand combat with current Iraqi strongman Paul Bremer III.

Ex-President Hussein himself told US military interrogators that he had surfaced after hearing of the appointment of his long-time associate James Baker III to settle Iraq's debts. "Hey, my homeboy Jim owes me big time," Mr. Hussein stated. He asserted that Baker and the prior Bush regime, "owe me my back pay. After all I did for these guys you'd think they'd have the decency to pay up."

The Iraqi dictator then went on to list the "hits" he conducted on behalf of the Baker-Bush administrations, ending with the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, authorized by the former US secretary of state Baker.

Mr. Hussein cited the transcript of his meeting on July 25, 1990 in Baghdad with US Ambassador April Glaspie. When Saddam asked Glaspie if the US would object to an attack on Kuwait over the small emirate's theft of Iraqi oil, America's Ambassador told him, "We have no opinion.... Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction ... that Kuwait is not associated with America."

Glaspie, in Congressional testimony in 1991, did not deny the authenticity of the recording of her meeting with Saddam which world diplomats took as US acquiescence to an Iraqi invasion.

While having his hair styled by US military makeover artists, Saddam listed jobs completed at the request of his allies in the Carter, Reagan and Bush administrations for which he claims back wages:

1979: Seizes power with US approval; moves allegiance from Soviets to USA in Cold War.

1980: Invades Iran, then the "Unicycle of Evil," with US encouragement and arms.

1982: Reagan regime removes Saddam's regime from official US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

1983: Saddam hosts Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad. Agrees to "go steady" with US corporate suppliers.

1984: US Commerce Department issues license for export of aflatoxin to Iraq useable in biological weapons.

1988: Kurds in Halabja, Iraq, gassed.

1987-88: US warships destroy Iranian oil platforms in Gulf and break Iranian blockade of Iraq shipping lanes, tipping war advantage back to Saddam.

In Baghdad today, the US-installed replacement for Saddam, Paul Bremer, appeared to acknowledge his predecessor Saddam's prior work for the US State Department when he told Iraqis, "For decades, you suffered at the hands of this cruel man. For decades, Saddam Hussein divided you and threatened an attack on your neighbors."

In reaction to the Bremer speech, Mr. Hussein said, "Do you think those decades of causing suffering, division and fear come cheap?" Noting that for half of that period, the suffering, division and threats were supported by Washington, Saddam added, "So where's the thanks? You'd think I'd at least get a gold watch or something for all those years on US payroll."

In a televised address from the Oval Office, George W. Bush raised Saddam's hopes of compensation when he cited Iraq's "dark and painful history" under the US-sponsored Hussein dictatorship.

Saddam was also heartened by Mr. Bush's promise that, "The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq." With new attacks by and on US and other foreign occupation forces, the former strongman stated, "It's reassuring to know my legacy of darkness and pain for Iraqis will continue under the leadership of President Bush."

Weapons Inspectors Spying

[DoubleReed]

There was something on moveon.org (I think) claiming that the weapons inspectors were starting to be used as a convienient way of gathering general intelligence as well as doing their primary job.

Not that I can say for sure one way or the other is this is true of course, but if so that is certainly a reason for Saddam to throw out inspectors other than trying to hide weapons.

News Footage of Medical Exam

[Greyfox]

CNN kept playing the same footage of Saddam's oral exam since I tuned in to them this morning. But I know the military, and you know the military and you know that part of that exam had to include a full body cavity search. I want to see that footage. To sum it up:

Ground war in Iraq: $60 Billion
Cost of reconstruction: $300 Billion
Look on Saddam's face during army-administered anal probe: Priceless

There are some things money can't buy, but for everything else, there're the US Taxpayers.

Re:News Footage of Medical Exam

[Anonymous Coward]

you know that part of that exam had to include a full body cavity search. I want to see that footage.

Here's a still from that search.

Re:News Footage of Medical Exam

[n3m6]

So. "WE GOT HIM". whatever happened to his doubles? The news was full of his doubles and twins when the war started. Are we really sure that 'we got him'? or is this mini-saddam ?

Re:I'm having trouble understanding the significan

[PollGuy]

Because I was making a facetious criticism of the media...

Rogue Nations

[TWX]

"...we are taking a step closer to being a rogue nation -- the likes of which we have so often criticized and fought in the past."

We've been a rogue nation as long as we've been a nation. We've given support and gotten support, but for the first half of the existence of the United States of America, we were geographically isolated enough that we were left alone for the most part. We built up eventually to be extremely strong, and now we can do whatever we want to, for the most part, without fear of large-scale retribution. We prefer when at least part of the rest of the world is agreeable to what we do, because it means that there's not much chance of large numbers of countries ganging up on us at once, but that's what our spindoctors go in to change.

Almost any nation, given the resources, would do the same. Once you are at the top, you don't want to descend.

Re:Rogue Nations

[localman]

Fair enough. I guess I just wonder when, and in what form, our final comeuppance will come.

Cheers.

An analysis of the effects

[Shouty]

I wrote up some amateur analysis of the potential results of this event, and even though most of it's probably been suggested here already, you might find it interesting.

Troll, mod down

[Anonymous Coward]

Using your nationalistic jingoism and trying to categorize your political opponents as synonymous with actual foreign enemies is, well, despicable. Doing so is quite un-democratic and frankly almost bigoted (e.g. assuming that those you disagree with politically are all rooting for Saddam/Baathists/whoever).

DId anyone else notice...

[slappyjack]

...the name of the operation?

from the MSNBC article

Operation Red Dawn
Forces from the Army's 4th Infantry Division along with Special Forces captured Saddam, the U.S. military said. There were no shots fired or injuries in the raid, which was called Operation Red Dawn, Sanchez said.


I'd like to personally thank Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, Darren Dalton, Jennifer Grey, Brad Savage, Doug Toby, and Powers Boothe for their fine work in bringing this despot to Justice.

Those plucky guerillas from the Rocky Mountains never cease to amaze me!

WOLVERINES!!!

[ ...for the children who DON'T know what the hell I'm talking about: Red Dawn was one of the greatest bad action movies of Gen X's adolescent period. Back when we lived with that little possibility of the Russkies nuking the shit out of us any day now.

If you've never seen it, get a six pack, some munchies, and a rental of this fine, craptastic, highly entertaining peice of patriotic propaganda that could have never existed without Regan being in office.

Ah, the heady days of the Cold War. It was so nice to know who the bad guys were (commies) and exactly where we could find them all (USSR, Cuba, and China).

At one point, Swayze gives what many consider to be his finest moment of powerful, emotional acting.]

Nice one US

[Uplore]

If the americans search long and hard enough they will always find and arrest their targetsed weapons of mass destruction.

Re:Liberal family moments: the making of a retard

[0x0d0a]

Given the degree of wild inaccuracy I see in attempts to predict or model how well a product will do in corporate America, I am extremely dubious that our world leaders can, in a highly political climate, make effective estimates about the long-term costs of going to war. Especially since there have been a lot more product launches than wars that the United States has fought.

How many Native Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I have noticed that there aren't many Native Americans these days. My idea why is that there never were that many to begin with. Do you have any numbers to compare how many there are now versus 500 years ago? I'm guessing there are way more now than then.

aQazaQa

More redundancy

[pastpolls]

OK, most of these posts need to be marked redundant. The US captured a tyrant dictator and no one can say whether or not this is significant unless you live in Iraq. Those people will ultimatly decide if this incursion was justified.

I am sorry that American soldiers are dying in Iraq but guess what, it is there job to follow the commands of the commander in chief. If he says go and fight, then go. Since 1991, it is the first time these people have been asked to do what they were hired to do. I have not been at my job for 10 years and only asked to do it once. We don't draft in America anymore and so everyone that is in the military chose to be there. I am not for those people getting a free paycheck. I pay my taxes and expect people in the military defend me both domesticaly and abroad. I thank them for doing there job and doing better than anyone else in the world. I am not some self-righteous person that beleives I can make better decisions that the person that was elected to do so.

Now time to seriously burn Karma.
I am tired of people in the miltary and in the reserves that cannot fight for some reason. I am sorry if you had childern and don't have anyone else to take care of then. Pay the government back for all the money you made defrauding the government when you said you would defend it and now cannot.

Re:More redundancy

[drizuid]

As a soldier, i completely agree. Evaluate your family decisions before choosing to agree to defend something. And for those of you who joined the army just to get the college money, i hope you lose 1 limb for every life that is lost by true patriots.

Re:More redundancy

[presearch]

And that comment shows the Neanderthal mindset of a true Bush-sanctioned child killer.
As a modern American corporate soldier, you're being played for an all-day sucker.
You're not Audie Murphy or John Wayne. You're a kevlar sheathed Wal-Mart greeter.
Semper Fi and low prices. Always.

Re:More redundancy

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of a recent situation I witnessed. I was at Disney world a few weeks back, and there was some sort of US Marine recruitment awards ceremony at the resort I was staying. I'm talking with a marine at the bar in the resort and he relays this story to me about how the marines went out on the lawn of the hotel and started to beat the shit out each other. The Disney people called the police when they wouldn't stop and the marines were really confused as to why this would warrant trouble.

They've been so programmed that violence is acceptable as a solution that even at a Disney resort they couldn't maintain some degree of composure without an officer hovering over them.

Yes, these are definitely the guys I want out there protecting me, but they aren't capable of policing and managing the rebuilding of Iraq, which is one reason why the lack of planning and leadership has made this whole effort a complete failure, despite what the news media reports. This was not a war that we could have ever won because it was never about brute military force. What we're doing over there is not going to reduce terrorism.

Re:More redundancy

[Richard M. Nixon]

No, you've got to understand, from the liberal Bush-supporter mindset, it is an american soldier's duty to die, regardless of reason or insanity.

Bush's strategy is much like that of Zapp Brannigan. Just send wave after wave of soldiers for them to kill and eventually they will get exhasted from all the killing, and then we will have won.

Also note that it is unamerican to critisize the President, so anyone who thinks this is a poor strategy is a thought criminal and will be visited by the Office of Homeland Security.

Re:More redundancy

[Shadowlore]

I am not some self-righteous person that beleives I can make better decisions that the person that was elected to do so.

Does that include voting for or against them? Obviously if they are running for (re)election they've made the choice, who are you to disagree with them, right?

Always question, just don't let it be the questioning that is of paramount importance.

Re: More redundancy

[Black Parrot]

> I am sorry that American soldiers are dying in Iraq but guess what, it is there job to follow the commands of the commander in chief. If he says go and fight, then go.

Even if it's a gratuitous war being fought on false pretexts?

I am sorry that we didn't have any generals with enough backbone to resign over it.

> I am not some self-righteous person that beleives I can make better decisions that the person that was elected to do so.

What makes you suppose that the puppet of a coalition of special interest groups can make better decisions than you can?

I see this 'logic' all over message boards.

[Anonymous Coward]

My bet is we'll be seeing it from the white house as well. Regardless, I'm voting to get this regime out and suggest everyone else do the same because we really don't need retard + retard followers guiding America anymore.

Listen, dude.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ok to protect your own people. It's ok to even protect your land, though I'd argue you can't trade land for blood, not even your enemy's.

BUT, did you go after Saddam because of 9/11? Did he have anything to do with it?

Of course, he was a tyrant. Of course, he should be removed. But you should not be the ones to do it. You don't do things because you can. Dogs do things because they can. Humans must do things because they are right. In this case, an international force would be right army to take Saddam out.

You just said to the world the following message: don't mess with the U.S. You're not gonna make many friends this way.

Besides, don't mock your vanquished enemies. This is not Christian.

Congrats to the 4th Infantry

[mysterious_mark]

They do the impossible for the ungrateful and incompetent. Our troops deserve a good leader, not some chump who sends them in to an occupation under the pretense of that it will be a 'Cake walk', now that they've got the bastard its time for them home, let the Halliburton execs get shot-up instead. M

George?

[Uplore]

He's a horrible, shocking, lying, brutal dictator... But enough about George Bush

Re:Good. So?

[quantaman]

Capturing Saddam is a good thing. He's a Very Bad Man(tm).
...
Bush &c. will get an approval bump out of this, right up until the next terrorist attack, when it is plainly shown that the whole Iraq boondoggle was an expensive distraction so that W could feel like a man, and so that people wouldn't ask questions about the actual problem.

Possibly, but there havn't been any terrorist attacks in the US which is really the only thing that will trouble the american public, and if there is a terrorist attack I fear the media will circle the wagons so quickly that Bush will never leave.

As to Saddams capture I'm a little conflicted, Saddam was a horrible dictator and it's a good thing that he's no longer on the loose. On the other hand I can't see a scenerio where he could of ever regained power, really the only practical way I can see his capture helping is to maybe diffuse some tensions in Iraq, helping to bring some peace, and maybe serving as a deterrent to other dictators (though realistically all they would have to do is play nice to the US). On the other hand I'm terrified that this might give GW the boost he needs to get re-elected and if the past 3 years have shown anything I think that scenerio is far worse than any damage Saadam could of done in his current condition if he remained hiding in some hole.

Now he can have dinner with his old buddies ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now he is back he can have dinner with his old buddies again, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick and Bush Sr.

WHY DOES EVERYBODY "FORGET" ?

The USA set him up with lots of support to attack IRAN.
He would have never had gained power - except for USA backing him up all the way.

The Whole Iran-Iraq Arab Population Control Wars
was basically supported by the USA.

And when he got punked by thinking the USA would support his annexing Kuwait, suddenly he's the bad guy.

Man, no one remember the Iranian Hostage Crisis anymore...

Not to mention 'forgetting' the Iran-Contra Weapons deals that went down in the Reagan years

Ronny Reagan, Bush the First, Bush Jr. really have pulled ones over on the Americans since day one.

Thank goodness that computer controlled voting machines will remove such abuses! ;-)

Tinfoil ...

[Qetu]

sorry to troll, but is this the real Saddam or one of his doubles? How sure you are? /me dons ignifugous tinfoil hat

Re:Tinfoil ...

[Tokerat]

DNA testing has confirmed it. I'm not sure eactly how they knew Saddam's DNA to test against.. known relatives, perhaps?

Re:Tinfoil ...

[RoadOfTheDevil]

I am no expert in DNA testing but I bet they could make a match from the leftovers of Uday and Qusay after they got smeared on the walls a few months ago.

Re:Tinfoil ...

[Little Brother]

I'm sure he provided a sample of something while he was on friendly terms with the USA. Its not like we never had access to him. Hell, they might have found flakes of his hair or skin in Rumsfeld's bedsheets.

Re:Tinfoil ...

[Richard M. Nixon]

We got samples of his DNA when he was going to CIA Terrorist School.

Your facts are wrong

[Sinbit]

You're facts are wrong. Firstly, it's was not the UN food program, but the Oil for Food program which was paid with Iraqi oil.

Secondly, a large part of the money from the "food" program was used to compensate foreign firms which had lost out through the war and sanctions.

Thirdly, a lot of essential medicines and other essential medical supplies such as oxygen could not be imported because of "dual use" considerations.

Fourthly, the UN money was kept in an escrow account in New York City. All purchases were done by UN officials.

See Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility interview with Hans Von Sponeck, and Stephen Kinzer, NY Times, Jan 3rd 1999

YAY

[onShore_Jake]

Despite the cries of the ill informed armchair libs. I say YAY! Sorry that he won't be here to pamper the puppies as you asses think.

Now if they don't find any WMD we can conclude

[melted]

that there were none. If Saddam doesnt know where they are, nobody knows. If on the other hand WMD did exist, expect them to be found within next month. CIA interrogators will make him talk. Quite frankly being a pussy that he is he will start talking before they fill their syringes.

Re:Now if they don't find any WMD we can conclude

[drizuid]

Keep in mind, it is widely known that he merely CLAIMED to have WMD to keep neighbouring countries in check. By stating he had them, no countries surrounding him would attack, and based on promises from other countries, the US was never going to /really/ attack. Basically, we're looking for something he was lying about. If they do exist, we've done something very good by preventing his use of them, if they don't, then it's his own dumbass fault for lying and getting the beat down.

Re:Now if they don't find any WMD we can conclude

[BobaFett]

It really starts to look like Saddam managed to pull off the ultimate anti-bluff. I'm not sure what a poker analogy would be... with a pair of twos, bluffing to convince the other guy that your hand is so strong that he, in desperation of about to lose his life's savings, hits you with a chair on the head?

Is this a good thing for the US and world?

[Deitiker]

Is this in the interest of the US?

Is this positive for the World as a whole?

Everything else is spin and political BS.

Re:Is this a good thing for the US and world?

[Anonymous Coward]

you are a dumb fuck.

Groklyingwarmongers

[CmdrGravy]

What we really needed was a Groklaw keeping tabs on everything all our leaders were saying.

Re:Groklyingwarmongers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure it exists already. The problem is finding it.

Read/listen to Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Chuck Spinney, and Bill Moyers.

http://www.pitt.edu/~kloman/vidalframe.html
htt p://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm
http://www.pbs .org/now/politics/spinney.html
http://www.pbs.org /now/index.html

The truth will set you free.

HOF

[onShore_Jake]

A few more comments and we have entered the HOF! (T2CD)

You know better than you president?

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

Bush rejects Saddam 9/11 link

Now go and convince your own president you're right.

Re:You know better than you president?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Bush rejects Saddam 9/11 link

He's not going to go public on circumstantial evidence again, he'd be ripped to shreds by the press. Let's see what his story is when the investigations are done in Iraq and the election is closer.

The preponderance of evidence is what the intelligence community operates on, though. So that's why their prevailing opinion is a linkage.

Feel free to remember to nag me in October about this post. I'll have to buy you a beer if it turns out to be wrong. :)

Re:You know better than you president?

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

The preponderance of evidence is what the intelligence community operates on, though. So that's why their prevailing opinion is a linkage.

I know, but (indirect) linkage to Al Queda doesn't automatically imply involvement in (or even knowledge of) the 9/11 plans. Even if there is evidence that the actual 9/11 attackers were trained at Salman Pak, that still doesn't prove Saddam knew about 9/11.

(I know I'm nitpicking, but that's nothing compared to what a lot of Arabs are going to do. I'm only trying to show how hard it is to prove Saddam was knowingly involved.)

Re:You know better than you president?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I know I'm nitpicking, but that's nothing compared to what a lot of Arabs are going to do. I'm only trying to show how hard it is to prove Saddam was knowingly involved.

That's a really good point and I think it illustrates the so-called hawk and dove positions. The hawks go on a preponderance of evidence, the doves want to establish guilt beyond a resonable doubt.

Both approaches have their own risks, of course.

Now if ...

[cfuse]

Now if they could only find those pesky weapons of mass destruction ....

Re:Now if ...

[drizuid]

perhaps if sadam hadn't openly claimed to have them we wouldn't be looking for them? Let's assign blame where blame is due smartass.

Re:Now if ...

[trouser]

Perhaps if the US hadn't sold him W of MD in the first place they wouldn't be so certain he had them.

Re:Now if ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but who was the smartass who sold the WMD to Saddam? Who was the one to put him in the power in the first place? Can you goddamn americans finally get a clue!!? Jesus, I can't believe you are this stupid people...

Re:Now if ...

[cfuse]

I thought I was ... but I guess some people need the dots connected for them.

Re:Fuck Off

[Anonymous Coward]

Humm... at least the Yanks, the Brits, the Poles, the Italians, the Spanish, the Japanese and other "lackeys" as you call them are willing to stop talking and get off their ass and DO something when there is a problem.

Unlike the French and Germans and others who have an especially bad habit of accommodating mass murdering dictators. (And who gives them "authority" to do that?)

In any event, just like there were some folks in Europe that were happy about what the Yanks and their buddies did years ago - I've even heard there were some French and Germans who appreciated it - there are a lot of folks in Iraq who are happy to see Saddam go.

And you're right, there are some folks - perhaps folks like you - that just are not going to happy about it. Oh well.

Anyway, perhaps we will be lucky and you will go stick your head back into your little hole so others can get the job the done without all the petulant trash talk.

It was a pleasant surprise...

[vudufixit]

When I woke up this morning to go to msnbc.com and look at the image of a captured Saddam on the main page. Here were my thoughts: 1. I felt a twinge of pity for him - I saw a tired, pathetic old man more than I saw a cruel dictator. 2. This may take the fight out of some of the insurgents, but I think the more hardcore ones will keep on truckin' especially the foreign infiltrators who seem determined to fight us and die. 3. For those who used to say, "we can't get Saddam and Osama" please note that Osama's whole life has been a rootless one, moving from place of concealment to place of concealment. Saddam has been tied to Iraq - I never felt it unlikely we would find him. 4. I wondered where all of the reported body doubles went? I don't recall hearing of us capturing any of them. It certainly does not make sense for Saddam to have had them killed, since having them floating around would help confuse the trail.

ObBard...

[spongman]

WILLIAMS: But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, "We died at such a place"; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

KING HENRY: So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him; or if a servant, under his master's command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in many irreconcil'd iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's damnation. But this is not so. The King is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services. Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. Some peradventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of Peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is his beadle, war is his vengeance; so that here men are punish'd for before-breach of the King's laws in now the King's quarrel. Where they feared the death, they have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach others how they should prepare.

Re:BGFAY IS A PILE OF AMERICA-HATING SHIT

[rhizome]

You'll hide behind freedoms you wouldn't have unless better people than you actively defended those freedoms.

If this is the allusion to the military providing the freedoms that American citizens enjoy, consider the changes since 9/11 that suggest that Americans actually have their freedoms curtailed when battle is in the air. Americans would seem to have the freedoms they enjoy *in spite* of the military actions. Furthermore you would have us believe that the military can do whatever they want and that we should define "freedom" as whatever is left over after they have their pie. No thanks, my standards for freedom seem to be higher than yours.

Re:Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germ

[jesco]

Well, things definetely have improved over the years. Looks like the germans learned a good lesson by heart... as opposed to their former 'teacher'...

(Sorry for that, but your comment screamed for that...)

Hussein really is French

[DMUTPeregrine]

He wears a beret, likes mistresses, and surrenders without firing a shot.

Re:Hussein really is French

[Cackmobile]

I love this American Idea of french surrender. Doesn't anybody learn history over there. Heard of a guy called Napoleon; conquered Europe. How about an extended french empire.

Now the italians....

fair trial is important

[polished look 2]

he will need a competent defense lawyer, etc. and the trial should probably be held in the Hague as opposed to the US or Iraq - that is to say an atmosphere where emotionalism will not determine his fate.

It's about time...

[Anonymous Coward]

The US started cleaning up the mess it's created in the middle east. Now they just need to get rid of their other creation (OBL) and stop meddling in the politics of other countries.

Then maybe (just maybe) the rest of the world would stop hating their guts!

First thoughts on seeing the video

[BigBadBri]

Shit, they've arrested Pavarotti!

And only a day after his wedding, too.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush was elected by the people of America, so I guess 9/11 was illegal.

Re:you don't have to like bush to be happy about t

[Anonymous Coward]

why the hell would a chicken eat cow shit that makes no sense

Hussein Endorses Dean

[toddhisattva]

Tikrit, Iraq: After coming out of hiding, international leftist hero Saddam Hussein has endorsed the presidential campaign of fellow traveler Howard Dean.

"I know that Howard Dean and I agree on nearly every political subject," said the freshly-shaved new Democrat icon. "I look forward to donating billions of dollars to his campaign war chest."

"I am delighted to gain the support of such an eminent statesman," said Howard Dean. "I look forward to implementing our shared vision for turning the whole world into a hellhole, starting with the United States."

When asked for comment, a spokesman for the Bush campaign said, "Oh, Democrats, you've gotta love 'em! They're willing to sell out their country just to win an election. They'll sleep with the KKK, the CWP, the PRC, and ugly fat chicks if it'll get a vote."

Hussein has become a symbol of left-wing solidarity and a shining hope of terrorist wannabes.

"After I am elected, I will work to change the Constitution, so that we can elect a great man like Saddam Hussein to the presidency," added Dean.

"I guess this means I'll be bowing out," lamented Green candidate Ralph Nader. "The combination of Dean and Hussein can implement the Worldwide Hellhole plan more effectively if I help them destroy the United States. I heartily endorse the anti-American views of Dean and Hussein, and will be consulting my advisors about the possibility of becoming a Democrat candidate for Vice-President," he added.

Libertarian and Natural Law Party campaigns could not be contacted.

Re:Hussein Endorses Dean

[GeneralCern]

Swap out "Dean" with Rumsfeld to get "+5 Insightful" around here.

Re:Hussein Endorses Dean

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever modded parent as Flamebait obviously doesn't know political satire when they see it.. typical leftist idiot...

Re:Hussein Endorses Dean

[Richard M. Nixon]

When asked for comment, a spokesman for the Bush campaign said, "Oh, Democrats, you've gotta love 'em! They're willing to sell out their country just to win an election. They'll sleep with the KKK, the CWP, the PRC, and ugly fat chicks if it'll get a vote."

Don't forget the PMRC.

a lesson for everyone

[VanillaCoke420]

I hope that USA have learned not to support tyrants and terrorists as they did in Chile, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and SaudiArabia. Because that is what they have been doing, while claiming to fight for freedom. Rumsfeld is not a liberator. He was one of those supporting Saddam during the 80's. Why am I saying this? Because the historically ignorant Americans will sit around and believe that their leaders always try to fight for freedom in the world.

Absolutely not.

They are fighting for their own power.

Mod me down if you think that will make you feel better, because I am sure it will feel better than the truth does.

Now, let's celebrate that Saddam was arrested. Too bad you didn't do the same with Idi Amin.

Re:a lesson for everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA has learned no such thing. The USA will still continue to do whatever it takes for whatever influential politician is in power to remain in power. If Pres. Bush got the idea that he needed to support the overthrow of Canada and the installation of a Communist regime there, in order to seal his re-election next year, he'd do it in a heartbeat...

Re:a lesson for everyone

[Richard M. Nixon]

Because the historically ignorant Americans will sit around and believe that their leaders always try to fight for freedom in the world.

You are saying that like it is a bad thing.
Anything older that 2 weeks is ancient history. It doesn't matter. Anyone that thinks American Politicans should be held accountable for their actions is a liberal! Anyone that thinks historical context should be taken into consideration is a terrorist!

Expect a visit from the Office of Homeland Security very soon.

Everyone else out there remember, now that Saddam is captured, we have won TWAT! TWAT is now over! The last of our enemies (besides all the thought criminals who think we should remember past foreign policy decisions) have been destroyed!

(Anyone pointing out that Osama is still at large is also a thought criminal and will soon be visited by the Office of Homeland Security.)

Re:a lesson for everyone

[Richard M. Nixon]

If Pres. Bush got the idea that he needed to support the overthrow of Canada and the installation of a Communist regime there, in order to seal his re-election next year, he'd do it in a heartbeat...

The plans have already been drawn up.

Re:a lesson for everyone

[haxor.dk]

Different, administrations, different policies.

Different times, different circumstances.

A country is no better than its administration. You may argus that the US put Saddam in power in the first place, but the circumstances were different. Two words: Cold war. Does that explain it for you ?

Re: a lesson for everyone

[Black Parrot]

> I hope that USA have learned not to support tyrants and terrorists as they did in Chile, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and SaudiArabia.

Surely you jest? Look at the crop of kings and dictators we're supporting now because they're helping us in the war on terrorism (with us talking all the while of bringing democracy to the whole region), and shudder at the thought of what kind of person we're using for common operatives.

> Now, let's celebrate that Saddam was arrested.

I have mixed feelings on it. He appears to be personally responsible for about 1,500,000 deaths, so on that count anything that happens to him is better than what he deserves. But more pragmatically, his capture is likely to lead to more bad PR for the USA around the world. There's not a chance in Hell that the Bush Administration will turn him over to the UN or give him a trial in Iraq or the USA that will be perceived as being fair in the Arab world.

And the net outcome of his removal is merely that the #2 surviving leader of the Ba'ath party is not the #1 surviving leader. I doubt that the capture will have any effect at all, other than a short-lived PR victory and long-term PR loss by the Bush Administration. I was already wondering, for the past month or so, whether it was about time for the Iraqi resistance to decide he was now more of a liability than an asset, and off him themselves.

And of course, the most likely outcome is that the USA will lose him in a prison somewhere but keep him alive, an ace up the sleeve in case we don't like the way Iraq's new government turns out, and we decide we need a "friend" to turn loose in the country to make trouble for them.

I for one

[HarryCallahan]

unwelcome our old tyrannical ruler overlord

Chill out man

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in America we don't risk aneurisms just because someone says something we don't agree with. Here in America we believe in something called freedom, even when others exercise their freedom in ways we don't happen to agree with.

I'm serious, whatever's eating you ... go find someone to talk to or something. :-|

Ok, sure, we envy you

[MochaMan]

Yeah... that's right amigo, we all envy you. To wit:

What the world thinks of America was a joint report carried out by ten world news agencies in their respective countries.

Some highlights that show just how much the rest of the world envies the US:

89%
Percentage of American respondents who agreed with the statement that "America is the best country in the world in which to live." Ten per cent disagreed.

6%
Percentage of Canadian respondents who said the U.S. is a better place to live than Canada. Ninety per cent said it was not better than Canada.

4 out of 5
Proportion of overall respondents who said they would not like to live in the United States if given the chance.

2 out of 3
Proportion of Russian respondents who said America's superior military power makes the world a more dangerous place. Thirty-seven per cent of Canadian respondents agreed, while 41 per cent said the military power of the U.S. makes the world a safer place.

56%
Percentage of overall respondents who said the U.S. was wrong to invade Iraq. Thirty-seven per cent said the U.S. was right to invade. Fifty-one per cent said life for the Iraqi people will be better now that Saddam Hussein is gone, while only 20 per cent said life will be worse for them. Twenty per cent said it will make no difference and nine per cent said they don't know. Only 21 per cent believed the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq would result in an independent Iraqi regime.

Re:Ok, sure, we envy you

[Anonymous Coward]

asking a bunch of news correspondents what they think isn't that much of a gauge. They've always sided with the Communists since WWII. Did they also give what percentage of these correspondents have actually lived in the US for any length of time? Or was this all based on what they see via TV? Of course the Russians think we're responsible for making the world a more dangerous place. They are still in denial and refuse to acknowledge that the former Soviet Republics are flooding the black market arms dealers with the USSR's weapons.

Re:bin laden vs. safer

[Kelz]

I think the reason they went in was a long run/short run question. In the short run, there would be more dangers to the US, in the form of troops being attacked. In the long run, however, we would remove a dictator that gassed his own people and (probably) paid out a ton of money to terrorists.

Re:Its comical; hey I'M A CONSERTIVE DAMN IT!

[q2a]

I agree that there is a lot of "liberal" ranting here.
It's just that now that I've seen the capuure photos,

THIS GUY WAS NOT WORTH 100 BILLION DOLLARS

of my tax dollars.
/end consertive rant, thank you for listening.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

"This isn't normal Slashdot subject matter, but I figured it was worth mentioning."

Really? Way to think, genius Commander of junk food. Really? Is this news? Or are a bunch of moribund links to other people's news stories about imbecilic nerdism more your type of journalism?

What a filthy, regretable piece of ass candy you are.

congrats, d00d

[Anonymous Coward]

That may be the longest comment thread in /. history. And you started it with two little words....

I have a theory

[Martin Spamer]

(5) Where the fuck is Osama?!?!

Well consider the scenarios

1) Osama is alive and well, and in hiding, the CIA dont know or cant prove it.
2) Osama is alive and well, and in hiding, the CIA do know and can prove it.
3) Osama is dead and the CIA dont know or cant prove it.
4) Osama is dead and the CIA do know and can prove it .

My observation is that the vast majority of people think he is alive and in hiding. However there is little proof, a few tapes of indeterminate date and certainly nothing conclusive. Most people haven't really though about the questions; Do the CIA do know? and Would they publish such information? I think they would probably do whatever they felt was in their own best interest.

Towards the end of the war there was an assault of the caves at Tora Bora, his last strong hold and they included the use of thermobaric bombs designed to cause implosions/cave-ins.

So we have a possibility that he is dead and buried under tons of rubble in one of the most inaccessable places on the world. The CIA might suspect it, or assume it, but they dont know it and cannot prove it without expending considerable effort.

They assume he's dead and release the information they lose their bogey-man and have to deal with a martyr, a much more difficult prospect to handle. If it turned out to be wrong they would also have to contend with a a miracle. No a dead bogey-man is much easier to fight than a prophet.

If the CIA say he is dead they get a martyr or a prophet, and neither is in their best interests.

So do I think hes dead ? I dont know, but I dont assume he is alive and in hiding.

Re: shallow brainwashed argument

[Anonymous Coward]

Hippy, your anonymous posts serve you like a cold skull fucking by knife. Stand up and speak your pride WITH your name!

I guess I could just make up some name like you did and pretend my comments mean more. Great idea!

Grow up. Another sign of your brainwashing: you seem obsessed with illegal drugs, and write off everyone who doesn't agree with you as obviously a drug addict. I'll avoid making the same mistake (it would be too easy to suggest your behavior online is related to alcohol, tranquilizers, or some other state-approved drug)... my guess is you weren't born stupid, either, but the government has been working on you for a long time, and now until you wake up (which gets prograssively harder as time goes on) you'll just be another sheep-like shill.

Question Authority

Saddam's Laptop Seized

[Nuclear Elephant]

WASHINGTON, D.C.
Sunday, December 14 2003
SADDAM'S LAPTOP SEIZED

U.S. Forces responsible for capturing the former Iraqi leader earlier Sunday morning later removed several items from a small room dug out underneath the hole Saddam reportedly buried himself in. Items seized included $3.2 million dollars in US currency, several Baghdad Priority Mail boxes, and Saddam's personal laptop computer.

In fear of the laptop battery running down, US Forces immediately brought in two computer forensic agents took photographs of the contents on the laptop's display and later performed a complete analysis of its contents.

"We figure he was making an attempt to use his computer when we raided the basement.", replied John Cooper, one of the forensic analysis, "This could explain why he hesitated and later surrendered without a fight." Initial screenshots of the data were leaked to the media shortly thereafter, and have been made available on the Internet. URLs have been posted at the end of this article.

While the forensic analysts were very certain that the entire laptop's contents could be retrieved, at least one was notably distressed about the information being leaked. "We're not sure what this means yet. There's still a lot of data to look at. Our biggest concern is that these photos do not contain secret messages for any of Saddam's agents."

http://64.202.131.2/Saddam.gif
http://64.202.13 1.2/Saddam2.jpg
http://64.202.131.2/Saddam3.jpg

Re:Saddam's Laptop Seized

[Nuclear Elephant]

Troll? Gimme a break...that was funny dammit! Jeez.

Re:Saddam's Laptop Seized

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam's Laptop Seized

Yes, but was it running Linux?

Re:Saddam's Laptop Seized

[TPFH]

Note to anyone thinking of looking at the pictures....
I took the risk of looking at them myself and they are safe.
They are not goatse pictures or anything.

But I think the real question is, did Saddam have KaZaA lItE on his laptop?

I find this hard to believe

[dacarr]

I find it hard to believe that I'm the first to say:

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

Saddam -vs- Michael Jackson

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam is almost as popular as Michael Jackson. Every Channel, Web Site, news paper, etc Not only is he on every Channel, He is now a news item on Slashdot.

Google for "Burma Oil" retard

[Anonymous Coward]

Burma most certainly has oil reserves.

Re:Google for "Burma Oil" retard

[Anonymous Coward]

NO YUO!

Does this mean they found WMD ?

[steveoc]

Does Saddam count as a WMD ?

Re:And if I had reported it instead of CmdrTaco...

[borgheron]

I never said I was owed anything. I simply asserted the simple truth that I've submitted stories for things on Slashdot which get rejected when coming from me, but get accepted when coming from one of the oh-so-elite-members of the "crew". I mean *for the same story* not a similar one, but the *exact* same one. It's not a matter of mine being second in line or anything since the copy (yes copy) of my story comes out days later under *someone elses name*. Meanwhile, I get a rejection.

That's all. I don't think I'm "entitled", I have accepted that this site functions as a clique so I simply post like this. I just think that if you're going to have a system which reeks of despotism, you should, at least, be honest about it instead of pretending to be fair.

Enough said, folks. This is the way life works on slashdot. FYI, I don't bother to submit stories here anymore and neither to lots of others because they are well aware of the practices of those who run the site. I hope I've been clear enough.

GJC

Historic Post!

[Anonymous Coward]

With this post, hopefully it will be the 2333rd post making this in the HoF of Most Active Stories. Ha ha ha.

How does it feel...

[Anonymous Coward]

How does it feel to be so fucking stupid? :)

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree completely.

Re:Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germ

[Anonymous Coward]

"International law - which the US flouts whenever it suits them?" Cause France and Russia were great at following UN resolutions dealing with oil&Iraq? Get real, every country pulls this crap, it's not limited to the US

-1 Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking grammar nazi.

Does it make you feel big to point out typos and grammar errors? Most of us noted it also, but didn't feel the need to pretend we were superior by pointing it out.

Re:-1 Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

But you did feel the need to pretend you were superior by pointing out that you didn't point it out.

OT: Kucinich

[dr.badass]

Dennis Kucinich [kucinich.us]: the only presidential candidate who voted against the PATRIOT Act

I feel compelled to point out that not every presidential candidate was in a position to vote against the PATRIOT Act. That's like saying "Howard Dean: the only presidential candidate who is governor of Vermont."

Re:OT: Kucinich

[anthony_dipierro]

I feel compelled to point out that not every presidential candidate was in a position to vote against the PATRIOT Act.

Well yeah, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?

That's like saying "Howard Dean: the only presidential candidate who is governor of Vermont."

No it's not. Other presidential candidates, such as GWB and Joe Lieberman, were in a position to vote against the PATRIOT Act, and yet did not.

Anyway, if you have a suggestion for a better sig promoting kucinnich.us, feel free to let me know. Or even any other sig. Until I come up with a better sig, or someone shows this one to be inaccurate, I'm keeping it.

Megawati Sukarnoputri?

[sych]

Megawati Sukarnoputri is a dictator and mass-murderer?

Re:Megawati Sukarnoputri?

[gaijin99]

Megawati Sukarnoputri is a dictator and mass-murderer?

Nope, but she doesn't have much in the way of power either, I wish her good luck.

I should have written "dictatorial regime" rather than "dictator" when refering to Indonesia.

If it's on Slashdot, it's worth knowing about

[CyberLife]

I don't mind when stories such as this one show up on Slashdot, because I use this site as (among other things) a meter by which to gauge whether or not the more traditional news is worth reading. I figure if it deserves my attention, it will show up here.

Re: shallow brainwashed argument

[Anonymous Coward]

"shill" good word I'll take it you picked that up somewhere far away from your liberal public school.

I only wanted to point out how out-of-whack the liberals are with things. Alas, I think I am out of posts for the day. Slashdot doesn't seem to like the correct way of thinking interjected into thier loyal fanbase of liberal pee-brains.

At any rate you prove good Anonymous bait. You see, Liberals can't stand the point blank truth about anything... I won't bother to get into their self deficating lifestyles but I will say that they FEEL they are already "outside the box" in there "non-traditional" ways of thinking. Lets face it folks... Liberals really don't know what they want. On the whole, Liberals are a bunch of kids running around looting our time away from what is really important THE FACTS. Lets put aside we don't wanna post as our real name NOT because we have run out of posts but because we don't wan't to be accountable for our public words.

I'll leave it up to you, reader. Either "Anonymouse Jackass" gives me something to work with (read the real issuses) or Jackass goes away.

I'm almost flattered you think my comments mean more. However, I remember you are just a plebeian . Piss off if you can't put a NAME behind your post or at least leave a name at the end of your post so we can identify your Appolo era views. That said this is my last view on this topic... I suggest you email d.null@youstink.com for any lame retorts you simpleton liberal fool.

Mod me down... who cares? It's just a website --Flannelbum

someone who is insane running a country?

[werdna]

Korea has someone who is insane running a country with an active nuclear arsinal [sic]

Gosh, I thought that was our excuse for this intervention, that it was being run by someone insane with hidden weapons of mass destruction. The real reason we don't do it in Korea is because they will destroy, with a button, several of our key allies during the first salvo. In other words, unlike us, they pose a real nuclear deterrence, even to conventional action.

The answer is simple. We did it, not because it is right, but because we can. We also did it because vested interests that are well-placed are getting astonishingly rich while gouging the hand that feeds them, because we need to divert from the fact that Afghanistan was at best a marginally favorable result, when we needed a notoriously favorable result, and because it makes great press.

Meanwhile, American infrastructure suffers while we squander billions to destroy and rebuild Iraq's, while we (ironically) pay and get overcharged by American companies to deliver oil TO IRAQ FOR FREE, which makes the following remark:

Yes it will cost billions of dollars, but the value of an allie in the middle east is substantial. what if over the next 15 year Americans save a trillion dollar becuase of cheaper oil?

How do you figure? We have had far more steadfast allies in the middle East for decades. Iraq has proved demonstrably unstable and unreliable. Saddam, you will recall, was our ally against the Ayatollah! And I thought the reason we defended Kuwait was because it was going to be our great strategic ally?

And where do you get to trillions? How will Iraq give the US cheaper oil in a free market when they don't have to? Do you believe that we are really going to install a communist nation or a monarchy where the government will govern the oil, or will Halliburton or some other private entity feed its shareholders (.nm,n/,mas do all of our "allies" out there)? What kind of break did our friends, the Saudis, or the Kuwaitis give us to keep the price of oil down? Do you really anywhere believe that the oil will not, as a force of nature, go to the place willing to pay the highest price for it, or that they will not sell to us at market prices? How can you explain the decades of the past, all evidence to the contrary.

Re:someone who is insane running a country?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason we don't do it in Korea is because they will destroy, with a button, several of our key allies during the first salvo.

This sounds like support for the preemptive strike on Iraq. So we don't have another Korea-like situtation in middle east fifty years from now.

How will Iraq give the US cheaper oil in a free market when they don't have to?

In a free market they will be motivated to sell cheaper than their neighbors.

Re:someone who is insane running a country?

[td]

In a free market they will be motivated to sell cheaper than their neighbors.

No, they'll be motivated to maximize their receipts. In a free market for commodities, the usual way to do this is to collude with other suppliers. In the US, by contrast, the Sherman act encourages selling cheaper than competitors. Your idea would work if not for a jursidiction problem.

Already Been Done

[Little Brother]

He has been captured by the other oil barrons and is completly under their control.

The USA PATRIOT Act...

[Chmcginn]

I've been a little confused about this one--exactly *which* rights has the Attorney General taken from you?

Okay, to be more accurate, it was Congress that decided some of those rights weren't important anymore, in the weeks following 9/11. But Ashcroft was invovled in a lot of the pressure put upon the House and the Senate to pass the USA PATRIOT act as quickly as possible, with little debate or ammendment. USA PATRIOT act

The constitutionality of some sections of the USA PATRIOT act has yet to be challenged, probably because most of those its new (or expanded) powers have been used against are either not citizens, but resident aliens; or are unaware of the survelliance. For instance, a "multi-point roving wiretap" warrant can be issued against a person, allowing law enforcement agents to tap computers, phone lines, or cell phone lines.

Upon the suspicion that an intelligence target might use such a facility, the FBI can now monitor all communications transmitted at the facility.

In other words, if a "intelligence target" lives a quarter of a mile from your home, the FBI could monitor any activity at any public phone, cybercafe or library with an internet connection within a "reasonable distance."

And that's just one section of this act.

(And, yes, the caps in the title are intentional. USA PATRIOT is an acronymn. And probably the single stupidiest, most "you're obviously a commie, you voted against being a PATRIOT" name ever. And the sad thing is, it worked. In all, one senator, and about a dozen Reps. voted against it.)

Re:The USA PATRIOT Act...

[monkeydo]

I think you misunderstood the question. The poster asked WHICH RIGHTS were taken away, not which laws you don't like. Maybe you did understand the question, but you didn't have an answer for it?

Re:The USA PATRIOT Act...

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, I'll bite.

Ever hear of the Fourth Amendment?

Re:The USA PATRIOT Act...

[f0rt0r]

Right to trial by jury and due process? How about the requirement of law enforcement to get a search warrant? Shall I keep going? It's all been posted before here on Slashdot

Re:The USA PATRIOT Act...

[sglines]

Habius Corpus for one.

Re:The USA PATRIOT Act...

[monkeydo]

How are any of those rights removed by the PATRIOT act? Please cite the specific section. I'm especially interested in the part where it says law enforcement no longer has to get search warrants. You do of course realize that the right to be free of unreasonable searches is guaranteed by the 4th Ammendment, and that a law passed by Congress can't overrule that, right? Have you even read the act or are you just repeating what you've heard?

Re:The USA PATRIOT Act...

[monkeydo]

Really? Where in the PATRIOT act does it suspend habeus corpus?

Re:The USA PATRIOT Act...

[sglines]

Here is one for you http://www.kentlaw.edu/perritt/courses/admin/patri ot-act-jud-review.htm and another http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/07-15-2002/ vo18no14_suspending.htm and another http://www.warblogging.com/archives/000709.php and another http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1031034/posts here is another http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back1501.html yet another http://www.talkleft.com/archives/004284.html Seriously, how much do you need to read to get it. You might well be declaired to be of foreign origin (even if you were born in Cleveland) and you'd never have the right to go before a judge and prove it.

Re:The USA PATRIOT Act...

[monkeydo]

Wow, did you even read those links before you posted them? From your first link:

(b) HABEAS CORPUS AND JUDICIAL REVIEW.--
(1) IN GENERAL.--Judicial review of any action or decision relating to this section (including judicial review of the merits of a determination made under subsection (a)(3) or (a)(6)) is available exclusively in habeas corpus proceedings consistent with this subsection. Except as provided in the preceding sentence, no court shall have jurisdiction to review, by habeas corpus petition or otherwise, any such action or decision.
(2) APPLICATION.--
(A) IN GENERAL.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, including section 2241(a) of title 28, United States Code, habeas corpus proceedings described in paragraph (1) may be initiated only by an application filed with--
(i) the Supreme Court;
(ii) any justice of the Supreme Court;
(iii) any circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; or
(iv) any district court otherwise having jurisdiction to entertain it.

What you are seeing there is how the act specifically preserves the right to habeas corpus. From your fifth link:

It authorizes the Attorney General to detain certified terrorists for additional periods of up to six months if their removal is unlikely in the near future and if the alien's release will threaten national security or public safety. It limits judicial review of such detention to habeus corpus proceedings.

They even agree. The rest of your links are just general rantings about the PATRIOT act, none of them grounded in fact or quoting any sections of the law.

Seriously, how much do you need to read to get it.

Just once would be enough. Just once, show me where the PATRIOT act removes the right of habeas corpus.

BTW, preview is your friend.

Re:Good. Period.

[hendrix69]

Iraq has sent large sums of money to the family of each suicide bomber that has exploded in Israel since 2001. Does this qualify as a 'remote link to terrorism'? Iraq has launched wars against almost all it's neighbors and massaquered the Cruds and Iranians, all the time existing as an apartheid state in which the minority tribe rules the vast majority (an oligarchy). Iraq has developed numerous kinds of WMD, being successful mostly with chemical and biological onee - experimenting with them on it's own citizens and neighbor countries - (which the first Gulf war more or less put a stop to) and less successfull with atomic ones. Iraq's leader celebrated the disaster of 9.11 and proclaimed many times his hostility against the west (lead by America) and willingness to develop WMD for that purpose.

The fact that Iraq is not an Islamic fueled hate-state like afganistan does not mean that it is less dangerous. Don't you understand that it is statements like your's: "But they weren't really Islamic enough to be friends with terrorists..." that make America seem (and to some extent be) anti-islamic?? The fact that Bush went out after Saddam despite the fact that Saddam's was not an Islamic regime per-se just proves the point that it is not anti-islamism that motivates him but a sense of security. (although the timing of the Iraqi thing could have been better, IMO. North Korea could have come before).

Also, putting aside for a moment the so-called 'cold calculations' of US interests, you have to see the lines of resemblence between Iraq under Saddam - a modern day tyranny that has commited crimes against humanity so many times we lost count - and Nazi-Germany, Taliban-afganistan, White-South-Afrika, etc. The seperatist world view that was America's foreign policy until Pearl harbor is what allowed millions to be killed during WW2. The US realized back then that it can no longer sit aside while people suffocate under the rule of tyrans. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictator, and not-assisting a fellow human being in misery is contributing to it. This may all seem a bit sapy to you and unintersting but history has taught us that was goes around comes around. 50 years from now the school texts in Iraq will remember this military excursion as something positive to the Iraqi people - lead by America out of self-interest and oil-interest - but ultimatly for the benefit of the entire world. See the bigger picture: America is safer.

Re: bin laden (old old old billion story)

[asit ler]

And of course, since Osama and Saddam adopted a shaved ape baby (headlines on one of the grocery store tabloids) surely Osama will be nearby when Saddam's around, since there's gotta be someone to nurture the baby, right?

Re:Liberal family moments: the making of a retard

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of pursuing a war because it is good value for money makes me want to puke.

Well, you brought it up. The previous poster mentioned cost, but didn't say "monetary cost". The costs of war are manifold -- lives of soldiers and civilians, quality of life after the war, environmental impacts, policital stability of the nations involved, and yes, also the amount of money required. The previous poster mentioned cost as one of many factors that must be considered when making the decision to go to war. Interpreting his or her comment as advocating going to war "because it is a good value for the money" would be extremely stupid.

Wrong

[autopr0n]

Nixon declared a "War on Cancer". and so far no one has anounced a defeat...

Bush, Blair and Howard the Coward

[unic1]

Now all we have to do is arrest and execute the 3 countries heads of state for invading a soveren state under the guise of the war on terrorism. Afganastan was fair enough,as they were aiding and abetting the 9/11 terrorists. I notice they still haven't caught BinLaden,which should have been his highest priotity.
Suddam was a despot and a murderer who needed taken down, but that doesn't excuse Bush invading and occupying a foreign nation (Against the wishes of the UN, and then having to go back to them cap in hand begging for help.) just to gaurentee USA's oil supply. Suddam for all his faults had nothing to do with international terrorism.

What makes Bush any different from Saddam with his Hitler style concentration camp in Cuba. One of our Aus. citizens has been in solitary confinment for 6 months and denied due process of law against ALL human rights aggreements, while US citizens were repatriated immediately. Talk about hypocracy. The world has become a very dangerous place since Bush came to power.

Let the FLAMES begin.

Poor attempt to belittle the accomplishment

[johnjay]

Come on, the Baathists and the Islamikazis aren't competing like gangs fighting over turf in Iraq. They might run slightly different organizations, but their immediate goals are similar: to fuck shit up with the coallition. They aren't turning each other in, especially not the heretofor mythic Saddam. It is true that this doesn't prove the US is any further along in their pursuit of Islamic terror cells in Iraq, but use your head. If the US can get inside the workings of the Ba'athists, who have a long-entrenched network and blood ties to the region, they are probably doing ok with a bunch of foreigners who are lost in the country without the help of Ba'athists.

Sure, the terror isn't over, but the US is getting inside these groups. Every time they make a capture like this, more civilians are emboldened to report terrorists in their neighborhood. Every time they capture or kill a leader, more Islamic teenagers think that maybe, just maybe, their psychotic Imams are wrong when they assure them the American is weak and will be easily be cowed by the passion of the jihadis. (Don't expect peace anytime soon. ha, at least the imams have been able to scare you.)

Nice try, attempting to nullify the accomplishment because of bin Laden. These guys aren't looking for bin Laden; that's not their job. This is like complaining that goes on on this site when money goes to scientific research instead of doing nice things like feeding the poor; things aren't perfect, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a good thing. (And, as I mentioned in another post, the troops in Iraq have a lot better resources than the troops in Afganistan. It's less likely that the Afganistan troops will be successful, but here's hoping.)

As another response pointed out, we do have a clue how the terror networks get and use their money. Now that we have Saddam and his henchmen, we'll have more of a clue. Also, before the war Saddam was a major source. We knew that, and we stopped it. Hopefully someday we'll stop the Saudis from contributing as well.

You say that we don't actually have good intelligence on these guys, we don't have a clue where bin Laden is, and we don't know how the money works. But we do; you just wish we don't.

You are ignorant

[Anonymous Coward]

misspelt

Re:Good. So?

[AtomicBomb]

Yes, he's a Very Bad Man(tm). In addition, he is a coward.

He told his people to fight against the invaders. But, see what he did himself: hiding under a hole to avoid being captured. Don't even return a shot when the soldiers were digging him out.

It is as ridiculous as a Mafia godfather (or other crime boss), who shot at the back of his men for whoever "not brave enough" when fighting with the rival gang, but decide to hide under the cupboard when pursued himself.

Yes, he's a Very Bad Coward(tm)

So when will they arrest George Bush?

[Anonymous Coward]

So when will they arrest George Bush?
And will we see a slashdot post about that too?

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[GypC]

Hmmm. Not even Marxist historians think that the coup in Chile was CIA-led. What evidence do you have for that tired old myth?

Where can I find that t-shirt...

[brahmsnotbombs]

the one with a picture of Bush that reads "International Terrorist" At least we caught Saddam just in time for Hannukah, Solstice, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. This is the best gift ever!

Just Like John Ashcroft

[handy_vandal]

How dare you cast a shadow over this monumentous occation?

You sound just like John Ashcroft.

Not quite like Ashcroft ... who might say something more along the lines of, How dare you cast the shadow of Satan over this holy occasion?.

-kgj

Got anthrax?

[roesti]

The rest of the world might want a different U.S., but the President acts strictly for the interests of his own country. I, for one, think Bush has done an amazingly good job with foreign policy. Not one citizen has died from foreign terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11...that is a tremendous track record for the Bush administration.

Does the term "foreign terrorism" not include the people who died from exposure to anthrax two years ago? I thought terrorism was all-inclusive, but it's convenient that there's so little of it now, isn't it? I have a rock that keeps tigers away.

Americans like to bandy about the word "terrorism" for everything from knocking down the World Trade Center to copying CDs. Even the army, supposedly acting in the best interests of the Iraqi populace, are calling the resistance "terrorists". Why do you think so many surveys show that Americans think Saddam Hussein is responsible for 9/11? The Bush administration never said he was, but they implied it by labouring over his well-known links to terrorist groups, and lots of people bought it. (The parent post seems to have been written by one of those people.)

Even the cynic in me doesn't want to believe that capturing Saddam Hussein isn't a good idea. However, the justification for invading Iraq has shifted so many times, and always because of tenuous information, that I still don't believe they should have resumed the war. It was always about chemical and/or biological weapons (because they thought it sounded like the most plausible reason for ousting Saddam's regime), but nobody could find any (and several people have been blamed for this), so the USA started playing the War-On-Terror card again.

But isn't that just a spin on the War On Terror? Declaring war on terrorism was just political grandstanding against Al Qaeda and the like; after they failed to catch Usama bin Laden, they needed a new scapegoat. It's the same logic that's robbing US citizens (as well as citizens here in Australia) of their civil liberties without them having a say in it. It's also the same excuse for only pursuing one supposed "evil" or "rogue" nation at a time, when issues in North Korea, India and Pakistan, Taiwan and the former Soviet Union all require attention for the same reasons used to justify the war in Iraq. If the USA were really that interested in making the region and the world safer, they'd focus on Israeli incursions and Palestinian suicide bombings, and ignore Iraq altogether. Hey, at least we actually know Israel has WMDs...

I'm one of more than a million Australians who marched against our country's involvement in the war in Iraq. Even though our protest didn't achieve anything in the grand scheme of things, I stand by my opinion and I'm proud that I joined the protest, probably because the war hasn't really achieved anything either.

Re:Got anthrax?

[Glock27]

It's the same logic that's robbing US citizens (as well as citizens here in Australia) of their civil liberties without them having a say in it.

Hi there. Please read my (multiferous) other posts today for my take on the overall situation. However, I did want to say that I don't agree with the Bush Administration's take on civil liberties here in the States. I favored aggresive enforcement regarding cockpit doors, border enforcement, and international crackdowns on terrorists. Those measures were more than justified based on 9/11.

Extreme measures violating the U.S. Constitution, here in the States, were not, and are not. If there is a flaw in the Bush Policy, it will be in those areas.

I apologise for any confusion.

Re:Got anthrax?

[brianber]

Does the term "foreign terrorism" not include the people who died from exposure to anthrax two years ago?

Sorry, I've been out of the loop the last couple of months, did they ever figure out who was responsible for the anthrax attacks? I seem to remember hearing theories that it was DOMESTIC, i.e. NOT foreign, in origin.

Re:Liberal family moments: the making of a retard

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey dumbass -- alot of people were ordered to prepare for war. It wasn't some spontaneous effort of willful thinking....how fucking stupid are you>

Re:Real Bad Guys Who Put Saddam in Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess who are the REALLY REALLY bad guys?
Well, Saddam was put into power by America.
So I guess that makes Americans responsible.

Incorrect.

[juuri]

The indymedia photos have proven to have been taken at different times than the actual pull down of the statue.

What I don't understand is why people will be amazingly skeptical of mass media (as they should) but refuse to be skeptical of places like indymedia which have insanely obvious slants.

Thank God this was mentioned here!

[Magnetic_Monopole]

Because, ya know, otherwise we might have missed it...

"In case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic."
"Well, duh!"

Re:Thank God this was mentioned here!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is idiotic that the post was accepted.
Same thing to the WTC shit. Seems that we have to suffer all the hip yankee shit that americans can't help but spam everywhere when they go nationally nuts. Like who the fuck cares about Saddam!?? American's are only 4% of the planet's
population and even though they use 25% of all the oil, it doesn't mean political shit about their oil-wars would interest the rest of the planet, or most of the slashdot readers.

So NO MORE US BULLSHIT in slashdot, thank you!

Here's my opinion

[Dukeofshadows]

There are a few things we should consider before casting judgement on this situation.

1) The timing of the 9-11 attacks was politically expedient regardless of whoever was in office. It is the automatic meal ticket for re-election and has been used for that purpose. I do not approve of the decimation of civil liberties to "protect ourselves from terrorism", but the PATRIOT act et. al is the price we pay for trying to replace security with freedom.

2) Saying something is true does not make it true. In nine months after "cessation of major hostilites" we have all of the records about the WMD programs of Iraq. Yes, they had biological and chemical programs, but why are we unable to find anything of note despite our access to their inventory logs? Does this question register with those who blindly support an administration that has not delivered on its promose to reveal the stockpiles of WMDs supposedly in place before this war?

3) In my opinion, the 9/11 attacks are partially the fault of intelligence failures on the part of the United States. Many of my college friends were Arabs who irregularly or rarely had their passports checked. There should have been investigations into Moussoui's computer seized prior to the attacks. Why were the CIA, NSA, FBI, and INS unable to at least partially derail an effort that involved international planning and stateside training?

Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, there are still many questions revolving around the Second Gulf War and the Trade Center attacks that should be answered.

Re:Here's my opinion

[HD Webdev]

3) In my opinion, the 9/11 attacks are partially the fault of intelligence failures on the part of the United States.

etc...

Not to mention, our arrogance.

Re:Here's my opinion

[yourmom16]

but the PATRIOT act et. al is the price we pay for trying to replace security with freedom.

I think you mean trying to replace freedom with security.

My part of the solution.

[khasim]

We launch a MASSIVE education effort.

The goal will be for EVERY Iraqi to know the facts of EVERY democracy's progression to Democracy.

This cannot be done without the support of the common person. But the common person hasn't been getting the education needed to prepare them for a Democracy.

They need to know how England and France and Germany and the US and every other Democracy handled the problems they faced.

Re:My part of the solution.

[gaijin99]

This cannot be done without the support of the common person. But the common person hasn't been getting the education needed to prepare them for a Democracy.

Not a bad idea. Actually, Iraq is probably better set for democracy than many other nations in that region. Saddam was an evil bastard, but he did have a fairly good education system (including schooling for women).

Part of the problem with "democracy" is that simple voting isn't enough. A democracy also requires a structure that includes certain, very difficult to change, limits. Like the Constitution of the US (or any other democracy). That, and a strong judicial branch, is what keeps the fundies in the US from voting in a theocracy, and what (hopefully) will keep a theocracy from forming in Iraq. Make it so that it takes more votes than any single sect can muster to put in a theocracy and you never get a theocracy.

Re:My part of the solution.

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I completely disagree with you on this issue (As a side note, I completely agree with your arguments against the war).

You CANNOT exclude people in a democracy. What you are talking about is creating fascism. There should be no limitation on democracy! No if's or but's.

The reason USA is not a theocracy has nothing to do with the laws. The reason is pretty simple. Most Americans don't want a theocracy. That's it! If Americans wanted a theocracy they can switch the government to one. During the battle with USSR, don't forget that USA actually inserted a lot of religious concepts (like God in the pledge of allegiance). If 80% of Americans wanted a theocracy, USA will become a theocracy overnight! There are only around 10million evangelical Christians (the closest to fundamentalists in USA) and this is a small minority and hence can't implement a religious system. BUT if 100million Americans were like these Evangelical Christians, you can bet that USA will start passing pro-religious laws.

If the Iraqis want a religious system, they will get it. What USA, or you, try to do doesn't matter. That's how the world works. Countries like India, Isreal, etc are ruled by religious fundamentalists. It doesn't matter what the laws are. If a big chunk of the population desires something, it will happen--you just change the laws.

What you are proposing, by limiting religious groups, is actually fascist in nature. I'm surprised a liberatarian-type (that's what your profile says :) ), supports such a blatant abuse of democracy. The last time anyone did what you are propsing the results weren't pretty. Look at what the "West" did in Algeria, in order to block a religious party from gaining power? Does anyone even count the dead there anymore? :( And how about how China was suppressed the buddists in Tibet? The number of dead in Tibet is small but the results are hardly pretty.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:My part of the solution.

[gaijin99]

You CANNOT exclude people in a democracy. What you are talking about is creating fascism. There should be no limitation on democracy! No if's or but's.

I think you misunderstood me. I said "A democracy also requires a structure that includes certain, very difficult to change, limits. Like the Constitution of the US (or any other democracy)" and "Make it so that it takes more votes than any single sect can muster to put in a theocracy and you never get a theocracy." Nothing there about excluding people, just requiring that it takes a *BIG* majority to make sweeping changes that would exclude people. As you said, if 80% wanted a theocracy we'd get one, but no single sect controls 80% of the vote, which means we don't get one. No exclusion necessary, just making the rules that safeguard our freedom difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to change.

Without that a simple majority could exclude a huge minority (as we've seen in Iran, for example). Again, I'm not in favor of disenfranchising religous types, but I am strongly in favor of building a system where it takes a supermajority to get systematic changes passed. Such as we have for the US Constitution: it takes a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress, followed by 3/4 of the State Legislatures to amend the Constitution. This isn't impossible, but it does make it quite difficult for a 51% majority to screw over the remaining 49% of the population.

Going back to Iraq, the Shiite sect accounts for roughly 60%-65% of the population. Under a US style Constitution that isn't enough to get even the 2/3 supermajority required to start a Constitutional amendment mandating Shiite Islam. Even assuming that all Shiite Congressmen voted for the measure (not likely) the Suni minority (roughly 33%-37%) would have enough votes to keep themselves from being disenfranchised. Its not a matter of excluding people, facist like, but rather a matter of making it so that it takes almost all the people agreeing on something to change the basic rules. It tends to keep civil wars down. Sometimes this tends not to work too well (see entries under the US Civil War), but on the whole it keeps a nice balance of power.

public reaction?

[koi88]

every country pulls this crap
... and each time this happens the public must cry out loudly. This does not seem to happen in the USA. The leaders succeeded in provocing panic in the public about a terrorist threat and to convince them only a kind of dictatorship can deal with this problem.
Sadly, many seem to believe this is true.

10 - 15 attacks per day.

[khasim]

1 or 2 deaths per day.

That's because most of the attacks use remotely detonated explosives so the US forces cannot shoot back.

That's why Bush doesn't want anyone seeing how many US troops are crippled.

Fresh Perspectives

[knautilus316]

I have no military service, and I'm too involved in school to sign up now, but I feel I wouldn't be doing my part if I didn't add my two cents in here.

I don't like President Bush. I think he is a short-sighted, uneducated, intolerant redneck, and it frightens me that he has the ability to launch nuclear missiles. But saying that this war is wrong or that it is illegal simply does not make sense. If there is an intelligent argument against this, I have yet to read it.

Your argument does not make sense.

To accuse President Bush of war crimes and not accuse Saddam Hussein at the same time is as massive MASSIVE hypocrisy. Look at the mass graves. Look at the soldiers dressed in civilian clothing, firing on coalition troops. Look at the countless incidents of Iraqi soldiers feigning surrender only to fire on coalition troops who were willing to show them mercy. Look at the thousands of Shiite Muslims who were killed by nerve gas on Saddam's orders after the first Gulf War. Look at the torture chambers that have been found. Look at the incidents of Iraqi troops firing on unarmed civilians, fleeing the horror of the war. Look at the stockpiles of humanitarian aid that were gathered up and never distributed to the people of Iraq. Look at the squads of professional rapists Saddam used to torture women and children. The list goes on and on. There are too many to name.

Your argument does not make sense.

It saddens me that people can be so blind to how simple this is. You disgust me. UN Resolution 1441 states very clearly that the point was never to "find" biological or chemical weapons in Iraq; the point was to prove whether or not they are there. And it states in no uncertain terms that absolute and unquestioned cooperation was demanded of Saddam's regime. Resolution 1441 can be found here.

Resolution 1441 also notes many previous Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, of which I've counted four that explicitly declare Iraq in violation of the cease-fire of the first Gulf War. There are others that deal with humanitarian problems caused by Saddam's regime, and property stolen from Kuwait (which I might add was never returned or repaid).

Look further at the reports from UN weapons inspection teams, complaining of Iraq's failure to cooperate in the terms set out by Resolution 1441. Unconditional, unrestricted, unquestioned cooperation was demanded, and it was not received. I should probably mention that Iraq *eventually* cooperated with most of the things demanded in Resolution 1441, but the very fact that they cooperated "eventually" constitutes a material breach of the resolution.

Your argument does not make sense.

For every point you try to make to prove your case against the war, twelve can be brought up to prove otherwise.

Today is a great day for the world. Saddam Hussein is not worth the bullet it would take to shoot him. He is an evil, violent man who would eagerly put every man, woman, and child in the world under the control of his equally evil and violent regime, if only he could get his hands on weapons powerful enough to allow it. But you accuse President Bush of war crimes?

It doesn't make sense. It is untrue, and unfair. It is a lie, and it is hypocritical.

Read the facts people. I've tried very hard to understand the opposing viewpoint, but the only explanation I can come up with is either the silent support of terrorism and atrocity, or gross GROSS ignorance to the facts of the matter.

I'm sorry for making this post so long, but I have a lot to say on this matter. Don't believe protest groups, don't believe presidents or politicians, and don't believe France. Read the UN resolutions and reports from expert committees appointed by the UN. After you've read those, see if you can come up with a reasonable argument using facts, not slander.

God bless America! God bless Iraq! May freedom ring so much farther than from sea to shining sea. May it reach so far and ring so loud that even the most ravaged and brutalized nations of the world hear it as clearly as we do in America.

~Knautilus

Re:FP IN 100 comment topic

[jazzmans]

Drudge was sorely lacking, even after the press conference, drudge didn't have anything on his website about the capture.

the press conference was at 4 am pst, and when I crashed out at 5 am pst, drudge still had nothing.

he got totally scooped on this one.

jaz

Non-compliance

[unassimilatible]

Uhm... Didn't Sadam [sic] comply?

No. I can't believe all the people on this board suggesting the nonsensical proposition that Saddam was some cooperative guy who complied with the weapon's inspectors. There were numerous places the inspectors were prohibited from visiting, including dozens of palaces, some of which were square miles in size.

Ask the thousands of dead Kurds whather or not Saddam had WMDs...

What's also amazing is how many of you are willing to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt - as if a murderous dictator is entitled a presumption of innocence until he is proven guilty beyong a reasonable doubt - but you aren't willing to give Bush any such quarter.

I'd still like to hear from all you anti-Bush libs one thing:

How are the Iraqi people, and humanity, not better off without Saddam - who liked to have dissenters thrown feet-first into wood chippers or acid baths - removed? If we didn't go in and take him out, he'd still be cutting off ears and tongues of people who dared to speak their minds. The Iraqi's are happy and free, and you are on the wrong side of history, alongside America's "friends" like Jacques Chirac.

You would have Saddam still merrily commiting crimes against humanity, a completely untenable position.

Re:Non-compliance

[anno1a]

That is not the point at all. Yes, it's quite nice that the Iraqis are free, but what's so terrible is that the leader of the single most powerful country in the world (and claimed to be the most civilized and ethic) has lied to everyone to get that war. Whatever Saddam has done, it doesn't really matter. Everyone knows he's corrupt, and now he's even caught - he doesn't matter. Bush is still at large!

Yes, a lot of justifications for the war can be made, and that the war was a good thing (tm), but what was a VERY bad thing (tm) is the public reasons why the war should be fought. And that these lies have had no repercutions on Bush at all! Nor on Blair.

Seen from that perspective Saddam is just a pebble in the sea. Bush can attack a variety of countries, lie to the world (including the american citizens: His superiors) about the reasons, and no one is going to give a damn about it, since those were bad countries...

What also matters is that this was a completely unprovoked attack on Iraq. They didn't do anything to USA to justify this war - They were actually as cooporative as ever. Do we want the most powerful government in the world attacking countries at random, because it doesn't like that contry's government? USA isn't the cop of the world.

Re:Fuck Off

[Anonymous Coward]

The Japanese always go with the Nazis.

No that it will get read

[gnuLNX]

I have done my share of posting today and allowed my self to stoop to some pretty damn low levels. I was just having a conversation with my girlfriend about how I was worried about the state of the world. Here we are on slashdot...arguable some of the more educated members of the world and I see posts about hating this nationality or hating the amercans and blah blah blah....people we gotta all wake up...shit man myself included. It is our generation that is going to be running the world in a few years I would hate to thing that we would take the world farther from peace than it is now. we don't have to agree on everythig, but can't we at least agree to not hate each other. Please!

However

[autechre]

His goal is to incite hatred of the United States. Blind, unwavering hatred of the sort that causes his followers to gladly give their lives so that the lives of US citizens will also be lost. Would it look good for his cause to say that the United States supported him in the past? That he took help from such a den of inequity and filth?

bin Laden has warped other parts of the religion he claims to follow into something unrecognizable. I can't trust that he's not lying (or even convincing himself of things that are untrue). I'd feel the same about anyone who would go to such extremes.

you can't abolish freedom in order to fight for it

[koi88]

I don't want to say everything is perfect in Germany. I'm sure it's not.
Every time the police or the state or any of its organizations try to abuse their power, the people must prevent them from doing so. Everybody, everywhere.

Don't believe anybody who tells you in order to fight freedom they have to restrict it.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that is about as likely that Goerge Bush will be tried there with his top men. The Americans had no business invading Iraq whatsoever. During the course of this war, they have had about a dozen explanations as to what the fuck they are doing there. I have never witnessed as stupid a leadership, with just as ignorant a public that worships it.

I can very well see Hitler and Nazis when I look at Bush and Americans. The goon and the goonies.
Saddam committed no war-crimes during this war, while the americans resorted to even new chemical weapons testing in Iraq. Not that any americans would know about it since they don't report such things on FOX.

Makes me think...

[ktulu1115]

Forgive me if it's been stated before, I *really* don't feel like reading all these posts but...

How come it seems that all the top stories in the Hall of Fame are something related to politics/war in the world? This is SLASHDOT. A way to GET AWAY from everything else in the world, at least it is for me. Anyone else find this ironic/funny?

South Park!

[BTWR]

Butters found HIS dad at a "baath house" in the episode "Butter's Very Own Episode."

Saddam is fully cooperating with investigators

[axxackall]

In Times, in the beginning of the artice they said:

"He's not been very cooperative," said the official, who read the transcript of the initial interrogation report taken during the first questioning session... He didn't answer any of the initial questions directly, the official said, and at times seemed less than fully coherent.

But later I read:

When asked "How are you?" said the official, Saddam responded, "I am sad because my people are in bondage." When offered a glass of water by his interrogators, Saddam replied, "If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?"

These seem to me to be normal and direct enough answers. But read further:

Saddam was also asked whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. "No, of course not," he replied, according to the official, "the U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us." The interrogator continued along this line, said the official, asking: "if you had no weapons of mass destruction then why not let the U.N. inspectors into your facilities?" Saddam's reply: "We didn't want them to go into the presidential areas and intrude on our privacy."

This answers are not just direct. IMHO they show him fully cooperating with investigators by saying the truth.

Well, the problem is that US investigators accept only answers they are prepared to hear. They don't want to hear any truth. As many in US goverment.

Re:Saddam is fully cooperating with investigators

[Anonymous Coward]

There is only one truth. The truth that Bush says.
You're either with us or against us! Now don't you want to fix that post of yours? I'm sure you don't wan't to get a surprise night visit from Ashcroft's boys for that anti-semitist anti-government post of yours.

Re:Saddam is fully cooperating with investigators

[LinuxGeek]

When offered a glass of water by his interrogators, Saddam replied, "If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?"

These seem to me to be normal and direct enough answers. But read further:

This seems normal to you? Are we to believe that he hasn't wee'd during the eight months since he fled? Yup, that is a simple and direct answer alright. If I were wanting to send a signal to someone, his method would be useful. Bring up a subject that wasn't mentioned and do it in a manner that will likely be spread by the media.

I am also glad he cleared up the whole kicking out the U.N. Weapon Inspector thing. He had no problem with them inspecting old weapon facilities, but any presidential areas with known bunkers underneath were out of question. Yeah, better to get yourself removed from power than let international inspectors do a simple search for weapons you previously claimed to have ( and used on your own people), but can't provide proof of destroying.

Re:Saddam will help find Oil

[chefmonkey]

Now that Saddam is captured, the US will be able to ask (interrogate) him as to where the oil is. If it exists, he will be the one who knows where it is. If it is then not found in short order, we will know beyond any reasonable doubt that the administration has misled us.

Thank you America!!!! God Bless you Bush!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I really want to thank you America!

I lost my legs in the carpet bombing of Baghdad,
but I still have my hands so I can type, and I really wanted to thank you.

It takes great courage to admit your mistake in putting Saddam to power, to kill 1.5 million Iraqis with sanctions, and now with your occupation creating 50 million shia-terrorists that hate you, all just to get rid of the Saddam.

So thank you for fixing your earlier mistake of putting the Saddam dictactor into power. Thank you! I am so lucky I did not die like the 20 000 other Iraqi civilians in the war.

Re:Thank you America!!!! God Bless you Bush!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your welcome you camel fucking bastard. Next time stand out in the open where we can get a clean shot at you, you fucking sandnigger and we'll make sure you join your fellow countrymen in hell.

Re:No invasion != pro Saddam

[tjstork]

At the end of the day, a guy that says he hates to see someone with a flat tire is not nearly as useful to me as someone that actually has a either a jack or a spare.

This whole issue of "it is more complicated than that" really smacks of moral escapism. It's "too complicated", people say, because they are afraid of admitting the consequences of their actions. People are afraid to choose.

Yes, does going after Saddam, did this war, mean the death of innocents? Yes, it did. From that the confused might say, well, that must mean you are in favor of killing innocent people. The evasive answer is, "no, I am not, but it happens, or there is nothing I can do", but, the honest answer must be yes, you are in favor of killing innocent people. If you were in favor of this war, then surely you knew that innocent people would die. If you were against this war, then, the sanctions would not have ended, and then, more innocent people would die.

I think at some point every issue has to be distilled to black and white and you have to call people to either take a stand with you or against you. I think it was GOOD that Bush did this and forced the world's powers to declare where they stood. At least now we know where the nations of the world stand. At least now we know who our real allies are, who is willing to take up the sword in the cause of freedom versus those who merely lament oppression as if the weather.

Go USA. Go UK.

Woo

[Ravensky]

Ya...I saw that. I first saw it when I was checking my Yahoo! mail...anyway, the story that Yahoo! has is here. I didnt read it. But I dont need to. All I need to know is that he's now captured by US forces

SpecForce Ninja Power!

[SalsaFrontier]

Wouldn't it have made more sense for the US to send in an elite squadron of spec-force ninja-cyborg's and have them waiting in Saddam's bathroom instead of going through that whole "war" thing? They should have just assassinated him a while ago. Would have saved a lot of money and a lot of lives and would have had the same impact.

Okay, but...

[Pig Hogger]

... will the 600 soldiers who captured him will get their $41,666.67 share of the $25M reward money????

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[tealover]

The ICC will never be recognized by America precisely because it would be politiczed by EUians. I see a lot of EUians are upset by Mugabe's land grab because he's taking land from white people who were given the land by imperial EUian countries, but the EUians certainly didn't care when a true despot like Hussein was killing tens of thousands.

The ICC is best left for EUians to play around with. Maybe they can use it against each other the next time Europe disintegrates.

Where's my Flash cartoon email??

[paylett]

C'mon it's been several hours since he's been arrested, and I still haven't received an email with a cool Flash cartoon in it yet!!

Who's slacking off here?

Re: YES, America Still Supporting Dictators

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to disappoint you, but Indonesia's Suharto and Uzbekistan dictators are our boys. And we don't call them dictators since they know to yap when we throw them a bone. Same thing with Blair, Aznar, Berlusconi and the Japanese leaders. Those guys know to jump when we say so, and really, that's all that matters. Leaders can be bought, and when you see them licking our emperor's butt, against the interests of their very own country and the majority of their very own people, you can be sure they're well trained puppies who know their masters.

Saddam at the Vet's

[hendrix69]

Man, whoever edited that video of Saddam being checked out by that medic sure knew what he was doing:

1. First of all Saddam looks like he's being examined by a vet! His shaggy hair and beard being checked for lice and bald spots...
2. The shaving of the beard is not something incidental. In Arabic culture a man's beard has a huge importance and to shave Saddam's beard and display his pictures before and after the shave is one of the biggest forms of humiliation possible in arabic culture.
3. The first shot of Saddam in that clip shows him pointing to something on the left side of his head. The point is it looks as if he's cowaring and covering his head in fear during the first couple of seconds. The psychological effects this has on the average Iraqi viewer are profound. It even gave me a slight tingling, to see the man who attacked my country with rockets during the first Gulf war displayed so patheticaly.
I say it again, whoever edited that video sequence knew what he was doing. Damn fine entertainment.

Re:Saddam at the Vet's

[kongjie]

Point about the beard well taken. However, did he usually wear a beard? Not that I know. So the importance of the beard in this case was that (a) he wasn't able to shave down in a hole, and (b) it probably worked somewhat as a disguise. How do you know, for example, he didn't ask to be shaved himself?

Re:Saddam at the Vet's

[hendrix69]

It's irrelevant. The effect of a shaved-by-the-US-Saddam is what came through the screen and that's all that matters. The emotional impact, believe me, is profound.

Re:Saddam at the Vet's

[Anonymous Coward]

2. The shaving of the beard is not something incidental.In Arabic culture a man's beard has a huge importance and to shave Saddam's beard and display his pictures before and after the shave is one of the biggest forms of humiliation possible in arabic culture

He's lucky we didn't shave his head. Also, the point is irrelevant. We restored his looks to what he looked like prior to the war. If we wanted to humiliate him, why leave the mustache? Personally, since 9/11, I have been waiting for bin laden to be captured and for him to suffer the humilitation of having his beard shaved off. (Because your point is true, it will humilate bin laden, but it just does not apply to Saddam.)

Re:Saddam at the Vet's

[Richard M. Nixon]

In Arabic culture a man's beard has a huge importance and to shave Saddam's beard and display his pictures before and after the shave is one of the biggest forms of humiliation possible in arabic culture.

Saddam isn't exactly known as an orthodox muslim. He's more of a millionaire playboy who writes romance novels. No more martinis for him I imagine.

the man who attacked my country with rockets during the first Gulf war

We gave him some pretty good weapons, but I never heard that he had any ICBMs. When and where exactly in the United States were we attacked?

I say it again, whoever edited that video sequence knew what he was doing. Damn fine entertainment.

I think it was the producers of Girls Gone Wild.

Re:Saddam at the Vet's

[SuiteSisterMary]

Hendrix69 already replied, but I'll clarify; No, Saddam is actually quite secular; Iraq was one of the only places, if not the only place, in the Middle East, with churches, synagogues, and so on. He wouldn't care about his beard; he didn't wear one, previously, anyway.

To the average Iraqi, however, who are Islamic, not to mention other Islamic people around the world, the fact that the US shaved him is a huge statement. Like being publically branded, or tarred and feathered, or put in the stocks and left for people to throw rotten fruit at him.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[sheldon]

I didn't know women and children drove tanks in the Iraqi army.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[tealover]

If the nations who back the ICC truly believe the Americans are guilty of war crimes, they should come and get them. If they have the resolve, that is.

lp

[saddamH]

Last post!!

We captured the guy who masterminded 9/11

[Chalupa]

In case you forgot or weren't paying attention, we captured Khalid Sheikh Muhammed...he was the guy who MASTERMINDED September 11, not Bin Laden.

Bin Laden PAID for 9/11, and granted it would be nice to get him, but I (and some members of the Special Forces that were there) think he died December 2001 in the Tora Bora mountains.

Let's rock with the ones that we DO capture.

...if countries were exercise equipment, France would be a trampoline.

Chalupa

He was the Ace of Spades in the deck, wasn't he?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. All your Aces are belong to US.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[jareds]

That is quite debatable. A good number of politicians feel differently.
In any case, it's a question best decided by the Supreme Court. So why not let them?

All branches of the federal government, not just the judicial, have a duty to abide by the Constitution. The fact that the judicial branch may strike down unconstitutional laws is not an excuse for creating them in the first place.

Re:Saddam ...

[FURY13RT]

I might ber a bit fuzzy, but article 68 permits in in cases of espionage/sabotage.
In any case, Im sure exceptions could be made considering its our only good bargaining chip.

Currently, it sounds like He will get tribunal in Iraq. Which dosent have a death penalty at present :/

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

This will never happen, because the court couldn't possibly NOT notice that the US supported Saddam while he did most of his crimes. Also, going into that direction would get quite a few US officials hung or shot, that's another reason why you'll NEVER get anything but a PR show when it comes to these matters.

He's not the only one being inaccurate.

[Anonymous Coward]

According the Washington Post: "The Post poll, conducted Aug. 7-11, found that 62 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of independents suspected a link between Hussein and 9/11. In addition, eight in 10 Americans said it was likely that Hussein had provided assistance to al Qaeda, and a similar proportion suspected he had developed weapons of mass destruction."

Americans aren't as stupid as the people bring up that alleged 70% statistic presume. Suspecting a link between Saddam and 9/11 and thinking that he provided al Qaeda support isn't the same thing as thinking that Saddam was behind 9/11. In any case, there is some evidence that Saddam and Bin Laden had some ties. To my mind, the polls that show 30% of Germans believing the US responsible for 9/11 and the fact that France made a bestseller of a book denying the Pentagon attack makes the average American look like geniuses. I'm not even going to get into what the majority of the wacky people of the Middle East believe in (hint--it involves Jews and the US).

Right...

[waldoj]

From the link you provided:

This comes under the heading of the truly picky.

Yes, I know, I used that link for a reason. Also from that link:

However, when the meaning is further extended to include large-scale destruction other than killing, as in The supply of fresh produce was decimated by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, only 26 percent of the Panel accepts the usage.

I'm picky, while your grasp of the English language ranks with the bottom 26% of the population.

I win.

-Waldo Jaquith

Re:Right...

[RedWizzard]

Also from that link:

That was from the dictionary.com quote in my post.

I'm picky, while your grasp of the English language ranks with the bottom 26% of the population.

You incorrectly attributed the quote. I guess your ready comprehension is not up to standard. You also assume that the usage panel represents the range of English comprehension. It does not. The fact that any of them accepted it is a good indication that the usage is becomming commonly accepted. In support consider that the American Heritage Dictionary allows that usage, with the note, and Webster's allows it unconditionally.

I guess you think you're pretty funny, all I can say is "don't give up your day job".

I win.

Then again you are quite unintentionally funny.

Bush == WMD to the truth

[js7a]

Bush would probably say that he _is_ a WMD

I'd say Bush is a WMD, too.

ABC Radio idiots...

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, they don't have to constantly identify who's talking during a news conference -- was able to catch both blair and bush on the radio today and both times there was the ABC Radio talent telling me over and over again what I could hear from the person speaking....

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[SignificantBit]

I'm chilean, and you post is full of facist crap.

Re:Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germ

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody deserves a fair trial. That's what democratic states promise to their ... enemies.

Unless you're being held in Guantanamo.

Times change. Dictators change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Things are more complex than you think. Heck, we supported the Taliban (through Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) but it was a different time and different circumstances. When the Taliban were fighting the Soviet takeover of their country they hadn't yet become the repressive bastards that we know now. The Soviets killed about 1.3 million and 5 million Afghanis were displaced. Who was less evil? I vote for the folks that would later become the Taliban after the Soviets left.

The US actually stopped financial and military support of Saddam in 1988 after he gassed the Kurds. Unfortunately we still provided diplomatic and intelligence supports but he wasn't our boy as before. Russia, France and China continued (guess which countries are owed the majority of Iraq's $150 billion debt?) their support. The US actually only provided Saddam with about 1% of his weapons according to the Stockholm Peace Institute. http://projects.sipri.se/armstrade/Trnd_Ind_IRQ_Im ps_73-02.pdf

The one party that won't have a bad result will actually be the Iraqis. During Saddam's rule, he killed about 1 million of his own people, got them into 2 wars that killed a million more and drove 5 million Iraqis out of their country. His two sons were reportedly even more vicious. If the Islamic fundamentalist somehow win, they're going to have a hell of a time trying to be worse.

I'm not sure how evil a dictatorship Pakistan actually is. It's not exactly like most Muslim countries are clamoring for democracy. Their dictators, press and religious infrastructure have turned their blame and hatred our way very effectively. There was actually a lot of support for Musharef's coup at the time among the general populace.

It's a crazy, complex world.

Hey girly man

[Anonymous Coward]

"Because everytime I cried"

Pussy.

Amazing observation.

[khasim]

I like that idea. Thanks.

TIME Magazine Exclusive

[$exyNerdie]

Time magazine has an exclusive article on initial interrogation of Saddam

I am copying and pasting a portion of it below:

Saddam Hussein was captured on Sunday without a fight. But since then, according to a U.S. intelligence official in Iraq, the fallen dictator has been defiant. "He's not been very cooperative," said the official, who read the transcript of the initial interrogation report taken during the first questioning session.

After his capture, Saddam was taken to a holding cell at the Baghdad Airport. He didn't answer any of the initial questions directly, the official said, and at times seemed less than fully coherent. The transcript was full of "Saddam rhetoric type stuff," said the official who paraphrased Saddam's answers to some of the questions. When asked "How are you?" said the official, Saddam responded, "I am sad because my people are in bondage." When offered a glass of water by his interrogators, Saddam replied, "If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?"

The interrogators also asked Saddam if he knew about the location of Captain Scott Speicher, a U.S. pilot who went missing during the first Gulf War. "No," replied the former Iraqi president, "we have never kept any prisoners. I have never known what happened."

Saddam was also asked whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. "No, of course not," he replied, according to the official, "the U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us." The interrogator continued along this line, said the official, asking: "if you had no weapons of mass destruction then why not let the U.N. inspectors into your facilities?" Saddam's reply: "We didn't want them to go into the presidential areas and intrude on our privacy."

The official is doubtful that the U.S. will get a significant amount of intelligence from Saddam's interrogations. "I would be surprised if he gave any info," he said. Other high-ranking regime members, he said, have by and large remained mum. "Tariq Aziz [former deputy prime minister] hasn't really spoken," he said, "and Abid Mahmoud [Saddam's former personal secretary] hasn't really given any information."
..... ..... .....
Along with the $750,000 in cash, two AK 47 machine guns and pistol found with Saddam, the U.S. intelligence official confirmed that operatives found a briefcase with Saddam that contained a letter from a Baghdad resistance leader. Contained in the message, the official said, were the minutes from a meeting of a number of resistance leaders who came together in the capital. The official said the names found on this piece of paper will be valuable and could lead to the capture of insurgency leaders around the Sunni Triangle.
..... .....

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[mooredav]

the "United Nations" (ironic designation if there ever was one)

"I'm a uniter, not a divider."

We can go way further back then that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone remember Sirhan Sirhan? He was a Palestinian immigrant who shot Robert Kennedy because of Kennedy's pro-Israel policies. That's gotta be terrorism.

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

US arrests Iraq's union leaders...

portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/12/276312.shtml

God Bless America

Re:who cares? yeah, doom...

[jasoneyre]

You seem to forget that the "reason" Iraq was invaded was to find "Weapons of Mass-Destruction." In the absence of finding those, is he not presumed to be innocent until proven guilty? Or is this a long-abandoned concept in America? The same would go for Osama, if he were suddenly resurrected (as I believe he is said to have been murdered). Until such time as he is tried, he is to be presumed innocent, even if the outcome of the court-case seems fairly clear. I'll probably be told to look-up the word reality; Patriotic americans have given me quite a disdain for the general idea of American people, mindlessly following the mass-media to the point of forgetting their OWN Civil Liberties. The efforts of IBM and the (American-based portion of the) OSS-movement are restoring that. As they have abolished coins under ZAR0.05 here in South Africa, I cannot give my two cents. Unless I convert from another currency. :p Oh, yes: I Anal.

Mohammed Atta trained in Baghdad: Report

[Zopilote]

[Source: http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/dec/14atta.htm]

Mohd Atta trained in Baghdad: Report

December 14, 2003 15:10 IST

The mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Mohammed Atta, was trained in Baghdad by Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal at the instance of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, a media report said on Sunday.

Atta visited Baghdad just weeks before 9/11, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

The details of the visit are in a secret memo written to Hussein by the former head of the Iraqi intelligence service Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, it said.

The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained by the daily, is dated July 1, 2001, and provides a short resume of a three-day programme Atta had undertaken at Nidal's base in Baghdad.

In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta "displayed extraordinary effort" and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy".

The second part of the memo, which is headed 'Niger Shipment', contains a report about an unspecified shipment -- believed to be uranium -- that was transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria.

Although Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-member Presidential Committee, said the document was genuine.

"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with Al Qaeda," Allawi told the paper. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with the Al Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

Although Atta is believed to have been in Florida in the summer of 2001, he is known to have used more than a dozen aliases, and intelligence experts believe he could easily have slipped out of the US to visit Iraq.

Nidal, who tried to kill the Israeli ambassador to London in 1982, was based in Baghdad for more than two decades, the report said.

Re:Mohammed Atta trained in Baghdad: Report

[gerardrj]

Hmmm. the one "official" piece of evidence (the rest is hear say, anonymous and/or mysterious in origin) talks about the MEK. The MEK seems from the information to be a group of Iranians that are fighing the Iranian government. These aren't terrorists, they are freedom fighters. Saddam has commited the error of getting involved in a civil dispute.
I don't see any evidence in that report that MEK was targeting American property or citizens, hence I don't see how Bush can use Saddams funding of MEK as a matter or national security.

I think that at least one of the reports you mention (the one about the Niger shipment) was later shown to be a fabrication, either by Saddam/Bathists to give the illusion of strength, or by someone else to discredit Saddam and his leadership. In either case I've heard that the Niger shipment of uranium never happened (this from Pentagon/State Department briefings). To me that also places serious doubt on the other claims of memos from dubious sources.

Again, I must base my opinions on publicly released and verified documents. I think that basing decisions to go to battle and invade a soverign nation against world opinion upon documentation of dubious credibility is scandelous at best and criminal at worst.

Saddam directly backed the 9/11 team

[Zopilote]

[Source: http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/dec/14atta.htm]

Mohd Atta trained in Baghdad: Report

December 14, 2003 15:10 IST

The mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Mohammed Atta, was trained in Baghdad by Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal at the instance of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, a media report said on Sunday.

Atta visited Baghdad just weeks before 9/11, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

The details of the visit are in a secret memo written to Hussein by the former head of the Iraqi intelligence service Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, it said.

The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained by the daily, is dated July 1, 2001, and provides a short resume of a three-day programme Atta had undertaken at Nidal's base in Baghdad.

In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta "displayed extraordinary effort" and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy".

The second part of the memo, which is headed 'Niger Shipment', contains a report about an unspecified shipment -- believed to be uranium -- that was transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria.

Although Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-member Presidential Committee, said the document was genuine.

"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with Al Qaeda," Allawi told the paper. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with the Al Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

Although Atta is believed to have been in Florida in the summer of 2001, he is known to have used more than a dozen aliases, and intelligence experts believe he could easily have slipped out of the US to visit Iraq.

Nidal, who tried to kill the Israeli ambassador to London in 1982, was based in Baghdad for more than two decades, the report said.

Re:Saddam directly backed the 9/11 team

[Anonymous Coward]

a copy of which has been obtained by the daily,

The Sunday Telegraph isn't a daily. Otherwise it would be its sister paper, the Daily Telegraph.

70% of Americans are right in suspecting Saddam

[Zopilote]

Check out http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/dec/14atta.htm, which basically says Saddam directly backed Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 team...

What do you think intelligence is?

[johnjay]

A lot of the intelligence the forces have been getting is from guys coming in off the street saying that they know where a certain Baathist is hiding. This isn't the most valuable kind of intelligence, (after all, the civilian could just be trying to settle a score with his innocent neighbor) but it has some value, and it's helpful in setting a context for more valuable tips that aren't obviously connected. The generals said today that they expected a lot more intelligence to come in after this capture. This isn't because they expected Saddam to start telling all his secrets (they said that they expected to learn nothing from him), but they expect more civilians to help them now that they have less to fear from the possibility of retribution.

Every time an Iraqi tips of the coallition forces about a Baathist, that Iraqi is risking his life. The more Baathists caught, the less risk, and the more people willing to contribute, and the whole process snowballs. The more high-profile the capture, the better response from the man-on-the-street. So, an "Iraqi guy tipping them off" is an indication of the improving intelligence capabilities.

On a related note. The Iraqis marching against terrorism last week were risking their lives. Naturally, considering the terrorism that is going on right now, the marches weren't all that big. But, if they live the month and hold another march, more people will join them. Same idea.

Also, it makes me realize how fortunate I am that I don't live there and that I don't have to do that type of risk-analysis every day.

Fact: Emerging evidence for Saddam-9/11 link

[Zopilote]

There have been numerous intelligence reports suggesting a link between Saddam and 9/11. They have not been strong enough for the President to rely upon (and wisely so).

However, here is the latest, which really does seem to incriminate Saddam with direct involvement in the training of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 team:

http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/dec/14atta.htm

FYI

[ungleichschaltung]

The U.S. tilt towards Iraq began under the Carter administration, after the fall of the Shah.

I'm guessing that France and Germany have at least as much to worry about what Saddam might say about their support as the U.S. does.

Iraqi Blog

[Mc_Anthony]

Iraqis are free to Blog now! Thank you W!

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

Nuclear weapons are not a safe bet

[johnjay]

Since the Bush administration has changed the US policy to pre-emtive strikes against threats to the US, building a nuclear arsenal is no longer a guarantee against war with the US. Take a random, similar bunch of countries hostile to the US: North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Lybia. If you list those five in order of who's at risk of attack by the US, North Korea and Iran are going to be the top two on your list. What distinguishes them from the other three? They are attempting to get nuclear capability.

Nuclear capability is almost uncontrollable now. Almost, but not quite. The US has every reason to deal swiftly and decisively with hostile nuclear nations. Because if Iran or North Korea get nukes, the US is much, much more vulnerable.

Because of the danger of anonymous, nuclear strikes by terrorists, a country hostile to the US can't simply have nukes as a defensive measure. The US will see that country as an immediate threat. If you're a small tyranny, you don't want the US considering you a threat these days.

Re:Nuclear weapons are not a safe bet

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, it would help to learn to spell Libya.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[CanadaDave]

I think the United States should try him in true American style, in a one-hour FOX TV special! Reality TV is all the rage these days, but it has suffered a bit of late. This could be just the boost the reality TV market needs. Since the O.J. trial, Americans, as well as people from all over the world have been begging for real-life courtroom drama. People are tired of the Practice, Law & Order, and other trials like Scott Pederson and the Menendez brothers just didn't satisfy the insatiable needs of Americans. FOX TV is in trouble these days with ratings, and I'm sure if a Saddam trial was shown on TV it would be a guarranteed ratings bonanza! Who could judge the outcome of the trial? Who else, but the American people themselves? Set up a 1-900 number and rake in the dough. I think that to make it interesting, while Saddam is being asked questions (by Regis Philbin) he should be allowed 3 lifelines, one to phone a friend (Osama), a 50-50, and one "ask the audience". Once he is proven to be guilty he will be subjected to many challenging feats in a final bid to save his life. Should he fail, he will be sent to an island in the Pacific to spend 4 weeks with 15 other Americans where 24 cameras will watch his every move! Will Saddam set up a dictatorship on the island? How will he fare in the athletic challenges? TV does not get more exciting than this.

Guess the Dictator or Sitcom Character

Saddam was one of the attackers of 9/11...

[Zopilote]

Saddam apparently directly trained and backed the leader of the 9/11 team:

Mohd Atta trained in Baghdad: Report

Bush will get second term

[taweili]

Old Bush lost the second term because he won the war too fast. Young one won't make the same mistake again. After Desert Storm, Bush's approval rating was like 90% but it was too far away from the election. A big lession learned in the family!

The timing for the capture is just too perfect to not having a conspericy theory. Capture him now and bring some troops home for the Xmas. This will be the topic of Xmas dinner table conversation. Put Saddam on trial after new year and have a vedict along of the "discovery" of some WMDs will surely give him the second term.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Well, why don't you follow the link that I already provided elsewhere?

Presumably, you don't think that a CNN article that quotes the National Security Archive and the its executive director, a White House spokesman and a CIA official as well, and which also provides plenty of additional material and links, is "Marxist" or a "tired old myth"?

Now, go read it, go check Senate and NSA records yourself (they are public documents, after all), and then come back and tell me that's the coup wasn't CIA-led. I like to see you do that, because it would make liars of the NSA, the US Senate, the White House and the CIA itself.

QED.

The US has always been hated.

[Anonymous Coward]

US is not respected. US 15 years ago might be. But thanks to a certain ... External politic and some pinch of bullying now the US is not respected. It is FEARED for its strength. See the two example above.

The US 15 years ago was hated too. Did everyone forget the anti-American demonstrations in Europe over our efforts to defend them against the Soviets? Most Middle Eastern countries sided with the Nazis and have hated the US since. We may have been envied this whole time but as the reaction after 9/11 showed, the depth of goodwill towards the US is very shallow.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Your comparison is laughable. World War II was started when Britain and France followed through on their treaty promise to Poland that they would intervene on its behalf if its sovereignty was directly threatened by Germany. Later on, after Hitler attacked it, the Soviet Union got involved and, later still, after Germany declared war on it as well, the US reluctantly joined the war in Europe too.

That's historical fact, and more than enough reason for Britain, France, the USSR, the US and their allies to be at war with Germany. And you're comparing that and the Nazi menace that engulfed Europe and North Africa killing over 20 million in the process to a peaceful nation that posed no threat whatsoever to the US or anyone else? That's beautiful.

What next? A comparison of Mother Theresa to Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot?

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[cyril3]

He is referring to the asertion that mixed in among the retreating Iraqi forces there were women and children and probably non-combatant males also fleeing the advancing US forces.

It may be true. It certainly is conceivable that this was the case. Many iraqi and palestinian civilians would have had good reason to get out of Kuwait even if they hadn't been directly involved in the occupation.

Declaration of War

[TPFH]

"The War is illegal because it was never declared."

The war is as legal as the war in 1991, because it is the same war. It was a new battle, but the same war.

The war was not declared in 1991 either.
And I think we should have declared war in 1991.
As the one armed man on the Simpson's says, "That way anything you do is nice and legal."

I also think that it was criminal for the US to liberate Kuwait, bomb Iraq back to the stone age, and not liberate Iraq from Saddam at the same time. But as Thomas Friedman said, our politicians wanted a dictator in Iraq who would rule with an Iron Fist. Even though he was officially our enemy, he fit the bill of Dictator with an Iron Fist. That's why he was left in power. The best of all worlds for US Politicians, the worst of all worlds for Iraqi civilians.

Note that the lack of a declaration of war is also a complaint in the Libertarian Party Statment about Operation Iraqi Liberation.

Anyone ever wonder why our government never bothers to formally declare war anymore?

No one cares about WMDs anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid liberal whiner. Go have some cheese.

Is that really Sadam? Looks more like Moses.

[Wargames]

Saw the pictures on Yahoo. He doesn't look like Sadam to me. Anyone else notice this guy closely resembles Moses as played by Heston in the 10 Commandments movie?
Time will tell.

Re:Is that really Sadam? Looks more like Moses.

[Wargames]

I've considered this further, with the risk of losing even more of my currently good karma....

He looks a lot like Santa Clause too.

Hey Mama! Why are they checking Santa's tonsils out? Is he not feeling well?

but wait a minute!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the heck are the biological waepons they were looking for?
As if it was for Saddam then there are plenty of bad guys in different governments, but the US army werent looking for them...

WTF IS THIS ALL ABOUT, BUSH ?!?

Proof of the problems in the US

[myrashka]

[Late to the game, but my 2 cents]

Saddam being caught is a good thing - if only because now that we've committed to the war in Iraq, it's one more objective fulfilled [and I assume our Military knows what its doing when it comes to setting objectives to complete the job its charged with]. Whether you agree with the war or not is immaterial at this point - any intelligent person can see we are unable to undo what has been done - right or wrong, the right direction forward is full commitment...leave the past for the historians.

However, the sheer # of posts here on slashdot (and the many other forums across the internet) show what a sad and divided state the US and the world are in right now...and that frankly is what scares me. If one of the goals of tyranny and terrorism is to disrupt normal society, then it seems they are succeeding. Peace, Love and Good require the unity and cohesion of the people of the world...

Before you flame me, I'm not saying we can't disagree - at least from my perspective (as an American), unity, freedom and liberty cannot exist without open, passionate and honest debate. The problem is that many of us have stepped way over the line (for whatever reason) and the debate is now devisive and malicious - whatever valid message or point either side has is lost in the sheer blind fury and emotion.

So, during the time of the year when the message of peace and love are strong for those of many faiths, let's try to find a way back to the unity that will help us create a world free of tyranny and terror....a goal I think we all would like to see...

The flaw in your logic ...

[Shadowlore]

Is that you are assuming an Iraqi Tribunal will follow American Law and codes. It will not, "rest assured".

If SH were to be tried by an American court system perhaps. But he will not be. And if you think that the Iraqis will be following our books, maybe you should consider applying for the job of Information Minister in the New Sadam Hussein Iraq, which will be carved out of equal portions of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Afghanistan. ;^D

Re:The flaw in your logic ...

[JFMulder]

Is that you are assuming an Iraqi Tribunal will follow American Law and codes.
So what if they don't follow American law and code? These people have a different set of beliefs and law, who cares what they do with him. The only thing that is sure is that they will either kill him or put him in jail for the rest of his life. They'll definitely want to put him in a trial, so every one is happy.

money

[krappie]

Hey, Im not trying to argue, but I really want an answer to this question. I wonder, why would we want oil? The obvious answer is money, right? Thats what its all about. Well, the last I heard, the war on Iraq was pretty damn expensive. Then Bush requested another 87 billion for the war. Then I started to hear talks of the US considering using Iraq's oil to "offset some of the costs of reconstruction" but they were hit with some major criticism of course. So my question is.. if oil is just going to maybe offset SOME of the cost of just the reconstruction.. why the hell would oil be our reason for going? If theres something Im missing, please reply, I've always wondered...

Re:money

[liloldme]

There's a lot if untapped oil in Iraq. Regardless of offsetting it and all that bullshit, it is going to be an oil company that goes there, prospects, drills and taps that resource. No one else. They're not going to give it away for free. They're going to get paid. Oil is a big business. They're going to get paid big money.

Now look at the Washington regime. Do they have connections to oil industry? Who put them into position of power? Follow the money.

Bush is just a puppet. The country is run by the almighty buck. Yes the war is expensive. You, as a tax payer, are not going to get that money back. But someone else will. They made an investment and now they expect a return for that investment. Opening the gates to Iraq oil wells is that ROI.

I suggest you browse through Executive Order 13303. Bush has now exempted oil companies operating in IRAQ from liability for health and safety violations, child labour, minimum wage and other employment rights such as equal opportunity, consumer fraud, clean environment duties, etc. This under the pretext of "national security".

Oil companies rejoice. The investment paid off.

Re:money

[LennyDotCom]

Well you could also let the middle east be run buy corrupt evil dictators that toture and kill men women and childeren use neve gas on whole villages and we would be paying $5 a gallon for gas at the pumps. or we kick the scum bags out and let the oil companies make some $$$$ and we pay a reasonable price at the pumps and put an end to mass graves. Wich do you prefer?

Re: Jeesus

[Anonymous Coward]

>> he started his ministry at the age of 30, and continued it for 3 years, and ended in the Passion, Death, Resurection, and assention.

Really! What exactly did he assent to?

Re: loose use of lose

[Anonymous Coward]

Noose, caboose, loose, goose.
Snooze, choose, booze, lose.
Nose, hose, pose, rose.

English is stupid. Just ask Gallagher...

why do you ____ America?

[Anonymous Coward]

why do you love America?

Because this tough love is good for her.

Judging from the photos...

[douglasq]

From the photos displayed after his arrest, I'd say that there's a 70% chance Saddam Hussein and the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, are the same person.

Re:Good. Period.

[dvdeug]

The fact that you fail to see how the fall of a major arabic tyranny that has threatened middle eastern peace for centuries

Iraq's government hasn't been around for centuries. It was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, then the British Empire until the 1940s.

caused the death of millions helps to make the world [...] a safer place is disturbing.

But will it make the world a safer place? Historically speaking, we've frequently placed our interests over that of those of Iraq and other nations. Including giving him weapons to carry out his war against Iran, which achieved nothing but to distract Iraq and Iran and kill millions of Iraqis and Iranians. Will the US put a stable, peaceful government into power in Iraq, or will it be a constant fight between Iraqi interests and US interests until another Ayatollah appears and kicks out the US?

In other news...

[Phekko]

Vaporware 2003 list released. We have a new winner, too. Topping the score of Duke Nukem Forever, we now have something called Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[k98sven]

Not really. A treaty can't take precedence over the constitution.

That was not the issue. The issue is whenether the treaty does supplant the constitution or is complementary to it.
I find it difficult to believe that a treaty ratified without constitutional problems in every other western democracy, is somehow incompatible with the US constition.
I find it even harder to believe that this is such a certainty that it shouldn't even be tried by the Supreme Court.

I don't have much faith in the members of an international tribunal, picked not by people by by governments, which do not share my ideals.

Said governments have all ratified the UN declaration of human rights. Whenether they truly share your ideals or not, they have voluntarily signed a treaty to that extent.
Unless you mean that states aren't bound to the treaties they sign (in which case there can be no law whatsoever), it's not much of an argument.

Besides that, out of the 18 Judges in the ICC, not a single one of them originates from a non-democratic country.

Tyranny a one man show?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you think tyrrany is a one man show? I think you better dig a bit deeper and uncover who has helped Saddam achieve his power...

Re:a lesson for VanillaCoke420 and others

[Shadowlore]

I beleive part of this is due to what you are wishing for.

You see, one thing about a republic is that each president is allowed to set their own foreign policy ideals.

Unlike countries where one ruler or family of rulers holds power for decades, each presidency has historically had it's own ideas on foreign policies.

While this has lead to an appearance of inconsistency when attempting to pigeon hole the US foreign policy arena, it provides great flexibility in providing for the capacity to change previous directions and correct what may be neede changes under a different world environment, politically speaking.

Whether the Domino Theory was correct or not, when the Cold War policies are examined under that way of thinking, the logic is clear.

If the primary goal is to prevent the domino-like fall of states to the communist government system, what the specific state does is only secondary. if the state has any strategic importance, the non-communist state's details are of even lesser importance.

To a certain extent, the domino theory was correct as applied to communism. Socialism and communism need an every growing *base* of resources as it destroys it's existing bases of resources attempting to maintain itself. It's woefully inefficient command economy based structure drives a mandate to conquer and obtain new resources. Preventing these resources from falling under communist control is an effective deterrent to communism's advance.

Realizing this it is not difficult to see why certain choices were made back then. While a communist world would eventually collapse, how many millions upon millions of people would have died in the process, and how many billions would have suffered?

I'm not justifying, condoning, nor apposing this mentality and strategy, merely pointing it out.

When the priority is no longer preventing the spread of Communism, the strategic and tactical consideration *must* change.

Many people, Americans and other, call foul on the issue w/Iraq using the slogan "but you supported him/it 20 years ago!". This is said as if to say we should support him/it now, or at the very least not oppose it.

In truth, the current administration was not in power 5, 10, 15, 20, or even 30 years ago, and thus not in a position to support or oppose military or CIA dealings (covert or otherwise) with the Afghanis, Iraqis, Iranians, etc., etc., etc..

That you should choose the piss on the parade in your past sentence that you proposed with the prior sentence is telling.

You accuse the Americans of having one blinded mentality, while brandishing your own. You believe that only you have the truth and that only your way is the best way; precisely what you accuse the US government and the American people of.

Even worse, you lay the "fault" of decision by people 10, 20, even 30 or 40 years ago at the feet of the current powers that be. This shows an endemic issue, as opposed to real analysis.

If we followed suit, we would have to "attack" the whole of Europe for it's prior issues. We would have to continually point out the demonstrated and undeniable imperialistic tendencies born of Europe, from Germany to Spain, and France as well. Or the support of international terrorists given by many of those same countries. Or the lack of resolve by the Eurpoean continent to resist or stop Hitler before he had managed to grow his empire to the point they could not resist.

We'd also have to say to you, why didn't your country go take care of Idi Amin? The United States cut off aid to Uganda in 1972 in protest at Amin's policies, which former US President Jimmy Carter said "disgusted the entire civilised world". The Brits followed the next year. The French was in deals with Amin for "parts for planes", the Soviets were there training his troops and providing equipment.

The Israelis, who initially supported his coup, were perhaps the mos tinstrumental in his defeat by conducting the raid they did to free their ho

Rule of the mob.

[jotaeleemeese]

Just what a country emerging from a dictatorship needs.

Re:Rule of the mob.

[Augusto]

Who said Kurds are a mob? They have actually done great things in the North of Iraq.

They can judge him.

Now again, please, remind me.

[jotaeleemeese]

In which country did the 9/11 terrorists practiced their piloting skillz?

That country should also be linked to the 9/11 attacks.

Oh please....

[jotaeleemeese]

Bush and co. are dreadful but they do not come even close to the brutality of Mr Hussein. Although they should respond for the dozens of innocent civilians that have died during their unilateralist adventures, that pales in comparision to what Hussein did, and they can at least claim some degree of legitimacy since most US people live in the blissful idea that their actions are making the word a safer place to be.

The very few pluses of Mr Hussein rule are heavily outweighted by the brutality that he enforced all around the region (lets remember that not only Iraq suffered under his rule, but also Iran, Iraq and Israel tasted at one point or another Mr Hussien's brutality), I concur in which it would be of paramount imprtance tha the role of many countries in abbeting this monster to rise should be fully explored, a fari trial would facilitate this. Most probably there is no country with a clean sheet regarding Iraq. All including the US, UK, France, Israel, Turkey, Iran and many others have a lot to answer for in regards to the misery of the Iraqi people.

Yeah....

[jotaeleemeese]

... then you would have known tha the Spanish spelling is Irak as well....

Re:Yeah....

[Datafage]

Actually I have the problem that a lot of the languages I've studied tend to blend together so I didn't know that off the top of my head. Also, I'm not fluent in all of those, mostly because I don't have an opportunity to use them for real. I'm also not the guy you were responding to, I just wanted to make sure you realize that some of us Americans do recognize culture and language outside of our country.

Yes, enough is what I say.

[jotaeleemeese]

Who the hell do you think you are?

Stop all this nonsense about justice because it just makes me feel like vomiting.

Who gave the US, UK, Russia, or other countries the right to intervene at will in the affirs of other countries?

People in the US and UK talk as if their countries have a god given right to put wrongs right and decide what is best for others, like if there was never a Vietnam, the Philipinnes never existed and the dead preseidents, democratically elected, of many Latin American countries did not lay dead thanks to the good offices of the respective US embassies coluding with their facourite dictators of the day.

So many people are incensed about the whole Irak fiasco not because they are supporters of Hussein, as many disingineous people claim as soon as anybody oposses this silly war, not because they don't want to see a better Iraq and Middle East, but because they are defending a principle: the principle that other countries have no business messing with the internal affairs of others.

For people in the US and the UK this is not understandable at all because they have not endured foreign occupation or partition of their countries, or have not lost a head of state or goverment at the hands of foreign powers.

Nevertheless there are many countries out there that have suffered this, and although to get rid of Hussein is a good thing by itself, when put in the context of international politicis for the future, it is an omminous sign. The US and, and its lackeys the mighty UK, Poland and Spain (that not surprisingly are doing all what they can to derail the European Union) have decided that might is right.

Lets say for the sake of argument that the US and co. had got this right. How are they going to be stopped when they get it wrong if there are no counterbalances at all?

If you are a country that may feel could be in the US's sight in the future, what would you do? Pile bombs I say, look at North Korea's example.

The US has introduced the law of the jungle in international politics, Hussein could have been brought down with the help of the countries that had misgivings and the full support of the UN, the problem is that for some reason the US and the UK where in a hurry to start this conflict. This hurrienes remains to be explained since there was no direct threat to the US or the UK (if there would have been any they would have been hit already).

Enough is what I say. Enough of a few countries feeling they own the world and can they do as they please. If people in those countries are prepared to support this then they are only abbeting an spiral of violence that will have no end.

Then rush and tell Bush.

[jotaeleemeese]

That publicly has said otherwise.

Failing congratulate your "intelligence" services for yet another job well done.

Keep your democracy to yourself.

[jotaeleemeese]

My country lived under 70 years of dictatorship thanks to a US sponsored coup that ended with the assasination of our democratically elected President.

I am not well off, I was threathened by state police, my school had bullet holes, one relative of mine was harrased, all because we wanted free, fair elections.

The US has no lessons to teach others about democracy because we have fought in our own places to attain it. To assume tha the US is the only possible source of all wisdom and democratic values is untrue, patronizing and insulting.

The only present people fighting for democracy need is logistic support, not a full open invasion.

Full invasion by a foreign power makes all but impossible to re-stablish a credible democracy, in the other hand change brought about by the people themselves is more likely to bring a lasting more stable democracy.

The US is not the arbeiter of the UN.

[jotaeleemeese]

If the US had any regard for international law they would have waited until an invasion was legal.

Back in the first Gulf war the US had the full support of all countries (since only the US had the logistical capability to make Iraq retreat) including France, Germany and all the Arab world.

If the US and UK have pursued the UN diplomatic route ther is no doubt they would have achieved the same end.

If the US will ignore the UN and stablish itself as its sole arbeiter then there is littele point about arguing legality since in a global dictatorship only what the dictator says counts.

Re:The US is not the arbeiter of the UN.

[knautilus316]

How do you figure the invasion was illegal? Iraq was declared in violation of the terms of the cease fire less than a year after it was signed. At that point, there was no cease fire, and further invasion was authorized. Read the documents, and come back.

~Knautilus

Re:The US is not the arbeiter of the UN.

[Scudsucker]

How do you figure the invasion was illegal? Iraq was declared in violation of the terms of the cease fire less than a year after it was signed. At that point, there was no cease fire, and further invasion was authorized. Read the documents, and come back.

Oh, so we're going to punish Iraq for violating U.N. sanctions, but ignore the U.N. to do it? That makes a whole lot of sense.

Re:The US is not the arbeiter of the UN.

[knautilus316]

Please read what I said. The UN authorized the use of force when they voided the initial cease fire. Iraq was declared in violation of the same cease fire habitually through through Resolution 1441. This was not a single slap on the hand for violating weapon bans - Iraq was directly declared in violation of the cease fire four times by the UN Security Council.

Like I said - read the documents. This WAS authorized by the UN.

~Knautilus

Show me the money.

[jotaeleemeese]

I mean, the WMDs. And prove that they could have harmed the US (including Hwaii to make it easeir for you).

Then I will praise Mr Bush, I will even be willing to ignore he has made friends with the dictator in Pakistan and that the pals of his dad's chump, Mr. Cheiney (aka as the VP) at Hally Burton are charged inflated prices for the contracts in Iraq, oh, awarded without any public scrutiny.

It seems you have other reason to be sick you are blissfully ignoring.

What we know....

[jotaeleemeese]

... is how some people are competely uncapable to look at isolated things withing a broader context.

Well done guys...

[Phil John]

...with all your commenting you've now put a ruthless dictator into the Slashdot hall of fame.

Re:Well done guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you aren't helping it by commenting on it....

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[jrumney]

Allende never turned himself into a left-wing Socialist dictatorship. He was a left-wing Socialist from the start, and was democratically elected twice, the second time with increased majority, which is more than I could say for some countries' presidents.

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[sckeener]

Article

Pending the freezing of hell . . .

Cory Farley
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
11/21/2003 03:10 pm

Ah, man, I ought to resist this. It's going to cause more trouble than it's worth . . . .

No, there's a way. Let's try this:

What follows is a blatant anti-Republican screed, unless it's a diatribe. Diatribe, I guess. The dictionary says a screed has to be both long and tiresome; a diatribe only has to be abusive.

I realize it's one-sided and that many patriotic Americans will be offended by it. Since I already realize that, it isn't necessary for any patriotic Americans to tell me about it.

I'm going to use it anyway, because it's pretty funny. I got it under the heading, "Things you have to believe to be a Republican today."

o Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

o The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

o Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.

o "Standing Tall for America" means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

o A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

o Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

o The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

o Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.

o If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

o A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

o HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart.

o Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

o Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

o Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

o A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

o Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

o The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

o You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have a right to adopt.

o What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

o Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

I would, of course, print a comparable list of things you have to believe to be a Democrat, if I had one, and if it were funny, and if . . . .

No. You send one, and I'll print it even if hell doesn't freeze over.

Cory Farley can be reached at (775) 788-6340 or cfarley@rgj.com.

Copyright (C) 2002 The Reno Gazette-Journal

But those are US taxdollars.

[khasim]

Well, for the most part they are. Most of the other "money" is in the form of loans, pledged from other countries.

So it comes down to the US taxpayer paying to build a school in Iraq instead of in the US.

I know the ORIGINAL plan was to have the Iraqi oil sales pay for the rebuilding, but that hasn't materialized yet.

Instead, we have another government program for taking money from the taxpayer. This looks like an economic boost, but we're actually going into debt to do this (massive deficit).

Re:But those are US taxdollars.

[Urkki]

Old topic, but stuff like this really makes me wonder, if I should start feeling sorry for gullible American taxpayers...

Re:who cares? yeah, doom...

[gfxguy]

You seem to forget that the "reason" Iraq was invaded was to find "Weapons of Mass-Destruction.

I don't think anyone forgets that because that's not the reason Iraq was invaded. You may think I'm splitting hairs, here, but there is a big difference between what you state and what the justifications were.

First, nobody - not the U.S., U.K., or even France, Russia or Germany, thought that Iraq was free from WMD, so I love it when liberals point to the "weasals" and say "see, they were right!" Everybody agreed on the problem - what we disagreed on was the solution.

The justification for the war was Iraqs defiance of the U.N. resolutions which required U.N. weapons inspectors to view the evidence that Iraq had destroyed the WMD that everybody knew they had.

Do you see the difference? The weapons inspectors job was not to seek out weapons of mass destruction, their job was to verify Iraqs evidence that they had been destroyed. Iraq failed to provide that evidence. It doesn't matter if they did actually destroy the weapons, they did not provide the evidence, required by the U.N. Case closed. But, if that's not enough for you, when they were claiming they had no weapons, they still wouldn't let the inspectors verify that. For crying out loud, it was only under threat of actual action that they even let the inspectors back in the country, and they STILL didn't give them full access. "We have no weapons, but no you can't look in that warehouse... it's... uh... a soveriegn palace of Saddam Hussein."

The inspectors only started playing "hide and go seek where Saddam will let you" when they couldn't complete their job. The whole concept of "give inspectors more time" was bogus - because that would require them to have more time to verify the evidence that Iraq failed to provide.

It would be nice to find a few smoking guns, but the war was justified 12 years ago when Saddam's representatives signed a cease-fire agreeing to U.N. terms - that they then failed to follow.

Frankly, it's funny how no one was complaining when Clinton periodically lobbed a few cruise missiles into Iraq, or complained about our "taking out" radar installations in the no-fly zone. IMO, the first gulf war never ended - there was agression every year since, all we're doing now is ending it once and for all.

Re:Liberal family moments: the making of a retard

[Anonymous Coward]

Interpreting his or her comment as advocating going to war "because it is a good value for the money" would be extremely stupid.

Oh really? The comment was :

Cost vs benefits- how much will it cost and is it a good value

Interpreting that statement, in isolation, as referring to monetary cost, is not extremely stupid, especially as a prime motivation for perpetrating this war was the potential financial advantages of having a more cooperative administration in charge of Iraq's oil. That is what I am sickened by - the fact that financial gain is ever a consideration for going to war.

Besides, were I to walk into a sports shop, hold aloft a Nike trainer and ask an assistant to weigh up "Cost vs benefits- how much will it cost and is it a good value", you'd have to be pretty obtuse to infer from that I was talking about the human cost in terms of third-world labour that went into making it.

The other considerations the parent mentioned were to an extent valid in the general sense, but I fail to see how many of them apply given that the US government was determined to perpretate this war whatever the cost to the international community.

Re:Good. Period.

[hendrix69]

Iraq's government hasn't been around for centuries. It was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, then the British Empire until the 1940s.

Of course, please excuse my poor English. Obviously I meant to say "decades" and not "centuries". Saddam took power in a military coop in 1969 IIRC.

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[BCGlorfindel]

Also, we gave weight to the UN's heretofore meaningless resolutions.

How can a non UN sanctioned war against a UN member nation give weight to UN resolutions? It gave weight to American approved UN resolutions, that's a VERY important distinction.

Did you notice that we have control of two borders of Iran (Afghanistan and Iraq)? Did you notice how easily the Iranians caved in on the production of weapons grade uranium? Think that is a coincidence?

But in the long term has the world as a whole been made more stable? Is shear brute force really the best way to stamp out every last evil bastion in the world? Has it become more or less attractive to have a WMD program(think North Korea)? Are nations more or less likely to defend themselves with those weapons? And that's assuming the American government has and holds to a benevelent agenda. Just because military action shows more immediate results does not mean it is the most effective means of discouraging terrorism.

Chalabai is a nerd

[peter303]

He graduated from MIT.

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[Anonymous Coward]

You blame Bush??? Query: What about the "United Nations" has been united since Potsdam (hint: that's before the official founding of the UN)?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:a lesson for VanillaCoke420 and others

[Quila]

Many people, Americans and other, call foul on the issue w/Iraq using the slogan "but you supported him/it 20 years ago!".

To put it in simpler terms, it's like people getting mad at President Johnson's Cold War policies towards the USSR, saying "But you supported Stalin 20 years ago."

War and politics make for strange bedfellows.

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[Anonymous Coward]

America has a responsibility to take care of its interests above the interests of other nations if necessary. Deal with it.

MOD PARENT UP

[Scrameustache]

Thanks for the Informative(tm) comment.

So Kuwait diplomats were idiots then... note to self: Do not taunt heavily armed dictators.

Re:a lesson for VanillaCoke420 and others

[Cackmobile]

so a fascist iraq would have killed less people than a socialist one. Give me a break. We should not support tyrants whether they are left or right or whatever. And you have been sucked right into the propaganda machine justifying past US policies.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Tom Rothamel]

That was not the issue. The issue is whenether the treaty does supplant the constitution or is complementary to it.
I find it difficult to believe that a treaty ratified without constitutional problems in every other western democracy, is somehow incompatible with the US constition.

I don't. The US constitution comes from a different place than that those of european countries. It appears that the ICC will at, the very least, violate the 6th amendment right to jury trial, replacing the jury with a panel of judges.

I find it even harder to believe that this is such a certainty that it shouldn't even be tried by the Supreme Court.

I see no need for it to be so. There's no great desire in the US to join the ICC. It's quite possible that if put before the senate it would be rejected (like Kyoto would be), and any President that did so would be commiting political suicide.

Said governments have all ratified the UN declaration of human rights.

I can't put my faith in a document that claims:

"These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations."

Here in the US, my rights are natural, and not granted because I do not interfere with a country.

Unless you mean that states aren't bound to the treaties they sign (in which case there can be no law whatsoever)

First of all, there's a difference between signing a treaty and ratifying it. The misguided Clinton adminstration signed many treaties that stand no chance of being ratified.

Second, there's plenty law without international treaties. The laws against murder, for example, are not due to any international treaty, but rather due to people within a state or country deciding to make them illegal, in a framework where they can be enforced.

Indeed, a treaty that is not enforcable by force is not worth the paper it's written on. Remember the Kellog-Bryant pact, which outlawed war, and was signed by Germany and Japan?

The morality of actions is independant of what other countries think of them. If the war in Iraq was moral (and I think it was), then France's opposition does not change that. If it was not, then it would not become so simply because of French support.

Besides that, out of the 18 Judges in the ICC, not a single one of them originates from a non-democratic country.

Today. Sorry, but I've seen the world change too much in my lifetime to beleive that the composition of the ICC today will represent the composition of the ICC in the future. After all, right now Libya is the head of the UN human rights committee.

That never stopped them before

[Merk]

Patriot act.
DMCA
...

Right...

[Merk]

Do you mean the judges who used to work for him, or the new ones that were "vetted" by the occupying army?

Yes, You Are Wrong

[tres]

Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.

See, friend, there's a difference between digging up cultures that have been extinct, which have been forgotten with time, which have been lost under dunes of shifting sand and changing climates, and a chemical weapons arsenal that was supposed to be a threat to the security of the USA. An arsenal takes a weapons program to produce, takes people to produce; the same people who could still be interviewed (and have been). A chemical weapons program that was supposed to be in FULL PRODUCTION, cruising around the freeways of Iraq, preparing itself to attack 'merika at any moment (within 40 minutes of being told to do so).

Maybe in your bush & blair worldview, you think you can just bury whatever you feel like & no one will find it. But in most places outside the USA, that's not the way things work.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Rayonic]

That is simply the paranoid mode of thought which leads to unilateralism. It's ridiculous.

I might agree with you, but what about those "war crimes" charges filed in Sweden against that tank crew that accidently shot the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad? (You know, the one where all the journalists were staying.)

Are we supposed to belive the USA is somehow unique?
It is in quite a unique position, actually. It is also very much hated around the world, ever since the end of the Cold War.

So we got the banker, BFD

[LifesABeach]

i agree, we got the money man, and he's out of business.

but what about the butt wipe that started this whole bladder spraying contest to begin with?

i'll bet bin-ladden uses windows too!

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam's capture also has nothing to do with returning my overdue library books (2 weeks late!) but what's your point?

That's funny, I just read that he was found with two library books and a bunch of left socks...

About time...

[Anonymous Coward]

we got the little bastard. Hang him high!

Re:He was the Ace of Spades in the deck, wasn't he

[Anonymous Coward]

Ace! Ace!

It's: All your base are belong to us.

which makes this: All your ace are belong to US.

Sorry, feeling pedantic.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[GypC]

All that link boils down to is that we gave opposition parties 1 million dollars. Chump change.

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[gfxguy]

How can a non UN sanctioned war against a UN member nation give weight to UN resolutions? It gave weight to American approved UN resolutions, that's a VERY important distinction.

You're right, it is... but I'm afraid I'm not seeing the problem. Why would we throw weight behind resolutions we didn't approve of?

Just because military action shows more immediate results does not mean it is the most effective means of discouraging terrorism.

You're right again. Reasonable non-military should always be taken before we resort to war. Unless, of course, there's an imminent threat. Now, before we start arguing about the state of the union address, Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat, despite what a lot of democrats say, so let's just get on with this...

The problem is how you define "reasonable". I guess some people... a lot of people, feel that a dozen years of resolutions and Iraqi defiance was enough. Frankly, I'm dissappointed we did do something before. I'm a conservative who applauded every action Clinton took against Saddam's Iraq, because while I don't like Clinton I can still realize when he's done the right thing and give him credit for it. His failure there was that he didn't do enough.

So, the question becomes - what, then, would YOU do to discourage terrorism? Keep in mind that the person asking doesn't believe in appeasement or aquiescing to demands of people like terrorists (because that only shows terrorists that they can get what they want by using... well... terrorism). The person asking is also only intollerant of intollerance, if that makes any sense.

Re:Good. So?

[gfxguy]

Hmmm... interesting.

I'm not conflicted at all about Saddam's capture. I do know that it's more of a pyschological victory than anything else, but it's a victory nonetheless.

What I'm curious about, though, is what, besides Iraq, perhaps, which only happened this year, is your problem with Bush's performance in the past three years?

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[BCGlorfindel]

Also, we gave weight to the UN's heretofore meaningless resolutions
You're right, it is... but I'm afraid I'm not seeing the problem. Why would we throw weight behind resolutions we didn't approve of?

The problem is the one you based your argument on, the heretofore meaninless resolutions of the UN. An American led war, voted against by the UN security counsel, can not by it's very nature give weight to the UN. It only further undermines the UN.

The problem is how you define "reasonable". I guess some people... a lot of people, feel that a dozen years of resolutions and Iraqi defiance was enough. Frankly, I'm dissappointed we did do something before.

And the question about war with Iraq was not the redundant question of whether the Iraqi people would be better off without Saddam. It was whether or not ousting Saddam was worth the cost a war would have on stability in Iraq and the Middle East. Having proven that the coalition was willing to occupy Iraq creates an entirely new set of problems. Only time can tell if those problems will be better or worse than those solved.

So, the question becomes - what, then, would YOU do to discourage terrorism?

For starters, gaining UN approval or at least EU approval before fighting a war to force a regime change of a sovereign nation. The anti-Bush movement created locally will no doubt pale in comparison to the anti-American movement the war in Iraq has created in much of the Middle East. Yes, I know that even a UN approved war would have had a similar effect, but the lack of approval undeniably magnifies the problem. Anti-American terrorist recruiting in Syria and Iran is no doubt easier than ever these days.

Re:Good. So?

[quantaman]

Well I'm a Canadian for one thing, I've had to deal with the fallout of protectionist trade policies (unjustified lumber tarrifs specifically), backing out of the Kyoto agreement, ignoring the landmines treaties that the rest of the world is trying to follow, violating the Geneva convention in Afghanistan, a lot of hostility from the US government over not falling in line with them over Iraq, and the general division of Bush of the world into with us or against us, I remember just as North and South Korea were starting to become friendly again North Korea suddenly become part of an axis of evil.

This is just a few of the things that came to mind in the last couple minutes, I'm also just talking as an outsider which is why I didn't mention any of the human rights stuff that's going on internally, basically this is just a short summary of why I'm terrified that Bush might be around for another 4 years.

lol

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

lol hehe That's funny. I'll give you that :)

Moving onto something serious... and an education lession for the right wingers:

The Second International DOES exist. In fact, it is the largest political body in the world (nothing else even comes close, although capitalist bodies based in USA as well as other capitalist bodies like the IMF and WTO are far more powerful).

The only one that was discredited and died off is the 3rd International (this is what USSR controlled). The First International didn't get off anywhere. And the Fourth International still exists.

In case you have no idea what these are, here is a quick summary:

First International (broke into two)->Marxism & Anarchism
Second International->Socialism
Third International (controlled by USSR) ->Communism
Fourth International->Trotskyism

I'm sure you already knew all this since you belonged to the 33rd Congregational Baptist Liberterrainainian ;)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

...ough...

[FatAssBastard]

though
thought
through
tough

not to mention:

bough

5, count 'em, 5 different pronunciations for 'ough'. Is any other language this insane?

Where?

[alexo]

> And moreover, the questions begs to be asked: where the hell is Osama?

I'm more interested to know where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

first?

[Anonymous Coward]

FP!

Stuff that matters!

[cbarbry]

Hey, even though it's not a tech article, it's still "stuff that matters."

250 years is a lot of mass graves

[unassimilatible]

The stated reasons were WMD, Iraq-Al-Qaida relation and relation with 9/11.

You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts.

First off, this was a discussion of international law (not that I remember the US ceding its sovereignty to the UN), not Bush's justification for the war.

Bush gave three reasons in his speeches before the war. Pay attention now:

WMD, war on terror, liberate Iraqis/democratize the region. Also, make the region more safe. From liberal NY Times columnist EJ Dionne in January, 4 months before the war:

(1) taking weapons of mass destruction out of Saddam Hussein's hands, or (2) removing Hussein from power, or (3) bringing democracy to Iraq and revolutionizing the politics of the Middle East.

Then why the same logic was not applied to UN inspection team ? why is it that UN team is supposed to find the WMD in a short time and US has to be given 250 years for the same.?

Because Hans "Cleuseau" Blix wouldn't be driving Saddam into a rat hole. The Left's idea of "containment" was Hussein's thugs training Muhammed Atta and throwing people into acid baths and wood chippers.

Given the choice of 1) "containment (see above definition) and 2) Dragging Saddam out of a rat hole, I'll take the latter.

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[gfxguy]

Well, the point about the UN is that, the way it exists right now, it attempts to act as a "great equalizer". Now, having a place where two countries can come and discuss their grievances is great... in theory.

It's effective when a vast majority of the countries can agree that one country is clearly wrong (like the first gulf war). Otherwise, with all the mishmash of countries with veto powers it becomes a meaningless political tool for nations that simply aren't as strong as countries like the U.S. And with globalization, it seems that almost every country has some interest in every other country. It's hard to be impartial.

I'm going to make an analogy. Let's say I'm a democratic politician... say a senator. I'm a member of the democratic party because they largely represent my views, and they've accepted me because I largely represent theirs. However, just because I'm a democrat doesn't mean that I have to vote along partisan lines. And just because I can dissent, it doesn't mean that I don't want validation from the party on my decisions. But if I don't get it, I'm going to go with what I feel is best for my state anyway. That also doesn't mean I'm not going to go back to them at election time trying to get some money for my campaign.

I look at our membership in the U.N. the same way. It's good to be part of a larger whole because of what you can accomplish when you all work together, but that doesn't mean you have to do things you don't want to do just to be part of that whole, and it doesn't mean you can't do the things you feel are necessary because the majority of the group doesn't agree.

An American led war, voted against by the UN security counsel, can not by it's very nature give weight to the UN. It only further undermines the UN.

But what really undermines the authority of the UN... think about this... Collin Powell gave a presentation to the security council earlier this year. Representatives from France, Germany, and Russia met to discuss how they were going to vote. There's nothing wrong with that, really, except that they met BEFORE COLLIN POWELL EVEN PRESENTED HIS DATA. I watched the presentation on TV, and it was very enlightening. More enlightening was that every country to speak afterwards HAD PREPARED STATEMENTS. Obviously there is an agenda there that has very little to do with the security council resolutions. THAT is what weakens the UN - politics. It does't matter what Collin Powell presented to the council. He could have shown Saddam sitting on a vat of VX gas, with thousands of bodies littered around it, and those countries would have voted the same way. Now you want to wonder why the UN is useless? Countries with veto power come to the table with their political interests in mind, not the interests of the world. That's true wether or not you agree with what the U.S. did.

So, the question becomes - what, then, would YOU do to discourage terrorism?

For starters, gaining UN approval or at least EU approval before fighting a war to force a regime change of a sovereign nation.

Well, we did exactly that... in Afghanistan. So what's the problem? While we suggested that there may be Iraqi ties to terrorism (and it turns out there was, perhaps even directly related to 9/11), we never claimed that as part of our justification for war, so your argument doesn't work w.r.t. Iraq. We do make that claim now, and we did consider it as part of the war on terror, but our justifications for the war in Iraq were not based on terrorism, they were based on Iraq failing to present evidence of the destructions of WMD that we all know they had. Of course they had them, no body claimed otherwise until those last few months, but of course they had them - they used them. If what was left was destroyed, they should have presented the evidence to prove it. They didn't.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[chrisbord]

I never said he turned himself into a left-wing Socialist dictatorship. He was elected by only 30% the first time around, then proceeded to nationalise all industries. He turned his country into a de-facto dictatorship, where the state owned or had enormous sway over most media. Of *course* he was re-'eleceted' with a wider margin the second time around!

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[chrisbord]

Of course I was speaking about Argentina's Chavez who, a huge admirer of Fidel Castro who's stated goal is the establishment of a Castro-like regime in Argentina. Chavez has suspended the Constitution, then illegally packed the Supreme Court with his supporters, nationalised most industries, including the media. Pretty soon he will be 're-elected' and the radical left in America will rejoice once again at the 'success' of their 'democratically-elected' candidate. Of course he will only allow that election when his poll numbers break 80%.

This is why we can never let Socialists gain power ANYWHERE in the world, because they almost as a rule then proceed to dismantle those very institutions they were elected by.

Re:Good. So?

[gfxguy]

Thanks for the reply. Since you are not a U.S. citizen, I hope it's not difficult to understand that U.S. foreign policy is not meant to make you happy. But let's take a look...

1. Protectionist trade policies. Against Canada? I never heard of that. Interesting. I agree with you there, then... much like the steel tarrifs, tarrifs often have total negative impact. But what happened to NAFTA?

2. Backing out of Kyoto... I had a big paragraph written about it, but the benefits of Kyoto are debatable, as well as the scientific research behind it. Turns out the U.S. are not the only ones questioning it! We're not going to agree on that, so let's just leave it.

3. Ignoring landmines treaties? I'd like to see evidence of that. I haven't heard that. In fact, in a brief google search, this is the first hit I got (http://www.vvaf.org/campaign/index.shtml):

Toward a Mine-free Military-Recent VVAF briefings of high-level civilian and military leaders on what we have learned about landmines indicate growing credibility and acceptance of the following points:

* Landmines had no tactical or strategic significance in the Gulf War;
* The U.S. military has no plans to use its landmine stocks in the initial defense of U.S. troops in Korea;
* The U.S. military has better alternative weapons and doctrine to meet any envisioned threat; and
* Landmines can be replaced with lighter, more lethal, and smarter antipersonnel and anti-armor weapons, reasserting U.S. leadership on the landmine issue.


Looks like the U.S. policy is pretty good W.R.T. landmines.

4. Violating Geneva convention in Afghanistan.... I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Again, if you get your news from places like democraticunderground.org or ccadp.org, your not really going to get a balanced look at that. In fact, I've not heard of anyone of any global importance accusing us of it. But again, you can look at it one way and accuse the US of war crimes, or you can look at it another way. Since no one has brought us to task for it, it must stand to reason that there's good evidence that we haven't actually commited any war crimes, but YMMV. For what it's worth, I disagree with allowing people to sit in prison without charging and trying them, but I also don't see that we're violating the Geneva convention (I think that's the issue you're referring to).

5. Hostility... yes, hostility. Can you really name one case of US hostility against anyone besides Iraq? No more hostility then was shown us, to be sure... if you're just going to talk about comments like "axis of weasels", you can look at your own government for some good comments about us...

• ...Prime Minister Jean Chretien's chief of communications ... called American President George W. Bush "a moron".
• Canadian member of parliment,Carolyn Parrish,made an off-the-cuff remark during a media scrum on parliment hill saying,"damn Americans,I hate those bastards."

Of course, Homer Simpson refers to Canada as "America Junior", but then he's a cartoon, not diplomatic representative of the government.

6. General division of the world... I don't think we divided the world, the world was already divided, we just brought it out into the open. There's been too much double dealing and backstabbing for anyone to claim any innocence.

BTW, North Korea and South Korea were never "starting to get friendly again", at least not in any meaningful way. I don't know where you got that information from. There's been a DMZ between the two countries for decades, so unless you consider "friendly" to mean "not firing on each others ships", I don't see where that came from.

I know you just came up with a quick few items that might bug you, and I appreciate your thoughts on the subject, but I just don't see how you can pass judgement on Bush this way. We can also go back and forth in a point/counter point fashion, but suffice it to say

Quick correction

[arevos]

"Almost all modern terrorism is due to US foreign policy."

Oops! I meant:

"Almost all modern terrorism, against the US, is due to US foreign policy."

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[sheldon]

Someone is digging deep to try to find a point.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

If they aren't surrendering, they are fair game.

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[ksheff]

Mussolini was strung up by his own people.

Come to think of it, that does sound like a pattern that the Iraqis should follow in this case.

Re: Saddam ...

[Black Parrot]

> And what will they charge Saddam with?

What did they charge Noriega with?

They will surely charge him with violations of US and international law, and pretend that US law holds in Iraq and the USA is the authorized agent of retribution for the international community.

If they handed him over to the UN court they could surely get a legitimate conviction on crimes against humanity, but it's not likely that the Bush Administration will start cooperating with the international community at this late date.

Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring. Old news! We've probably had him for quite some time now. Bushie somehow figured this was the best time to tell everyone. Poor Saddam.. living in that spider hole for all those months.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[jrumney]

He chose to exercise no sway over the media, or the military. This, and the US interference in the economy, was what proved his downfall.

Re:Good. So?

[quantaman]

1. The Softwood lumber dispute (I found a link to an american organization but one that is against the tarrifs because is raises lumber prices), which is doing severe damage to our lumber industry.

2. Kyoto I just threw out as something that came to mind, not all Canadian provinces like it either and a lit of US states have actually implemented their own rules that are even more stringent but it was an another international agreement that the US backed out of.

3. The landmine treaty pretty much everyone but the US signed, a notable exception, I remember hearing some speculation about them going to use some in Afghanistan but couldn't find anything in a quick google. Still it's important to note that this was in Clintons era so isn't exactly Bush's fault.

4. Here's a though piece on US violations with regards to treatment of war prisoners in Afghanistan.

5. Hostility doesn't always have to be military, the US has arguably been very hostile to the entire international community with the huge distain it showed for the UN and any country that opposed it's plans to go into Iraq or even countries that didn't offer military support (with us or against us anyone?). Yes there has been some hostility shown to the US but that's inevitable with a superpower and a crutial difference is that when the US is hostile towards another nation is any capacity it causes economic hardship and can be a threat to the nations very existance(what if GW decides to go to Iran or North Korea). As to the moron comment that was just an overheard remark (an accurate one I might add;), the bastard comment likewise was just a mistake from frustration, frankly I couldn't believe the amount of fuss that was made in the US over either comment. For example look back to the campaign when Bush didn't even appear to know who our PM's name was!! The only real reaction here was some jokes.

6. As to divisions bringing them into the open can the way the US does is more akin to aggrivating them. I'm too lazy at this point to google for info on what was going on between the Korea's at the time but I recall hearing on the media several months before about how the countries were starting to get closer together then Bush decided to through North Korea in on the axis of evil and all that went to waste.

This is quite good news

[forged]

At least they got one of the two (the other being Bin Laden). Way to go USA !

Re:This is quite good news

[sethstorm]

You forgot North Korea, and their quite active nuclear program. Besides, Afghanistan/Pakistan isnt the same land Saddam was found. More mountainous than Iraq, even if you count the northern regions

Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate

[ross.w]

I might agree with you, but what about those "war crimes" charges filed in Sweden against that tank crew that accidently shot the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad? (You know, the one where all the journalists were staying.)

Fair enough. That tank crew has a case to answer. Let them defend their actions.

THere are several Israeli tank and helicopter crews that spring to mind while we're at it.

Re:The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lie

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because he agrees with Bush means that your opinion is a troll? At least try to look at the history of this character before you knock him down.

OOPS!

[edgedmurasame]

OOPS! just because because he doesnt agree with Bush means that his opinion is a troll?

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[chrisbord]

You are another left-wing liar.

Read this detailed account of Allende's extensive efforts to control the media:
http://jrichardstevens.com/work/chilepressallende. html

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[jrumney]

Thank you for the link. My previous efforts to find information had only come up with the fact that the press were outspoken opponents of Allende's policies right until the end, and he never silenced them, though it turns out it was not through lack of trying (confining himself to legal means it appears). But for those who are using this to defend US support for the Pinochet regime, following the link on the site you quote shows what a farcical position that is:

The balance of power shifted following the events of September 11, 1973. General Augusto Pinochet assumed control of the government through a bloody coup that effectively silenced all media outlets, many of the Marxist media outlets for good (Buckman, 1996). Many journalists and newspaper editors were jailed or killed (Brett, 1998).

Re:Good. So? No, So good!

[BCGlorfindel]

Well, the point about the UN is that, the way it exists right now, it attempts to act as a "great equalizer"...
Otherwise, with all the mishmash of countries with veto powers it becomes a meaningless political tool for nations that simply aren't as strong as countries like the U.S.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that the U.N. was formed in the aftermath of WW2 in hopes of preventing a third. Acting as a great equalizer and political tool for nations less powerfull than the world's major superpower, is it's most important purpose.

I look at our membership in the U.N. the same way. It's good to be part of a larger whole because of what you can accomplish when you all work together, but that doesn't mean you have to do things you don't want to do just to be part of that whole, and it doesn't mean you can't do the things you feel are necessary because the majority of the group doesn't agree.

I do agree with your analogy here. The problem is that the bigger the action, the bigger the effect is on the unity of the group. In particular, going to war against another member of the group puts a great amount of strain on the group. Even if most members of the group agree on who the good guys and bad guys in the war are.

Representatives from France, Germany, and Russia met to discuss how they were going to vote. There's nothing wrong with that, really, except that they met BEFORE COLLIN POWELL EVEN PRESENTED HIS DATA. I watched the presentation on TV, and it was very enlightening. More enlightening was that every country to speak afterwards HAD PREPARED STATEMENTS.

But the actions of the French, German and Russian representatives are only as enlightening as Collin Powell's data. I doubt any of the representatives were shocked or even surprised by the data presented. As for prepared statements, those are simply a part of diplomacy and unless some ground breaking new information were presented they would remain unchanged. Furthermore, the decisions made would not change then and there no matter how compelling the new data was. At the very least other nations would require time to confirm and digest the impact of what they had learned.

Countries with veto power come to the table with their political interests in mind, not the interests of the world. That's true wether or not you agree with what the U.S. did.

Again, I agree, all nations inevitablly push their own interests. And as much as people like to point out examples of America pushing it's own interests at the cost of others. As a whole I believe most people also agree that America is more often pushing good not bad interests. I also believe the war in Iraq is an example of a very suspect decision.

they were based on Iraq failing to present evidence of the destructions of WMD that we all know they had. Of course they had them, no body claimed otherwise until those last few months, but of course they had them - they used them. If what was left was destroyed, they should have presented the evidence to prove it. They didn't.

Of course we knew they had them, some of them probably still had the 'made in America' sitckers they came with. :) But more seriously, the justification was also based on the threat the possesion of those weapons posed American security. But what has made the arguement of American security so hard to swallow is not so much the absence of finding WMD's yet, it is the ease with which the war was won. Just how big a threat to American security was a nation conquered in under two months, and with so few loses? Then you might ask, was the cost of war truly worth the removal of that threat? And I don't mean the cost of fighting the war, but the cost of all the unknowns created regarding the stability of the entire Middle East.

Lastly, thank you for all of your insights, it's very refreshing to see the well thought out side in favor of the war.

Hussein

[gfxguy]

Well, well... where to start. First, our justifications for invading Iraq were spelled out about 20 posts ago!

Basically, I've been waiting for us to go back since the "end" of the first Gulf war. I applauded when I read about us destroying mobile radar. I was angry when I read about weapons inspectors getting the "run around", I was angry about how stupid the hide and seek games were... "No, we don't have WMD... and no, you can't look in that werehouse... it's... uh... a soveriegn palace, you cannot enter."

I was angry when, after all that, we finally pulled them out, and I never accused Clinton of sending in a few cruise missiles to divert attention away from his grand jury testimony. I was angry at how little we did and how long we let it linger. I am angry, knowing that people were dying because oil for food did not work.

I supported the second war because I really felt it was a conclusion to the first one. But "pretext" for going to war was that Iraq refused to allow the weapons inspectors to do their jobs. Make no mistake, everyone - not just the U.S. and the U.K., but everyone - Russia, Germany, France... we all know they HAD weapons of mass destruction in violation of the cease fire they signed. Now, perhaps he destroyed them, perhaps not, but the weapons inspectors jobs were to verify the evidence that Iraq presented to prove they destroyed the WMD. It was not to play hide and go seek. That they did not fully cooperate after signing the cease fire agreement was enough justification, in my eyes. The U.S. government asked the U.N. to enforce their resolutions. Yes, it was the ones we agreed with, but that's totally besides the point, they were still U.N. resolutions, and we passed 1441 that promised consequences.

That was the main pretext. Everything else was just fuel on the fire. While I would like to see the smoking guns, it's not required. If they destroyed the evidence it would have been a simple matter from them to present the evidence. If they destroyed them and any evidence then it was pretty stupid on their part, considering they agreed to present the evidence.

I can go on about it, because my personal beliefs and convictions go way beyond the WMD. I simply don't see how bringing down Saddam's regime is ultimately a bad thing.

How can you say socialism is not appropriate in some places yet is ok in other places?

You know, from what I understand, in Alaska, everyone get's a piece of the "oil pie" because the land was owned by the state and not sold to private interests. In Iraq, the oil fields are owned by the state, so in a very real sense they are "owned" by the people of Iraq, who should all be entitled to a piece of the action.

Now it wouldn't work in the U.S. at the federal level, because there's no such resources owned by the federal government. Something similar does happen, for example, in Nevada, where the casinos pay the lions share of taxes, and so there is no personal state income tax. It's almost the same thing, but instead of people getting a cut of the action, they simply don't pay state taxes, but are still entitled to police protection, fire protection, hospitals, state owned parks, libraries...

You weren't doing the test properly--at least I don't think so. You were CONSCIOUSLY trying to place yourself somewhere on the econopolitical spectrum.

No, I answered every question the way I felt. If was trying to skew the test I could have easily. But there were at least 10 questions where I couldn't really answer because the issue was not black and white.

I am much more a libertarian than anything else. I admitted my views don't jive entirely with the LP... for example, I don't agree in isolationism. I also don't agree with abortion, although I'd be willing to accept a compromise on the subject. Unfortunately, the biggest screamers either want abortion for all or abortion for none for any reason. I'm generally against it. Do you have

Re:Hussein

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I'll make this short (hopefully) since you may not read it or respond to it. Don't want to waste time typing up something with no response :)

I'll just sum up my arguments.

Iraq: A Grave Sin

Your argument that Iraq had WMD is weak. As someone above points out, USA never really had any PROOF. All USA had was guesses by so-called intelligence experts.

Given that you invaded for WMD, and now can't find them (most likely there isn't any), you committed a grave sin. You killed 10,000 (likely to increase over the next few years) looking for some bogus WMD which never existed. If that's ok with you, as Madeline Albright said of killing millions due to Sanctions, well, all I can say is that we have different morals. What you are doing is executing someone for a supposed crime when in fact the person did no harm. There is no way to back out of it. All you can do is to avoid doing that in the future--which isn't happening with USA (eg. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, etc--why is USA supporting this horrible regimes?).

Liberatarianism

I say you cannot call yourself liberatarian (even the US version of liberatarian, which is nothing more than liberatarian-right or liberatarian-conservative). You are more conservative than liberatarian. You are against non-intervention. You are against a person's right to choose (eg. abortion). I imagine you are also against legalizating drugs. And how about legalizing prostitution? Or how about homosexuals? That's not very liberatarian if you are against those.

How can you be more of a Liberatarian than anything if you want some entity (government) messing with people's personal decisions (eg. drugs, abortion, homosexuality, etc)? It's hard to say what you are without knowing you (although that Political Compass did provide some insight). My guess is that you are probably a classical liberal, aka traditional conservative (eg. Pat Buchanan). Although, that would place you on the far-right and your test results don't seem to indicate that.

In any case, it's your choice what you call yourself. I'm not a Liberatarian and could care less what you call yourself.

Abortion

The whole notion of life is arbitrary. There is no OBJECTIVE way to determine what is life? You say a fetus is life. How do you know? What if science didn't exist? Some might even argue that a fertilized egg (say at the instant you had sex) is life. Is it? How about sperm? Or the egg? Is that life?

You are just drawing a line. So is everyone else. Your view is based on religion. Can you honestly say that a fetus is a life if you weren't introduced to Christian doctrine?

Socialism

Well, you aren't a socialist :) although you have socialist leanings. Things like funding for arts, culture, etc are key to socialism. There is no point having public schools, if you don't have public art. There is no point having public healthcare if you don't have public energy supply. Supporting one and not the other means you are just arbitrarily picking stuff.

I don't understand that link you listed. What does political correctness have to do with anything? Are you talking about the fact that there are multiple languages on that site? If yes, you picked a bad example. They are a translation service. You'd expect them to have multiple languages. In any case, there is nothing wrong with having multiple languages (even for govt services).

Religion

I don't think the religious issues have much to do with political correctness (conservatives like to throw around the word political correctness but the word has specific meaning). Instead, they deal with core issues. Pledging allegiance to God has nothing to do with political correctness but a lot to do with God in people's lives.

I don't think many are calling for the abolishment of the Christman tree (the trees have little to do with Christmas if anything). But

Re:Hussein

[gfxguy]

Well, I told you I'd at least read... please see my response to the other person who replied.

I am not "against" homosexuality or even same sex marriages. I am for legalizing certain "not quite so bad" drugs, like pot (and admit I used to smoke it way back when), and I am certainly for legalizing prostitution, even if I'd never go to one (well, I am married now, anyway).

I don't like "it's for your own good" laws. I don't like laws that are intended to protect ourselves from ourselves. That's why I consider myself a libertarian. The government should stay out of our private lives.

About abortion: I am a father of two. Until I had kids, I was completely pro-choice. I don't think the issue is black and white, though. When my wife was seven weeks pregnant with my first one, we thought there might be a problem and so had an ultrasound done. There I saw what looked mostly like a shrimp (like you'd see prepared, not from the ocean). Clear as day, though, no mistaking it - was a little heart beating. Things like that totally change you, and you simply haven't experienced it yet. If it were up to me, I'd allow first trimester abortions, and abortion under extreme circumstances (like endangered health). I don't see how that's not fair.

But people ARE calling for getting rid of crosses from schools and stuff like that. I don't think schools should have religious ornaments.

Ahh, but the extreme left is calling for diversity, and it's OK in some schools to show a Muslim crescent (and in some cases a Jewish star), but not a cross. That's what tonguetied is about, the hypocrisy of PC, and PC is a mainstay of the left. They say things that would be called "hate speech" if a conservative said it. It's all about diversity and acceptance as long as it agrees with how you "feel".

I don't have a problem with public display of religious symbols - it is NOT a violation of the constitution as long as there isn't any discrimination. The reason schools and public parks are taking down these symbols is because of people claiming they are "offended" by them. There is no constitutional "right" not to be offended.

So even five years ago I might completely support the ACLU, but they've gone on this anti-christianity crusade (not even so much anti religion, but anti christianity). I believe I'd feel the same way if it was anti-judaism, or even anti-muslim. I just don't like the discrimination, no matter who is doing it.

Re:Hussein

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I don't know if you want to continue this debate...not sure if you have time... your choice...

I'd allow first trimester abortions...

What's first trimester?

Ahh, but the extreme left is calling for diversity, and it's OK in some schools to show a Muslim crescent (and in some cases a Jewish star), but not a cross.

I'm against promoting ANY religion. This applies to Islam, Judaism, Buddism, Hinduism, Zen, Taoism, Sikhism, and so forth. So, if Christianity is being discriminated while others aren't, that's not right. I don't support that.

Anyway, to tell you the truth, I'm not really against banning religious symbols or clothing from students. I don't think what France is doing is the right way to do it.

I'm not really against people wearing crosses or stars, or whatever. I'm more against concepts and ideologies. I'm against taking oaths to Gods, or government relying on God, or pretending that wars are fought for their Gods, or governments distributing religious texts (not counting academic study of them), and so forth. If I had the choice, I would let everyone wear religious clothing, or symbols, or whatever. I don't want to PREVENT people from practicing religion after all. What I will do, however, is ensure that the government philosophies and ideals are not rooted in religion.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Hussein

[gfxguy]

First trimester is the first third of the pregnancy. The ban on partial birth abortions, for example, is really a ban on late term, or third trimester abortions.

If I were "king", women would have over three months to decide wether or not they want an abortion, and abortion would be allowed for some extreme circumstances, especially when the mothers health is at risk. I fully support "the morning after" pill, which may be available over the counter.

I agree with you about religious symbols - I don't think the government or government schools ought to display religious symbols. But let's say a group of kids asks to put up a Christmas tree... then I don't have a problem with that. And if another group, say of Muslims, says they'd like to display a Crescent during Ramadan, I wouldn't have a problem with that - it's all freedom of expression, and the government is not endorsing any one religion over another.

Re:Hussein

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I'm going to end this discussion. I think we have reached some sort of an end :) Hope to see you in the future...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[chrisbord]

Allende is the one to blame here. If it weren't for U.S. support, Allende's efforts to eliminate the free press (which were only technically legal in their higly oppressive system) would have been successful and the transfer to a purely totalitarian state probably would have happened sooner. Pinochet broke the law fragrantly but the sad fact is Allende would have gotten to the same place without U.S. opposition, albeit more slowy. At the time, the U.S. was fighting a Communist invasion of South America and the inevitable end of Allende's Socialism and stifiling of dissent would have been a dictatorship or some bias. We merely chose the lesser of two evils, the one that best fit the wider and more important war against Soviet Russia.

Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?

[chrisbord]

Whoops, meant to say "of some bias." Meaning left or right.

oh STFU...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so sick of you idiot conspiricy morons who see puppet masters pulling the strings from behind the scenes or something.

I'm waiting for you to say it's really the Illuminati that controls the press.

The truth is out there Scully and Muldar! Go find your lone gunmen.

All the media cares about is the almighty buck. If the story is big and crazy, then more people will watch. The advertisers don't give a fuck what's playing either. They only care how many people are watching so they can sell their soap/car/jeans.

Bush's grandfather was Hiler's banker. Give me a fricken break. He was a SHAREHOLDER in a bank. I'm a shareholder in SCO, does that mean I'm personally trying to destroy Linux you fucking mouth-breather?

Go get a fucking girlfriend. Oh no! The Men-In-Black are at your door! Watch out!

Re:oh STFU...

[bendude]

I hope you're not being paid to make such bad arguments. I 'd hate to think my taxes were going to your shoddy work too.

Re:I doubt that Saddam's capture will provoke ange

[einhverfr]

The question is how many people who don't like the Americans were afraid to join because they liked Saddam even less. With him out of the way, it may allow new constituencies to join. Then again, maybe not, since we don't really know who s running the resistance.

"yet to surface"?

[js7a]

i don't like how Bush justified it (WMDs that have yet to surface).

Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed they existed? To wit:

• 2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.

• 11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."

• 11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."

• 22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."

• 24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

• 17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."

• 7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."

make no mistake?!??

[js7a]

Make no mistake, everyone - not just the U.S. and the U.K., but everyone - Russia, Germany, France... we all know they HAD weapons of mass destruction

Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?

• 2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.

• 11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."

• 11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."

• 22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."

• 24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

• 17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."

• 7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."

Re:make no mistake?!??

[gfxguy]

And are you claiming that Iraq NEVER had WMD?

We KNOW he had them. He used them. He even declared them. Then he never showed evidence that they were destroyed to the weapons inspectors, contrary to the cease fire agreement and the UN resolutions. Are you claiming that's not true?

Re:make no mistake?!??

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

The UN destroyed most--if not all--of them. Some WMD simply passed their "due date" if you will (like the biological agents, which are supposed hard to keep for long periods of time without manufacturing new stuff, which Iraq didn't do).

In any case, let's just end this war debate... It's almost starting to go in circles...

I'll debate you when USA invades Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

proof that Bush lied

[js7a]

Unless those WMD are found, the war was not a good thing for Bush. I think that, given all the alternative possibilities, the possibility that "Bush lied" is the least likely.

Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?

• 2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.

• 11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."

• 11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."

• 22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."

• 24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

• 17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."

• 7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."

"weapons our government said they had," after 9/11

[js7a]

• 2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.

• 11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."

• 11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."

• 22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."

• 24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

• 17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."

• 7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."

not in dispute? look again!

[js7a]

Iraq had WMD's, that's not in dispute.

Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?

• 2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.

• 11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."

• 11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."

• 22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."

• 24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

• 17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."

• 7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."

No WMDs yet? Not in August 2001 either

[js7a]

They also haven't found evidence of WMD yet. That doesn't mean they won't.

Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?

• 2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.

• 11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."

• 11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."

• 22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."

• 24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

• 17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."

• 7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."

Re:No WMDs yet? Not in August 2001 either

[BasilBrush]

• Before Bush become president he doesn't know of WMD.
• He's elected and 9/11 happens in quick succession.
• Intelligence gathering goes into overdrive targeted at the Arab world, as Arabs are discovered to have been the suicide hijackers
• WMD are then believed to exist in Iraq.

Why exactly do you need a conspiracy theory to explain that sequence of events?

Re:No WMDs yet? Not in August 2001 either

[js7a]

... Intelligence gathering goes into overdrive ...

Interesting theory, but what kind of new intelligence could have been gathered between February 2001, when Powell flatly asserts that Iraq has no WMDs, or August 2001, when Bush indicates his lack of knowledge of Iraqi WMDs, and August 2002, when Dick Cheney said to the VFW national convention, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

And, if there was new intelligence during that period, why haven't the administration said so? Even Joseph Wilson's report on the hoax Nigerian yellowcake memo predates Powell's quote.

If you really want to know the truth, just ask Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz:

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue - weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

Re:No WMDs yet? Not in August 2001 either

[BasilBrush]

Thanks for the link. It backup up my theory perfectly.

Your out of context quote was I assume meant to imply that they chose WMD out of a selection of made up reasons. Yet read on, and it's clear it was selected as the main justification out of three real reasons. e.g.

Wolfowitz: By the way, I've never - you know, apropos of the WMD thing--I can't recall (m)any intelligence assessments that have been as unanimous as the judgment about Iraqi chemical and biological weapons.

Re:No WMDs yet? Not in August 2001 either

[js7a]

So, if the judgement was unanimous, then why didn't Bush and Powell, who indicated that there weren't any Iraqi WMDs, know about the supposed intelligence?

The thing about classified intelligence is that you can refer to it without having to produce it, no?

Re:No WMDs yet? Not in August 2001 either

[BasilBrush]

Refer back to the time line. They can't know about the intelligence before the intelligence was gathered post 9/11.

Re:No WMDs yet? Not in August 2001 either

[js7a]

They can't know about the intelligence before the intelligence was gathered post 9/11.

True; what they can't know, though, they can sure make up out of whole cloth.

Re: Jeesus

[Anonymous Coward]

Anal reaming, apparently.

Which is more likely...

[caitsith01]

(a) That every single one of the possible Democrat candidates is mediocre, incompetent and would make a worse president than Bush

or

(b) You are a closed-minded fool who will vote for Bush no matter who the Democrats put up for reelection, all the while bleating that you would consider a 'good' Democrat candidate.

You see, I would never, ever vote for Bush because I think he's an incompetent fool. I would, on the other hand, consider voting for John McCain, even though I tend to lean left. If you compare Dean to Kucinich to Lieberman to Kerry to Clarke I think you would find quite a range of views on a number of issues. Not that you will.

Re:Real Bad Guys Who Put Saddam in Power

[stevew]

That is the DUMBEST response in this whole chain.

Saddam came to power in 1979 by his own means without the assistance of the US. He had been the "heavy hand" behind the previous dictator.

Re:The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lie

[readpunk]

That logic is a bit too simplistic. We are not "responsible for Saddam". That lies within' Iraq. We are responsible however for supporting him and supplying him with some of the weapons we are currently looking for. My point is that as a government ours regularly distorts the truth and spreads mis-information, specifically when it comes to interventions and relations with foreign nations.

I would relate absolutely zero terrorist related activities to our "base" in Saudi Arabia or the first gulf war. Troops in Lebanon, attempts to assasinate the Syrian president, CIA coups in Iran and Saudi Arabia, are things that helped make 9/11 happen. That is the short list too. The amount of fucking around we have done in the Middle East, all to our own end, that has cost countless lives is the reason much of the Muslim world is disgusted by us.

What on earth are you talking about when you say "Did England, germany, and Japan, and all the other member's of the coaltition forces all own stock options in Haliburton?". When the world asks another nation for something, America being in some way involved, two things happen. First they decide whether they want to do whatever it is, is being requested. Then they weigh how greatly their decision is going to piss off America. If it is going to piss off America then they decide whether what they are doing is worth the cost of pissing off the US. England Germany and Japan all decided that the risk of taking their mouth's off the power cock at the time was too great so they complied. Not to say necessarily that their action in the original Gulf War was wrong.

Re:The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lie

[GeneralCern]

If you doubt that our bases in Saudi Arabia is not the reason for Bin Laden rising up, please read his statements claiming responsibility for the embassy bombings in Africa, and the bombing of the World Trade Center.

What is the time frame for the actions that you feel caused AQ to strike, Lebanon? Coups in Iran and Saudi Arabia? Why did they wait 20-20 years before striking back? Especially considering that we were friendly to the arab world when we supported them in Afghanistan.

Re:The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lie

[readpunk]

You honestly believe Bin Laden honestly believes his own bullshit? I am saying what has been going on recently (years back) in the Middle East is the reason for what is going on now. Everything from Al Queda to the average Muslim who burns a flag in protest outside a US embassy. Believing that simply just the base in Saudi Arabia was Al Queda's soul reason for 9/11 or even a main reason is nonsense. Bin Laden can only have those followers if our actions for the last century take place. No simple base in Saudi Arabia can spur that kind of devotion to that moron.

Re:The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lie

[GeneralCern]

Oh, I am sorry. I was unaware you were able to read Osama's mind.

Re:The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lie

[readpunk]

I can fly as well.

Re:The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lie

[GeneralCern]

But can you single-handedly take down an Oliphaunt while wearing green tights?

Re:The truth everyone just wants to pretend is lie

[readpunk]

Only if according to JRR my race is supposed to be the manifestation of the idea of humans born without original sin.

What gives???

[Anonymous Coward]

The news keeps saying the 'Merkins captured Saddam. But everywhere else you look you get
the storry that the Kurdish ppl did a week before, and negotiated w/ US for political advantage.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl= story&u=/afp /20031221/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_saddam_britain&cid=1 514&ncid=1480