Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the submitted-two-hundred-times dept.
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.
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.
by
WIAKywbfatw
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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?
--
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Re:Not bad.
by
NeuroManson
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
-- Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right.
Shoes for industry!
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?
Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about?
You misspelt "oil".
Re:Not bad.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
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.
-- Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
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.
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.
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:)
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.
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).
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.
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 WeaveThe 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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
-- I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
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?
$1 million from Bruce?
by
nacturation
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· Score: 4, Interesting
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?:)
-- Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Re:$1 million from Bruce?
by
Glock27
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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!:-)
-- Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Re:$1 million from Bruce?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Funny
The question is: will four seconds be enough for Saddam to beat Bruce Willis into a bloody pulp?
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.
-- We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate?
by
Faust7
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· Score: 5, Interesting
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.
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:bin laden..
by
Richard+Allen
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· Score: 5, Insightful
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!
For any of those...
by
mgcsinc
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· Score: 5, Funny
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.
And in true Slashdot tradition...
by
herko_cl
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· Score: 4, Funny
We celebrate it with... "...reporting that Saddam Hissein..."
Spelling errors!
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:who cares?
by
USAPatriot
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
--
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
Thread: place yer bets
by
whovian
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· Score: 4, Interesting
US stock markets surge Monday.
The US detains Saddam indefinitely to prevent Iraqis from assassinating him.
Bush gets re-elected.
-- To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Re:Thread: place yer bets
by
raind
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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?
-- Get up!
Re:Thread: place yer bets
by
kir
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· Score: 2, Informative
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.
Re:Thread: place yer bets
by
RocketScientist
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
The important question
by
iamatlas
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· Score: 3, Funny
Does he run linux?
Re:The important question
by
AndroidCat
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· Score: 4, Funny
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..."
-- One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
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.
Fair trial?
by
Blue+Master
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· Score: 5, Interesting
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?
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:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Funny
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.
-- Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Re:No connection
by
bgfay
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
-- Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Re:No connection
by
blastedtokyo
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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
by
Keebler71
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· Score: 2, Insightful
agreed except that I would hardly call thousands of attacks (AAA and SAM) on coalition aircraft a "minor shooting incident"
-- "It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Re:who cares?
by
mandalayx
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· Score: 2, Informative
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.
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.
RIAA is getting the $25 million reward
by
b3x
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· Score: 2, Funny
word is that Saddam was tracked down by the RIAA after he downloaded the latest eminem album...
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."
Classic misdirection
by
Faust7
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· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
Re:Classic misdirection
by
Glock27
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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.:-)
-- Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Re:Classic misdirection
by
BFKrew
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· Score: 5, Insightful
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
by
Glock27
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· Score: 3, Interesting
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! =)
-- Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Re:Classic misdirection
by
arevos
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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
by
zandermander
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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
by
lordholm
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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!
-- "Civis Europaeus sum!"
Re:Classic misdirection
by
BFKrew
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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
by
Gogl
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
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?
-- You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine "Math in a song is good."-Linford
Re:who cares?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
this story is clearly offtopic. where can i rate ist so?
--
I don't need a signature.
Re:who cares?
by
squarooticus
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· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
-- Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Re:bin laden..
by
cloricus
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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?
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"?
Iraqi information minister's response
by
understyled
·
· Score: 5, Funny
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.
-- Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
See no evil, hear no evil...
by
WIAKywbfatw
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
--
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Re:See no evil, hear no evil...
by
NixterAg
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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...
by
attonitus
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
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:
Re:See no evil, hear no evil...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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...
by
WIAKywbfatw
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
--
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate
by
k98sven
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· Score: 5, Insightful
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?
by
Leffe
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· Score: 5, Interesting
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?
by
JFMulder
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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?
by
bar-agent
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
-- i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Re:America screwed over?
by
StarTux
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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
Millions of Iraqis care...
by
Shivetya
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
-- *
Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
-- Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
Bush: a war criminal?
by
tcak
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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:Good News
by
bigjnsa500
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· Score: 3, Informative
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.
-- This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Re:bin laden..
by
Richard+Allen
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
The Election's over...
by
BTWR
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· Score: 5, Insightful
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...
by
Scrameustache
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
--
You can't take the sky from me...
Re:The Election's over...
by
kimota
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· Score: 3, Insightful
>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.
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...
by
Anenga
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
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:who cares?
by
Fulkkari
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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?
-- I demand the Cone of Silence!
Re:who cares?
by
Avihson
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· Score: 4, Interesting
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:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Flamebait
millions??? you mean those who died because of the sanctions, set under US pressure, right?
A Perverse Angle
by
shadowcabbit
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
(*) 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.
-- && aemula C. ab stirpe interiit
Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germany
by
koi88
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
--
I don't need a signature.
Clearing up your own mess
by
nagora
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· Score: 2, Insightful
CIA-hired assassin and supposed puppet-ruler arrested by CIA; public asked to pretend this makes it all alright.
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
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.
Forget the politics
by
Alex+Heagan
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
He can hide his nukes so perfectly yet he can't hide himself?:)
Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam
by
hey!
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
-- Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:who cares?
by
Pavan_Gupta
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
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?!
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.
Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...
by
akepa
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
Enough already
by
Sycraft-fu
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
Seriously, you sound like the 'Enlightened One' and I fully agree. God Bless.
-- [SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
Re:Enough already
by
JFMulder
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
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
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Slashdot is a fairly sophisticated and educated crowd
One could challenge that by merely pointing at the discussions here...
Oh yeah, well we winter coat problemse up here!
by
PhotoGuy
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· Score: 2, Funny
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.
-- Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Strength and respect are not the same.
by
aepervius
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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".
-- C. Sagan : A demon haunted world: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/ visit randi.org
Re:Strength and respect are not the same.
by
Bytal
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
Horrible contradiction
by
nirvanis
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Those who funded Saddam's terror reign for years now save the world from terrorist menace.
(Likewise I'm happy to see Saddam captured)
-- nirvanis
Re:Good. Period.
by
hendrix69
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
-- The power of Christ compiles you!
Re:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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..
by
Richard+Allen
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate
by
Tom+Rothamel
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
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:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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!
Let The Bush Bashing Begin
by
nurb432
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
-- ---- Booth was a patriot ----
Re:No invasion == pro Saddam
by
ahillen
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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:who cares?
by
illuminata
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· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
--
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
"celebrations"
by
jguevin
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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:bin laden..
by
NickFitz
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
-- Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
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.
-- -> Sometimes, you just gotta break free from the shackles of proprietary code.
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.
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.
Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)
by
Mmm+coffee
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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.)
by
soccerisgod
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
(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.
-- If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.)
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
(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.)
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.)
by
jrumney
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Informative
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!
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?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Funny
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:bin laden..
by
Martin+Blank
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
-- You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Re:who cares?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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:bin laden..
by
Scrameustache
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
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?
--
You can't take the sky from me...
Re:bin laden..
by
CrowScape
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
-- common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Don't worry, more than 70% of the US population is convinced they're the same person anyway...
Re:No invasion == pro Saddam
by
malkavian
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
They shaved Saddam
by
Scrameustache
·
· Score: 2, Funny
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.
I'm surprised. I didn't know twelve year olds could vote in the US.
Re:who cares?
by
tstoneman
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
oh come on
by
wrinkledshirt
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
--
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
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.
-- Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
Re:bin laden..
by
thelaw
·
· Score: 3, Informative
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
-- --
http://www.cerastes.org
Re:No invasion == pro Saddam
by
ahillen
·
· Score: 2, Informative
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:who cares?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
Forgetting one or two things
by
Zygote-IC-
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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
by
cygnus
·
· Score: 3, Funny
China has nuclear weapons.
Iraq does not.
how about Burma then? oh no, wait:
Iraq has oil.
Burma does not.
-- Just raise the taxes on crack.
Re:Forgetting one or two things
by
ducomputergeek
·
· Score: 2, Informative
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...
-- "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Re:Forgetting one or two things
by
HiThere
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
--
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:who cares?
by
Tony+Hoyle
·
· Score: 4, Informative
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.
-- Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Re:Saddam ...
by
FURY13RT
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
Re:bin laden..
by
BasilBrush
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
I doubt that Saddam's capture will provoke anger
by
einhverfr
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
Spoken like a true golf addict:) It's actually "The proof of the pudding is in the tasting."
-- Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Re:who cares?
by
FatherOfONe
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
-- The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
Re:who cares?
by
Pentagram
·
· Score: 4, Informative
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;-)
Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate
by
Planesdragon
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
Re:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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..
by
deja206
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Kurds are not Turks. Period.
media is media...
by
ScottGant
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
--
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
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.
--
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Re:who cares?
by
aborchers
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
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:Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germ
by
Fractal+Dice
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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?
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.
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.
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 this line is mostly filler"
Re:bin laden..
by
jrnchimera
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
Ever hear of Salman Pak?
by
bill_mcgonigle
·
· Score: 3, Informative
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.
-- My God, it's Full of Source! OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Re:Ever hear of Salman Pak?
by
I+Be+Hatin'
·
· Score: 3, Informative
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.
-- I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
Re:Ever hear of Salman Pak?
by
dcam
·
· Score: 2, Informative
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
-- meh
A little reminder...
by
soccerisgod
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
-- If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
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.
-- Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
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:bin laden..
by
William+Baric
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
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..
by
bryanthompson
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
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
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.
I love it. Yes let's be happy.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
Re:bin laden..
by
bryanthompson
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
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..
by
CrowScape
·
· Score: 2, Informative
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?
-- common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Yeah, and Saddam Hussein never accepted help or support of the United States also. And Noriega neither. Not the others of course!
--
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Re:I still dont know what to think...
by
soccerisgod
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
-- If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Re:bin laden..
by
Bedouin+X
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
-- Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin
by
gerardrj
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
...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.
-- Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one.
by
rfischer
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
"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.
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
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:bin laden..
by
Zeinfeld
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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.
--
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate
by
Keebler71
·
· Score: 4, Informative
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 takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Re:bin laden..
by
Martin+Blank
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
As opposed to the peaceful Democrats that got involved in World War II (FDR), Korea (Truman), Vietnam (Kennedy/Johnson), and Yugoslavia (Clinton)?
-- You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Re:bin laden..
by
Tackhead
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
> 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.
Speaking of which, were are the gay sex videos of him and Saddam in tutus that the weekly tabloids keep telling me they have?
-- No.
Re:bin laden..
by
WindBourne
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
-- I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
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.
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:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate
by
k98sven
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
Re:bin laden..
by
Transcendent
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
Father and son, bedtime chat
by
aled
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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
--
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Re:Father and son, bedtime chat
by
aled
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
--
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Re:Father and son, bedtime chat
by
anthony_dipierro
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Daddy, what is a strawman argument?
Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin
by
soccerisgod
·
· Score: 2
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.
-- If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet?
by
WIAKywbfatw
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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?
--
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Re:bin laden..
by
gyratedotorg
·
· Score: 2, Informative
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..
by
DNS-and-BIND
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
-- Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Saddam-9/11 Link
by
edibleplastic
·
· Score: 3, Informative
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
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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
And there was much rejoicing!
by
steve+buttgereit
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I only hope they let the Iraqis exercise justice than some limp-wristed international court.
Re:And there was much rejoicing!
by
WildBeast
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· Score: 3, Interesting
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.
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?
--
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Re:Good. So? No, So good!
by
rjamestaylor
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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?
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).
-- Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...
by
leviramsey
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
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.
-- Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with.
-1, I disagree with you
Santa Saddam's next plan...
by
kerb
·
· Score: 2, Funny
...was to wear santa claus clothes and give out WMDs for christmas
http://www.hankstermania.com/SantaSaddam2.jpg
Re:Santa Saddam's next plan...
by
WildBeast
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Yeah he does look kinda like Santa. So if you're on the naughty list, Santa Saddam may be coming after you, little kids.
Its not true because Fox News says so. Its true because Rush Limbaugh says so!
--
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I'm having trouble understanding the significance
by
PollGuy
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Was Saddam on the US's list of the most wanted Iraqis? Which playing card was he? Help me put this in context, media!!!
Re:bin laden..
by
Skjellifetti
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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..
by
Martin+Blank
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"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...
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:Clinton and Bush
by
tomstdenis
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· Score: 2, Interesting
"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
-- Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war...
by
10Ghz
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
-- Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Re:bin laden..
by
Deadstick
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· Score: 2, Insightful
..or explain to the family of a suicide bomber why he surrendered without firing a shot.
rj
Re:bin laden..
by
ElGuapoGolf
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate
by
petabyte
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· Score: 2, Informative
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.
OK, now the real question
by
Ryunosuke
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Now that the "Dark era is over", can I have my civil righst back?
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!
-- Have you compiled your kernel today??
Re:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
Yehawww!!!!
by
Zonekeeper
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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!
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..
by
Richard+Allen
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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..
by
ShwAsasin
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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:Clinton and Bush
by
the_mad_poster
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
-- Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Re:bin laden vs. safer
by
ggwood
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· Score: 2, Informative
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. _________________________________________ _____
-- a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
Re:bin laden..
by
letxa2000
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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.:)
some counter-points
by
felesii
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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
by
Mmm+coffee
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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
by
Augusto
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
--
- sigs are for wimps.
Re:who cares?
by
Wavicle
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· Score: 2, Informative
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.
-- Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
To bad it took this long
by
xile
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· Score: 2, Funny
To bad it took this long to capture Mr.Saddam..
he could have ran for govenor of california
-- Don't mistake lack of talent for genius
Re:bin laden..
by
gaijin99
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· Score: 3, Informative
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.
-- "Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Re:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
Why didn't he flee?
by
gcaseye6677
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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:bin laden..
by
letxa2000
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
Only utter lack of diligence of study, or gross bias can explain your omission. I suspect the latter.
-- HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Re:bin laden..
by
canajin56
·
· Score: 4, Informative
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
-- ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Re:bin laden..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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..
by
CrowScape
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
-- common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Saddam released from custody
by
s1234d
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· Score: 2, Funny
They forgot to read him his rights.
Re:bin laden..
by
gaijin99
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
-- "Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Re:bin laden..
by
iconian
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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.
"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?
-- -------
I fumbled my registration and I now must suffer
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
-- This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
And blood will fill the streets of Mecca.
by
caveat
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
--
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Re:bin laden..
by
TheLinuxSRC
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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?
#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"
The US needs to heal again...
by
javabandit
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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:Clinton and Bush
by
the_mad_poster
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· Score: 5, Insightful
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?
-- Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Saddam Wins, Bush Loses
by
PizzaFace
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
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.
WRONG! 6 died in the 1993 WTC attacks.
by
caveat
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· Score: 2, Informative
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.
--
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
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.
--
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Re:bin laden..
by
timiscool999
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...
by
StevenMaurer
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
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.
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.
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.
-- Karma. Moderation. Is my.sig good now?
Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!
by
Overly+Critical+Guy
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
-- "Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin!
by
0x0d0a
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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?
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.
-- These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
Alternate news source
by
CrystalFalcon
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
Are you from the UK?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Informative
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?
by
edibleplastic
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· Score: 2, Informative
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
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Informative
-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."
News Footage of Medical Exam
by
Greyfox
·
· Score: 4, Funny
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.
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Re:bin laden..
by
CrazyClimber
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I've been a little confused about this one--exactly *which* rights has the Attorney General taken from you?
Re:who cares?
by
Glock27
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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)
-- Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
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!
-
-- - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Re:A Great Day For America
by
dtungsten
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· Score: 2, Flamebait
More redundancy
by
pastpolls
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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:bin laden..
by
Rayonic
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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..
by
Fallen_Knight
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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)
Your facts are wrong
by
Sinbit
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· Score: 4, Informative
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
Re:who cares?
by
FurryFeet
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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:bin laden..
by
stonecypher
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· Score: 5, Insightful
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.
Now go and convince your own president you're right.
Re:You know better than you president?
by
bill_mcgonigle
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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.:)
-- My God, it's Full of Source! OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Re:You know better than you president?
by
Zan+Zu+from+Eridu
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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:bin laden..
by
CardiffMan
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
It was a pleasant surprise...
by
vudufixit
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
Hussein really is French
by
DMUTPeregrine
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· Score: 3, Funny
He wears a beret, likes mistresses, and surrenders without firing a shot.
-- Not a sentence!
Re:bin laden..
by
Directrix1
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· Score: 4, Interesting
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.
-- Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
a lesson for everyone
by
VanillaCoke420
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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:bin laden..
by
stonecypher
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
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:bin laden..
by
gaijin99
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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.
-- "Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Re:bin laden..
by
BigGerman
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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..
by
Xabraxas
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
-- Time makes more converts than reason
Re:bin laden..
by
love2hateMS
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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:WMD && Oil != the issue
by
ElGanzoLoco
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· Score: 2, Informative
Please, please, plese, check your facts before posting. Thanks.
-- Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
Re:bin laden..
by
gaijin99
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
-- "Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Re:bin laden..
by
ElGuapoGolf
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· Score: 3, Informative
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.
Fresh Perspectives
by
knautilus316
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· Score: 4, Informative
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
No that it will get read
by
gnuLNX
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· Score: 4, Insightful
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!
--
what?
Re:bin laden..
by
DNS-and-BIND
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· Score: 3, Informative
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?
SpecForce Ninja Power!
by
SalsaFrontier
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· Score: 2, Funny
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.
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...
Where's my Flash cartoon email??
by
paylett
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· Score: 2, Funny
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?
--
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
Saddam at the Vet's
by
hendrix69
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
-- The power of Christ compiles you!
TIME Magazine Exclusive
by
$exyNerdie
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· Score: 3, Informative
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:The USA PATRIOT Act...
by
monkeydo
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· Score: 3, Insightful
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?
-- Si vis pacem, para bellum The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
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..
by
winterdark40
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· Score: 2, Informative
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.
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.
--
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Re:bin laden..
by
rjung2k
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
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:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate
by
k98sven
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
Re:who cares?
by
Bitsy+Boffin
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· Score: 2, Insightful
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.
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.
-- Stupid sexy Flanders.
Re:Good. So? No, So good!
by
BCGlorfindel
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
Re:The USA PATRIOT Act...
by
sglines
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· Score: 2, Informative
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:bin laden..
by
shaitand
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· Score: 2, Informative
"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..
by
shaitand
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· Score: 2, Informative
"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..
by
shaitand
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· Score: 2, Interesting
"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.
Slashdot Mirror
Finally got the guy that attacked the world trade cen... oh, wrong guy?
Well... so he had weapons of mass dest... no?
http://www.spiceweasel.net/albums/miscellanea/sadd ammk2.jpg
2 0c laus.jpg
http://www.worth1000.com/web/media/3185/saddam%
-- Boycott Shell
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.
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? :)
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Note: Anti-War is not the same as Pro-Saddam.
GOOD JOB GUYS!!!!
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
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.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
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.
The coolest voice ever.
I hope this doesn't mean George will win the elections again!
where's all that Karma?
There is still a lot that needs to be done. ... please!
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
Congratulations Iraq! Congratulations US coalition!
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.
We celebrate it with...
"...reporting that Saddam Hissein..."
Spelling errors!
No
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.
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.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
US stock markets surge Monday.
The US detains Saddam indefinitely to prevent Iraqis from assassinating him.
Bush gets re-elected.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Does he run linux?
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.
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?
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 >.
my blood is burning for Osama...
Me too!! He is like, sooooooo hot!!!
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.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
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.
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.
word is that Saddam was tracked down by the RIAA after he downloaded the latest eminem album ...
"And we hope with his capture this will bring an end to all illegal downloading."
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.
The coolest voice ever.
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.
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?You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
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.
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.
Get a free ipod.
this story is clearly offtopic. where can i rate ist so?
I don't need a signature.
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.
[ home ]
Ohhh...What I couldn't do with a wall outlet, a spool of ni-chrome wire, salt, and Saddam Hussain.
Fast machines, powerfull AI, impulsive invention,... All I lack is a good espresso machine!
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?
Jermaine Jackson said he was mistreated....
oops, wrong story.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
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?
I ate your fish.
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"?
/. Where the truth
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.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
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.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
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.
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).
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.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
How ironic that they found the 'Ace' in the Hole.
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
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.
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.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
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.
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...")
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?
I demand the Cone of Silence!
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.
millions??? you mean those who died because of the sanctions, set under US pressure, right?
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.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
(*) 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.
&& aemula C. ab stirpe interiit
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.
I don't need a signature.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
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.
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.
It's not irrelevent to the people of Iraq. Try to explain to a widow of a Saddam victim that the war is illegal.
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
He can hide his nukes so perfectly yet he can't hide himself? :)
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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?!
root@iraq# emerge unmerge saddam-hussien
...done! /iraq
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
>>> emerge (1 of 10) app-admin/friendly-dictator1 to
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.
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.
Followed by the lead National story, with picture!
I really like living in Canada.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
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 ?
... External politic and some pinch of bullying now the US is not respected. It is FEARED for its strength. See the two example above.
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
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".
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Those who funded Saddam's terror reign for years now save the world from terrorist menace.
(Likewise I'm happy to see Saddam captured)
nirvanis
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.
The power of Christ compiles you!
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.
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. ... oh never mind ...
Imagine your brother looked longingly at one of Saddam's son's mistresses without knowing and was fed to the lions.
Imagine
It's called empathy. That's what makes it relevant.
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.
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...
Come play Moral Decay!
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!
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.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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'.
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.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
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?
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.
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
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.
-> Sometimes, you just gotta break free from the shackles of proprietary code.
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.
You said it man. Nobody f#%ks with the Jesus.
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.
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...
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!
It's official... Osama Bin Laden has been declared World Hide and Seek champion ;O)
Manta
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.
Thanks! I always assumed GWB was elected by hateful morons, and now I have proof.
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.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
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.
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?
You can't take the sky from me...
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.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Don't worry, more than 70% of the US population is convinced they're the same person anyway...
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.
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.
You can't take the sky from me...
I'm surprised. I didn't know twelve year olds could vote in the US.
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.
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.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
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.
Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
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
-- http://www.cerastes.org
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
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.
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.
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.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Spoken like a true golf addict :) It's actually "The proof of the pudding is in the tasting."
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
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.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
Photo from a different angle.
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 ;-)
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
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.
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.
Kurds are not Turks. Period.
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.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
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.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
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.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
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?
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.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
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.
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 this line is mostly filler"
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.
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.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
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.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
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?
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!
Of course, there was the decimation of the Circle K...
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/.
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.
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.
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.
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?
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Yeah, and Saddam Hussein never accepted help or support of the United States also. And Noriega neither. Not the others of course!
"I think this line is mostly filler"
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.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
....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?
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.
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
...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.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
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.
"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.
You know slashdot has a liberal crowd when a story that is clearly positive for the coalition and Bush has responses that mention:
& cid=7715 740c id=77159699 225&cid=7716 015d =7716 761
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
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?
sid=89225&
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89225&ci
Ever thought about actually dicussing the topic? Would it be too crazy to actually talk about the capture and its effects on Iraq?
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.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
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 takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
As opposed to the peaceful Democrats that got involved in World War II (FDR), Korea (Truman), Vietnam (Kennedy/Johnson), and Yugoslavia (Clinton)?
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
"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.
Speaking of which, were are the gay sex videos of him and Saddam in tutus that the weekly tabloids keep telling me they have?
No.
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
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.
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
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.
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.
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.
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
"I think this line is mostly filler"
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.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
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?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
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.
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
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.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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.
/ ne ws/2003/12/14/wterr14.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/1 4/ixportaltop.html
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=
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.
I only hope they let the Iraqis exercise justice than some limp-wristed international court.
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?
"I think this line is mostly filler"
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?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
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).
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
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.
The president's speach is avalible for download in MP3 and Ogg Vorbis at www.writersblockmedia.com/~radar/speach/
Just imagine Apple Computer using a picture of bearded and dirty Saddam right out of his hole in their Think Different add compaign.
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.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
...was to wear santa claus clothes and give out WMDs for christmas
http://www.hankstermania.com/SantaSaddam2.jpg
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Was Saddam on the US's list of the most wanted Iraqis? Which playing card was he? Help me put this in context, media!!!
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?
FreeSpeech.org
"Personally neither I nor my brothers saw evidence of American help." -- Osama bin Laden
... 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
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.
And, at risk of alienating those who automatically assume Fox News to lie about everything...
Dispelling the CIA-Bin Laden Myth
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
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.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
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 piece goes on from there. I encourage you to read it.
"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
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
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.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
..or explain to the family of a suicide bomber why he surrendered without firing a shot.
rj
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.
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.
Now that the "Dark era is over", can I have my civil righst back?
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!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, I would. However, I would not want France nor any other country to come in and do it.
echo 'Header append X-HD-DVD "0x09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0"' >>
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.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
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.
________________________________________
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
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. :)
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.
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.
- sigs are for wimps.
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.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
To bad it took this long to capture Mr.Saddam..
he could have ran for govenor of california
Don't mistake lack of talent for genius
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.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
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.
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.
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.
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.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
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
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
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?
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.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
They forgot to read him his rights.
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.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
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.
"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?
------- I fumbled my registration and I now must suffer
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
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
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.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
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?
#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"
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.
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?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
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.
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.
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.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
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.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
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).
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.
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.
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.
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
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.
Karma. Moderation. Is my
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).
:) So relax. Just giving my opinion.
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!
"Sufferin' succotash."
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.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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:
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.
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.
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.
-DICATATOR DEMANDS BACK PAY FROM BAKER
... that Kuwait is not associated with America."
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
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."
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.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I've been a little confused about this one--exactly *which* rights has the Attorney General taken from you?
Sad, really...
(And some people around here think Fox News is biased... :P)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
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!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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.
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.
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.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
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)
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
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.
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.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Now go and convince your own president you're right.
- 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.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.
He wears a beret, likes mistresses, and surrenders without firing a shot.
Not a sentence!
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.
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
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.
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...
... oh, wait.
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
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
StoneCypher is Full of BS
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.
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.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
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.
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.
Time makes more converts than reason
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.
The Euro soared to 2x the USD
Errr... No.
Please, please, plese, check your facts before posting.
Thanks.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
A few points here that you seem to be either in error on, or putting words into my mouth on.
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.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
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.
You should be watching The Reward Channel.
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
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!
what?
here's the link
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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.
Like what I said? You might like my music
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?
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.
... will the 600 soldiers who captured him will get their $41,666.67 share of the $25M reward money????
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...
My site
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?
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
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.
The power of Christ compiles you!
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.
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?
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
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.
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.
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.
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.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
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.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
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.
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.
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.
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...with all your commenting you've now put a ruthless dictator into the Slashdot hall of fame.
I am NaN
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.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
"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.
"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.
"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.