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South Park Creators Given Signed Photo of Saddam Hussein
Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park, were given a very special gift by US marines: a signed photo of Saddam Hussein. During his captivity, the marines forced Saddam to repeatedly watch the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut, which shows him as the boyfriend of Satan. Stone said, "We're very proud of our signed Saddam picture and what it means. It's one of our biggest highlights."
Had no respect for Saddam, but any lingering respect I has for the US Military just died. What a grotesque and reprehensible institution, if this is what they do behind closed doors - the fact that they do worse (torture legally defined in the US as 'anything less than organ failure') doesn't mean that something like this isn't just plain and simply slimy.
I recall watching this movie in the theatre, in some strange life imitating art moment a grandmother brought her grandsons and apparently their friends in for the wonderful cartoon..... Making it through the bribe a drunk for movie tickets and the earthen root heart transplant she decided it was just too much when Saddam and the Devil had their musical bit with a floppy dildo...
Up until now I felt that nothing would top that in regards to this movie.....
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
Always wondered if Saddam knew about the movie before he died. It does make you wodner what he thought about his cultural status in the US;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I think the 9/11 Bombers should be let go
:|
Odds are it affirmed his view of America. Somehow I suspect Saddam lacked the understanding of American culture to even process the nuances of why we would find invading Canada funny. Of course, Saddam didn't have a concept of friendship either, so the whole "punch you buddy on the arm" thing probably whistled right past him.
I'm sure the next Geneva convention will incorporate a South Park rule denying the use of raw stoopidititude as torture.
As for being fucked by the devil, Saddam already has done business with the Bush family. He's suffered far worse.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Real torture would be making him watch the last few seasons of The Simpsons.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Kim is known to be a voracious consumer of American pop culture.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
well done america, another reason to gain respect from the world
Whether he deserved it or not according to you or me or whoever, it's not for the US military to decide what he does and does not deserve, much less force a prisoner to do something they would obviously find very offensive, and to a muslim that would probably amount to psychological abuse, much less again and again.
He was a captured prisoner, the head of state of a sovereign nation (not that the Bushites believe that exists), tyrant or not, it's up to the Iraqis or the world court to decide his punishment and fate, not the guy holding the key to the cell that personally enjoys every second of it.
It is reprehensible and slimy, and I'm totally not surprised by it in the least!
Just look at the average type of egotistical macho jackoff that end up the in army or marines and it explains itself.
No offense to anybody that is or was in the military (some of my best friends have been), but I'm sure you can think of quite a few people that fit the bill, and if you can, you don't qualify as one of them.
The runcible rhythm of ravenous raisins rolled through the rookery rambling and raving.
...we were supposed to be the good guys?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Stone, 37, said both he and Parker, 39, were most proud of the signed Saddam photo, given to them by the US Army's 4th Infantry Division.
But then again it states in the summary of the article that they recieved the photo from the Marines. So which is it?
He could have been satan himself, but it still doesn't change the fact that you should treat others as yourself. A civilisation will be judged according to how it treats its enemies and the powerless. It's easy to treat powerful friends well. At the time of his incarceration, Hussein was both powerless and an enemy. Epic fail by the US marines.
"Nya nya nya nya nya, you are a fag and the devil's butt monkey" - It's not really adult behaviour is it, and certainly not the behavior of a country that likes to think they are a world leader.
Take the high moral ground guys, don't play childish games like this and maybe the rest of the world might respect you.
Let's hope that the soldiers who did this are brought up on disciplinary charges.
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
^ Fixed that for you.
Oh, was that my outside voice?
I hardly ever post comments like this, but the parent of this post does not deserve negative moderation. The recent worship of the military by one segment of the population is a harbinger of fascism. Soldiers are still human beings, and by criticizing them when they err, we keep them honest and preserve both their honor and the honor of our country.
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy for sure, but that whole shredder thing was a classic example of an inflammatory story that is later proved false in the run up to a war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/feb/25/iraq.iraqandthemedia
Take the high moral ground guys, don't play childish games like this and maybe the rest of the world might respect you.
The ones who give a crap about decorum, dignity, world respect, and well, not being jackasses on the international stage are not the ones who did this. America is just like any other large group of people: there are some idiots, there are a lot of people who know better. It's a mistake to blame the whole group for something a few individuals did. So... quit judging us for the actions of a few immature soldiers and we won't judge you for (insert country-specific national disgrace here).
The slightly conservative leaning duo, if they had any moral integrity...
I'm very liberal, and find southpark annoying the same way I'd imagine conservatives find Jon Stewart annoying, but saying they have no moral integrity is off. They don't share your morals. That should not be taken as a sign that they have NO morals.
Except when this group twice votes into power people who they know damn well will be shamelessly and relentlessly brutal. Shame on us all, as a people, for allowing a small group of thugs to pillage this nation and its reputation for the past eight years.
I think most people don't know just how bad Saddam was...
He also tried to invade Canada. And not only was he in a relationship with the DEVIL, but he was abusive to the devil as well.
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This has been pretty thoroughly debunked, actually:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein's_alleged_shredder
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/feb/25/iraq.iraqandthemedia
And nobody is fooled except the people who modded up your post.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
Except when this group twice votes into power people who they know damn well will be shamelessly and relentlessly brutal.
Let's keep things straight, we were talking about this incident, not the elections.
As far as Bush's elections go, yes, there was more responsibility there, but keep in mind that during the first Bush victory, most voters didn't vote for him. The second they did, but Bush vs Kerry wasn't much of a choice. And even if most americans had voted for Bush, and specifically for his warmongering ways, it's still idiotic for someone to condemn us all, including those of us who have been against Bush since before he took office.
And the United States were the ones who propped him up in there, gave him weapons, and ignored him until he was of use.
*DrugCheese rants*
That load of tripe is 'Insightful'? Looks like the 'usual' fools are out in force today.
I am very surprised to see people getting up in arms about this. Is showing a prisoner a satirical movie which mocks him really torture? Not in my book. Hell, going to a regular American prison, and potentially getting raped, for committing a non-violent crime (drug possession for instance) seems much worse than being shown potentially insulting films. Give me a fucking break.
Abu Gharab, Guantanamo, Secret CIA Prisons: all very bad, very wrong, and very embarrassing for the US. Actual torture (waterboarding, sleep deprivation etc.): also very bad, wrong, and embarrassing. It is not a human right not to be mocked. Especially if the person you are mocking is the kind of person who would have had you killed had you done so in his old dictatorship. "How dare they hurt Saddam's feelings like that! What a deplorable, inhumane atrocity!" Oh the shame...
If this article is what made you embarrassed to be an American, then you obviously haven't been paying attention. Yeesh.
Except when this group twice votes into power people who
were very slightly 'less worse' than the alternative.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Yes, the political activists say one thing, the witness say another - http://www.indict.org.uk/witnessdetails.php?target=Qusay
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
Oh for mod points. That's the most insightful AC post I have read in a long long time.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
"Nya nya nya nya nya, you are a fag and the devil's butt monkey" - It's not really adult behaviour is it, and certainly not the behavior of a country that likes to think they are a world leader.
One might even say that is wasn't very Christian of them to do that.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Political activists say one thing, eye witnesses say another. http://www.indict.org.uk/witnessdetails.php?target=Qusay
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
Oh, stop it already. The "they're all the same" meme is both pernicious and false. I don't know how any thinking person could claim after these eight disastrous years, there's no substantive difference between the parties. However flawed Gore and Kerry may have been, they at least wouldn't have ignored the rule of law and run the country like a kleptocracy. We should count ourselves lucky if we get excellence, but we should at least demand competence.
If you don't care about politics, the only people elected will be the ones who don't care about you. Indifference toward elections by the general public just enables (and encouraged) politicians to cater to special interest groups at the expense of the general welfare. That's not good for anyone.
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It's okay when we do it. We're the good guys, right? The designers of America's Army were unwittingly deep when they made the player's team always show up as the United States.
Thank you. How we treat bad people is not about them, it is about us. Saddam deserves to suffer for his crimes. But when we surrender to the bloodthirsty urge for vengeance (which can be satisfying, even - as in this case - fun), it is ourselves we corrupt. Saddam does not matter: he is beyond redemption. It is we who matter. If we treat the foulest human beings with a level of decency (decorum, seriousness), then we make it easy to respect each other. If, on the other hand, we give in to our baser instincts, we lay the groundwork for lashing out selfishly whenever it feels good.
Want to respect Saddam's victims? Then prosecute and punish him with all the seriousness, formality, and consideration you can muster. The kind of immature self-gratification described here ultimately dismisses those he tortured and killed. Their persecutor was an evil man, not a clown.
(P.S.: Just in case someone misreads me, I loved the movie. There's a big difference between that and the legitimate serious acts of the American people's political representatives and government.)
Note that the chair of Indict is Ann Clywd, Labour MP and strong supporter of the war on Iraq.
April Fool's Day was on April 1st, not April 7th. Or is this a serious article?
Everybody knows that they're libertarians. Actually I can't think of any more vocal libertarians in the USA after Ron Paul.
You just got troll'd!
No-one deserves abuse while in custody. Especially abuse so petty, childish, and vindictive as that described.
If you have principles, you should stick to them--especially with someone like SH. Show him that your values actually have some substance. Pathetic.
I suppose if the shredder was really really slow, and you put a guy in feet first, it could be kind of bad. A decently fast shredder is no big deal.
Compare with burning at the stake. Compare with crucifixion. Compare with stoning. Compare with dunking. Compare with the necklace, which FYI was a burning gasoline-filled tire around the neck (hands tied or hacked off) that Nelson Mandela liked to use. Compare with what Vlad the Impaler used to do, driving greased poles into the torso via the anus. Compare with pressing.
Heck, compare with how most of us die in modern hospitals. We end up with chemotherapy, choking on fluid, with tubes rammed into every natural oriface and a few unnatural orifaces. We often suffer in agony for months.
Getting dropped into a shredder looks downright peaceful and kind by comparison, no?
They should auction it off and send the proceeds to a worthy cause in Iraq. They sure don't need the money, and it would provide a tiny bit of closure to a most despicable moment in American history.
And eye witnesses never lie, exaggerate or just don't remember what they actually saw.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Hey, where do you come from? There are still people alive that remember the US handed Saddam weapons so he'd do the dirty job of attacking the fourth largest army in the world back then (also equipped with US military hardware, but now under new management)?
I thought you guys were all rounded up somewhere. But then again, this is soooo 80s...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They also made him listen to rock and heavy metal music and eat Cheetos.
Get this Little Green Footballs bullshit out of here.
AEIOU: open-source anonymous internet currency
"How ever did they win the war?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Germans
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Considering how the Baath party of Iraq (as well as the still in power Baath party of Syria) are pan-arabic national socialist parties they are a whole lot closer to the Vichy regime (and other national socialists) than anyone else involved.
After all there is a reason why a lot of (but not absolutely all) nazis (and particularly in Germany) were against the US invasion of Iraq.
However most people wouldn't know this shit if it hit them between the eyes so your ignorance is excused.
As for principles I'll take a single botched hanging over the rather large mass graves created by Hussein any day and I know an awful lot of Iraqis agree. Perhaps you should identify which side you're actually on? The people patting you on your back might not be the kind of people you would want to be associated with if you like to think of yourself as a righteous or principled individual.
If you don't get it go read Orwell's political non-fictional commentary.
I think you'll find that 'necklacing' was basically the result of 'kangaroo courts'/'mob justice' and mainly occured during the late 80s. These would be the same 80s where Nelson Mandela was in a prison cell, so I'm suspecting he has a pretty sound alibi.
His wife at the time Winnie, however is an evil ****. I seem to remember she had her 'football team' of goons, who were alleged to have been involved with all manner of enforcement/infighting within the ANC at the time. I believe she also condoned the use of necklacing for collaborators.
Cartoons have been a tool of propaganda for about as long as they exist. Take all the WW2 comics, from Bugs Bunny fighting and making fun of Japanese soldiers instead of Elmer Fudd or Donald Duck in the infamous Der Fuehrer's Face. Sure, that was as much propaganda as that Southpark Episodes (and the movie). It makes waging war easier when you see, in a comical setting, that your enemy is something despicable, horrible, and generally wrong.
I just couldn't imagine these movies being shown after the war to the prisoners in Nuernberg. Or even the Tenno. It was propaganda, it was supposed to boost moral at home, and when the war was over it was over.
What happened to decency? Isn't it enough to hang people in a mock trial after you beat them? And don't come with the question whether he "deserves" it. I don't frankly care. It's not about Saddam. It's about your own set of morals and decency. I know it's something I wouldn't do because I would feel like I did something wrong.
A war isn't over until it's over in the head. I'm quite glad, as an European, that the US didn't have the same revenge and hate mindset back after WW2. I like the US, and I enjoy the idea that I can go there and consider the country a 'friendly' nation towards mine. I guess I wouldn't be so lucky if the war didn't end in their, and our, heads in 45.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Bullshit. There's no way in hell that actually happened. I'm gonna have to say that the UK newspaper pulled this one out of their asses.
Why the hell has this been modded as "flamebait"???
Every time someone makes even the smallest bit of bad publicity for the american soldiers (ok, i admit, this one isn't very discrete), it gets modded down...
Damn, stop worshipping your army inconditionally and start critically examining what's wrong, what's good, and what can be changed to make your army truly a great army...
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice - Grey's Law
... you should treat others as yourself.
If I were in prison, I would enjoy watching South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. Oh wait, you mean we can't judge things by such an oversimplified moral standard? Shiiiit. Now who's the epic fail?
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
You're forgetting that Iraqis can only be believed if they're talking about American atrocities, not when they talk about their own. It might undermine the talking points!
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
yeah! and he had weapons of mass destruction! we have evidence!
this "people-shredder" you talk about was a lie, it was propaganda, that you fell for!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/feb/25/iraq.iraqandthemedia
IMHO, Saddam was almost as evil as George W Bush!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Watch your back mate:
, but it still doesn't change the fact that you should treat others as yourself.
"... one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change,..." Douglas Adams
He employed an industrial plastic shredder to shred alive anyone who spoke out after having the wife raped... Hated people were fed in head first, really hated people were fed in feet first.
Wow, are you really so gullible to believe the propganda the American media spout as truth? This story is so very false. As false in fact as the WMDs America used as justification to start a war.
and nobody is fooled except the usual fools
I have rarely seen a more apt signature.
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
Oh bullshit. Next you'll say it's the Chinese's fault that they supported Mao Ze Dong, who then committed atrocities, and the Russians' fault for supporting Stalin and Lenin, and the Germans' fault for letting Hitler get into power... I'm sure I could go on until we've got populations in every country supporting idiots/tyrants into power. If people knew the true consequences of their votes/support, which they rarely do, through lack of perceptiveness, laziness, or ignorance, then the world would be a lot better.
Give the USians some credit, they have voted in a much better leader now. Obama has even apologised for the actions of Bush; without specifically mentioning him. I never liked American governance much, not even Clinton - though I admit he achieved a lot. But all this U.S. hate is childish. Just as childish as the hate fests between China, Korea, Japan. Grow the fuck up. People are pretty much the same everywhere, different cultures yes, with some cultures being more accepting of differences, and such, but in the end, humans anywhere are all pretty darned similar; and most capable of the most horrendous things. Even most of the people here, though they'll never admit it. But there are plenty of otherwise good people who have committed atrocities in the name of their country/religion/ideology/family, any group really. And we are also capable of unfathomable kindness - hopefully that wins through in the end - but it will not happen with so much hate flying around.
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
We (the US) pretty much pissed on international law the way we treated another head of state (regardless of what you think of Saddam). Throw in the kangaroo court we used to get him executed without the troublesome details of how we helped him establish a chemical weapons program coming out. Yes, the same one we chastised him for and used as a rationale for our bogus invasion.
I would expect the two self-important dolts who created Southpark to relish in the acknowledgment without using their own eye for satire to see what's so very wrong with the whole situation.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I wish the worst thing that happened to Americans when they're being held captive by enemy organizations/states was just being forced to watch a movie. Seriously, if I heard that some American prisoner had been captured by terrorists and forced to 'watch a movie' I would shrug that off and ask if anything actually serious had happened. What has happened to perspective anymore?
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
This is so unbelievably wrong I don't even know where to start. You should treat other like they deserve.
Global warming is a cube.
Alright - I know anybody familiar with UK politics is sniggering at that.
There was no shredder, there were no WMDs, Saddam was still a bad man - people just seize upon whatever anecdotal evidence they hear that happens to fit with their pre-existing views.
Whilt you might feel The Guardian has a bias, they do raise some rather good points - basically there is no evidence at all, and what there is seems quite fantastically suspect.
And that was a strategic error, because?
Global warming is a cube.
I have to say I am impressed by slashdot posters and mods in this story. It seems that there are quite a few Americans around who are not brainwashed by all the fear mongering and fake patriotism of the last few years (I'm assuming from the time story was posted - evening in US, very early morning in Europe) that many of the posters are from the US. As for Matt Stone and Trey Parker, they should be embarrassed by their reaction to the news that their cartoon was used as a tool to humiliate a defeated enemy who was on his way to execution anyway. They should have refused to accept the picture, not claim to be proud of it.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
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All Dictators should receive the same treatment.
Kim Jong-il should be forced to watch "Team America" and sign a cockroach.
"Americaaa, fuck, yeah ..."
Stereotyping an entire organization as "egotistical macho jackoff[s]" is not the rational path away from worship. It is one thing to criticize an act, but to attack a person (ad hominem fallacy) or worse a group of people (negative stereotyping) turns this into exactly what it was moderated: hypocritical flamebaiting.
I really like how he says roughly that if somebody in the military knows of people that could have that sign hung on them then they themselves are safe. It's like saying most Jews are miserly fascists, but if you happen to be a self-hating Jew and agree, you're safe. People are right to mod that down.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
So what about Bush then, responsible for thousands of deaths in OTHER countries?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It's not really adult behaviour is it, and certainly not the behavior of a country that likes to think they are a world leader.
;-)
Too right.
There are an increasing number of cultural messages, and messengers, in US media the subtext of which is "it is OK and even desirable to act like you are ten years old all of the time", the framing of Howard Stern as a folk hero being the canonical example.
I don't think anyone faults the fans of South Park, Howard Stern, etc. for finding them amusing. The problem is that immaturity is increasingly finding a place in public life. Apparently these soldiers think it's OK to act like ten year olds while acting in an official capacity, such that they don't see anything wrong with bragging about it to the media. It will be interesting to see whether their superiors think so too.
And, while this particular incident hardly qualifies as "torture", there does seem to be an immaturity continuum on the part of US actors and decision makers in the Iraq war that starts here, runs through Abu Ghraib, and all the way up to the White House, where apparently torture was not only planned and condoned, but micromanaged, with high level participants apparently doing so at least in part to gain personal satisfaction from the act. There's no credible evidence that any of it was effective, and plenty of evidence that it was counterproductive, but apparently, in times of crisis, the appropriate response is not to act like adults and address the problem effectively, but to act like ten year olds and pull the wings off of flies because we can.
And, while there has certainly been a fair bit of outrage over all of this (underreported) in the US, there are plenty of people who thinks that it is all right and good. It would be interesting to know the correlation between South Park/shock jock/reality show fandom and the condoning of torture among the American public.
But don't get too cocky in your own country. One of America's biggest exports is its media. It's like I tell my kids: what we are, you will be.
#!
One doesn't exclude the other.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
A new method of capital punishment had better surpass ancient and medieval imperial practices; it would be truly better if it also surpassed current methods.
How shall we judge this?
I'm torn between the desire to be cheap, and the desire for maximum deterrant value. Either way, current methods fall short of traditional methods.
Being cheap, we probably should strap them down and harvest organs. We let first-year surgical students practice. We test experimental drugs, surgery, and medical devices. Never purposely cause death; sooner or later it'll happen. The remains get used for biodiesel and fertilizer production. Call it "giving back to society". I think I like this option best, but...
For maximum deterrant value, we choose something painful and degrading that everybody finds to be horrifying and embarassing. Pay particular attention to religeous and sexual fears. You could inject pig blood, feed a person his own balls, convince vultures to start on him early, drown him in bodily waste, etc.
Did you have something else in mind? Would you prefer something expensive that lacks deterrent value? If so, why, and why even bother with punishment in that case?
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They are actually Libertarians, not Republicans. Or did you miss the all the Pro-Stem Cell Research, Pro-Drug Legalization undertones?
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
If the terrorists' treatment of prisoners is your standard, then you are doing very well indeed. Let's see what other enlightened comparisons we can find:
USA economy - what recession, we are doing waaaay better than Burundi
Awful healthcare system - pfft Somalia's is no match for ours
Torturing prisoners - hey Genghis Khan used to do it too
Right wing religious groups influencing science policy - hey, not as bad as Saudi Arabia
Domestic spying - try North Korea, you America hater
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
If evolution fashioned us in such a way as to still feel the drive to be swinging from the trees, hurling our [feaces] at each other, does it follow that it's what we should be doing?
That's what we do here on /. but it is way better than throwing high explosives and depleted uranium at each other.
How is this insightful? A guy asks you an honest question and you reply that he's missing a screw in your head. How is that anything other than trolling / flamebait?
Just when I thought I could relax, and could put the dark years of the Bush interregnum behind me, I read this.
As an American, I feel sick. No love lost for Saddam and he certainly won't be missed, but humiliating him like this during his last days/weeks of life, forcing him to give autographs, watch a humiliating movie, etc. is beyond repugnant. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it violated the Geneva convention in some way, but even if it does not, it certainly violates every code of conduct and ethical norm we (wrongly and naively) expect from our armed forces and our government.
Absolutely sickening.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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I think most people don't know just how bad Saddam was...
Yeah... among his atrocities, he united his splintered nation, started free public education and literacy programs, guaranteed health care for citizens, modernized the country's infrastructure, eliminated the Islamic legal system in favor of a secular one, extended women's rights, and took back the oil fields from foreign corporations that were playing robber-baron.
That guy should've really been tortured. I mean, geeze, literacy and women's rights. Just think how much trouble those've caused the western world.
If France had invaded to free us from the tyranny of Abe Lincoln, how would we feel? I mean, he suspended habeas corpus, imprisoned thousands with no trial, and allowed his generals to burn entire cities.
Anyone who's seen the notorious Afghanistan episode of South Park will find this story all too plausible. 'If you're not cheering for the team, get out of the stadium' indeed. As Butters would say, 'Just what team is this exactly anyway?' I didn't know that Saddam was in US captivity before his untidy lynching by the Iraqi puppet government. So much for Iraq being 'sovereign' eh?
This is disgusting. Independently of how evil Saddam Hussein is/was, the US military have shown they are the same if not worse.
Damn right, just ask the Kuwaitis.
No? You didn't serve your country yet live with in its borders defended by the egotistical macho jackoffs you so despise?
It is odd isn't it, that those who decry how others do their job the most would never do that job themselves or indeed work for the wages associated with those jobs.
The US gets the army that it is willing to pay for. Not its defence budget, but what it pays the soldiers. If that pay only attracts people with no other choices, then you get an army that resulted not just in the Iraq war, but vietnam and korea and all the small conflicts in between.
In WW2, US soldiers where volunteers from all walks of live and they were heroes. Post WW2 only the poor serve on the frontline because that is the only choice they got, often told to either serve or end up in jail in the days of vietnam. Little wonder that given guns and no control they went out of control.
Oddly enough, there was a time when only the best of a nation could serve. There was a spot for rifraf in the abslotute lowest rank, but anything from a sergeant up either quality before they went in, or shaped by the army.
There are many things wrong with the current US system, but it all started when the fast majority are not willing to serve anymore yet vote for politics that lead to war.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
A British politician, despite the UK having no death penalty, actually did some research into execution methods which was televised as a documentary.
He concluded that the most humane method available was hypoxia, after undergoing a hypoxic experience in a barometric chamber used for Air Force training. The experience was not unpleasant, but euphoric.
In terms of equipment, you just need a mask and a cylinder of nitrogen. It's virtually impossible mis-administer. It's cheap. It's fast - it takes around 15 seconds.
Various figures in the US prison system just weren't interested, on the grounds that the prisoner wouldn't suffer enough. Despite the US constitutional prohibition on "cruel" punishment, it wasn't considered fair to the families of victims to end lives using this humane method.
I'm not in favour of the death penalty, but as Mr Portillo said : -
"As long as the state is going to kill people I think it has the obligation to do it in the way that least resembles murder."
Nail on the head with the '10 year old' stuff.
The thing is, many of these soldiers are no more than 10 y/o when it comes to ability of critical thinking and moral judgment. It's not a surprise, consider how young they are when they are recruited into the army or navy etc.
But it's not only about their physical youth, it is about their mental and psychological youth. They are not even allowed to drink/smoke by most state laws yet and those are exactly the people who are most desirable when it comes to recruiting. They will obey commands, they will not question much, they will get off on highly organized 'sport' that the military became. Killing people is really only an extension of their 'military training' video-game like life - high tech rifles, high tech planes and subs and missiles and bombs and communications and everything, including their food rations and body armor.
The real test of maturity will then come not on the battlefield - this is just another game and your objective is not to die first of-course, it's still a game for adrenaline junkies, but on their attitudes in these situations.
They are 10 year old minds locked in 20 year old bodies and given jobs, that should really be handled by mature people - doling out life/death. They are pushed into combat by gray haired politicians/bankers/owners of countries, who do not wish to sacrifice their lives, they wish to profit from wars and they do profit from wars.
Mature people will fight when push comes to shove, when they have to protect their families/themselves/land. 10 year old soldiers - these are perfect tools in hands of those who want to take over land / lives of others.
You can't handle the truth.
The reason we see soldiers acting "like 10 year olds" is because they have a lot in common with 10 year olds. The typical grunt in any branch of the service is in his late teens or early 20s. Their indoctrination program strips them down to nothing and rebuilds them as a new type of person, namely, a soldier. These are not college educated thinkers who are taught and encouraged to do a lot of abstract thinking and moral judgement. These are people who are created from the bottom up to follow orders. Their boot camps do not force them to do menial, mindless tasks perfectly because underwear folding is a matter of life and death, they do it because we want soldiers to carry out orders that they do not understand flawlessly and without question.
If you want someone to blame, point that finger at the next couple of officers up the command chain. Those people are college educated and are trained to carry out legitimate orders in such a way that is both legal and moral. The soldiers are little more than children in an unruly household. Problems like this happen because the people in positions of supervisory power created an environment that allowed them to happen, and should be (but rarely are) held accountable.
Next you'll say it's the Chinese's fault that they supported Mao Ze Dong, who then committed atrocities, and the Russians' fault for supporting Stalin and Lenin, and the Germans' fault for letting Hitler get into power...
Of course it was. However, the Germans have certainly admitted as much, and have gone through a very painful process of dealing with it. In the case of China and Russia, the majority of the population probably didn't support their rulers.
In the case of the US (and Denmark), the populations voted the war criminals in, and then reelected them.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
I can't believe how many of you are crying about 'what we did to Saddam'. You all need to remember what culture this man is a part of. There is no question that he was gonna die at someone's hands for all of his murder; far be it from us to impose our high-minded cultural values on them. The truth is that Saddam got off easy with a botched hanging. I have read comments from outraged Muslims who wanted Saddam to die in an ancient, more 'traditional' manner for one who has wronged so many: To be placed in a pit, and have everyone who was wronged by him walked past and spit on him until he drowns. He killed enough people that the survivors could have made quick work of it I bet.
You seem to have fallen victim to the history-rewriting that has taken place later in the regime of BabyBush. Iraq was invaded with the pretense that he secretly had hidden Weapons of Mass Destruction, even though no UN team was able to find them. After the invasion it turned out he really had none to speak of, so the reason for invasion was retroactively changed.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Hangings still happen in a few states. Agreed with your comment, however, it was distasteful and unnecessary what we did to Saddam.
It was necessary to silence him as fast as possible: He knew too much.
The US, especially with the likes of Rumsfeld in power, could not allow him to go into a tribunal and answer questions such as "where did you get the chemical weapons that killed as those people? The telemetry to aim those weapons?" because the answers would have undone the careful story that the administration had been constructing about him, and especially the story they have built about themselves.
You can't take the sky from me...
Who gave them the photo? Soldiers from the US Army's 4th Infantry Division or US Marines? The article states both.
That was when he was the best friend of the US or after?
Are you sure the shredder wasn't "made in USA"?
And the guys thrown off the top of a building, weren't they "dangerous communists, enemies of America"?
A very good friend of the USA, General Augusto Pinochet, used to throw prisoners off from helicopters over the Atlantic. Saddam, at least saved on heli fuel, but the Pinochet method was less messy.
Oh, did I mention the guys thrown off the helis were "dangerous communists, enemies of America"? At least the CIA black list delivered to Pinochet said so... Did I mention a similar list containing hundreds of thousands of targets was delivered to Saddam, also?
Yeah, Fox News, the great source of truth! When I was in the US I used to watch if to get some laughs. But, better thinking, some millions of people take it seriously, and that's not fun at all...
There's a Democrat in the White House who's in the process of making his own blocks on this chart look like the freakin' Sears Tower in comparison to what's there now. While he searches for even more ways to increase the National debt by trillions of dollars (that's right -- his bars won't even *fit* on this chart), his Treasury Secretary can't even pay his fucking taxes. Paradise under the Democrats indeed.
Ain't nothing like a good lynching... What is deserved and what not is to be decided by *courts*, not by soldiers.
What IS the exact count for each? In terms of sheer body count, there's a pretty fair chance that the US/UK coalition killed more Iraquis than Saddam did during his entire reign. Of course, the coalition killed them in order to liberate them, so that's OK.
I piss off bigots.
Sticking to the topic at hand....
There are ten trillion things worse one can do to someone than forcing them to watch a movie insulting to them multiple times. Really, there are.
And if the situation had been reversed and George Bush had been captured by Saddam, you can sure as hell bet George would have been treated ten trillion times worse than Saddam was by the US. I believe that without a doubt in my mind. So paint it as you will, the treatment of Saddam wasn't handled by prim and proper Catholic schoolboys....but I'm sure it was several orders of magnitude better than what the Republican Guard would have done to Bush (now there's a somewhat ironic statement).
I expect much protestation and 'but we have to be nice to everyone' type of responses. You know what? No, we don't, and no, we weren't. It's called war for a reason, ladies and gentlemen....just or unjust, it was war. Last I checked, nice things don't happen in a war.
I think the point was that there are still American soldiers in harm's way, and that a story clearly intended to disrespect American soldiers (by noting the apparent torture tactics used on Saddam Hussein) is inappropriate.
So it's ok to disparage soldiers if they aren't being shot at?
Never underestimate the potential of Human stupidity. -Heinlein
Flamebait seems more accurate.
I think the 9/11 Bombers should be let go
:|
No, it doesn't make any sense, but not for the ostensible reason: There is a lot of evidence that many of the hijackers are still alive and free.
Only his tendency toward a dazed stupor prevented him from screaming aloud.
really. even forcing the man to watch a movie repeated times - like Ludovico's technique in Clockwork Orange.. then being happy about having a hanged mans signed photo, after he was forced to watch your movie.. man, I respected the South Park guys, but this is sick
how this makes news for nerds?
torture? imprisonment? not unless its related to virtualized AIX and cobol middleware management...
matt and trey?
they need to be developers, researchers, or technical experts...otherwise this is more of the same worthless bullshit i can hear whenever i like on FOX news.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Correction: We ostensibly invaded Iraq to ... set up a supply line for it's resources..
Whew, thanks for clearing that up for me. I guess it's a really good thing we got all those resources flowing or else oil/gas prices may have spiked, er, spiked higher, or something like that. I guess they just haven't managed to bury that super-secret Iraq-to-DC oil pipeline yet.
Government - If you think the problems we create are bad, you should see our solutions!
That's really rich that you'd post that, considering the Democratically controlled Congress just passed this travesty:
Full Report
Summary Graph
In dollar amounts instead of GDP Percent
The Democrats can no longer cry about the budget. Now that they're in control, it's three or four times as bad.
Given that your other graph is about how 'unfair' the United States is (What do you think life is, Kindergarten?), I'm pretty sure you're fine with any government spending, as long it's of the redistributionist variety.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Yeah, he makes some really good hotdogs.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
And neither do political activists. I'll have to give the benefit of the doubt to the people that were actually there instead of those looking to discredit a government for the selfish purposes.
I was in Kuwait in 1990 and 1991 during the Gulf War and saw firsthand the atrocities that Hussein caused. He deserved far worse than a movie and a hanging.
it reminds me of that fantastic movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/
George W. Bush.
The "W" stands for "war criminal".
There are some of the guys [US Military] who guarded Saddam who said that he liked to joke with them and seemed to be ok for being a dictator and mass murderer. I wonder if he had enough of a sense of humor to shrug off the South Park insults or if he thought the rest of it was ok. I'm not sure how well he spoke English so much of the humor may have been lost on him.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
> Except when this group twice votes into power people who they
> know damn well will be shamelessly and relentlessly brutal.
> Shame on us all, as a people, for allowing a small group of thugs
> to pillage this nation and its reputation for the past eight years.
Don't blame the American people for electing him the first time. The first time a majority of the American people voted for the other guy. Blame five politically-appointed judges for allowing a travesty of democracy to occur. The second time, however, the American people did vote for the guy and have no-one to blame but themselves.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
>Apparently these soldiers think it's OK to act like ten year olds
>while acting in an official capacity, such that they don't see
>anything wrong with bragging about it to the media. It will be
>interesting to see whether their superiors think so too.
The worrying thing is, what happens in a couple of decades when some of the soldiers who think like this have worked their way through the ranks and start running the military.
Disclaimer: I have family members in the military. Most people in the military are intelligent, competent adults who do not behave in this way. But, some are not, and they are the ones who are causing the problems.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Everyone outside the USA. The USA have nuclear weapons and ignore the sovereignty of other countries, which means their operatives can do pretty much everything everywhere if they feel like it. And those very persons are not-just-slightly unprofessional. Holy shit.
You know, after the USSR is gone the USA seem pretty determined to become the scariest country on the planet. You have the biggest guns and (at least lately) a track record of unprofessionalism, sloppy intel work and bad decisions based on both the unprefessionalism and the sloppy intel. That makes me as a European very uncomfortable being a mere 6,000 kilometers away from you guys.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Bush: "I find it very interesting that when the heat got on, you dug yourself a hole, and you crawled in it."
A couple years earlier, a small group of murderers with a handful of commercial jets had managed to immediately drive Cheney into a hole^H^H^H^H^H undisclosed location and Bush into underground shelter. A couple years later, it just took a single report of an off-course plane to send Bush underground again. Was it so tactically unreasonable to expect Saddam to hide from a hundred thousand men armed with the best military technology in the world?
Even if this was propaganda for the Iraqis' benefit, it seems like condescending propaganda. Go for the root of the problem, and persuade people that a strongman ruler is illegitimate if he isn't democratically supported and/or if he violates human rights. Don't just cop out and try to paint yourself as the stronger man.
What happened in Iraq and what happened to Saddam was wrong and puts he US on that same level as many of those countries we have always criticized - torture, kangaroo courts are par for the course for dictators and banana republics and America should be so much better than this.
- and this kind of shit? Seriously! Wow..that's really freedom in action, that's really going to matter...I am sure that there are a lot of professional soldiers who think this shit is beneath everything they've put on the line.
How can our country be an example of anything? Our people have been dumbed down and are pacified by television and mindless shallow bullshit, consumerism, etc. At least the French still take to the street and actually make their government change course when they do something that is an offense to the people.
No matter where you discuss this sort of opinion, (and Slashdot is much better than most places as far as the intelligence of the community) there will always be a group of people who say some ignorant shit like "you hate America," or something to that effect.
I think if people hate America they are loving all of this kind of stuff that has happened in the past 9 years - they are loving seeing this country lose all credibility and any moral high ground the country may have once had.
It's just sad and pathetic..
The slightly conservative leaning duo [...]
Have you ever watched the show? I think you missed the humor if you have...
Pfft, what the hell do you think, that the US military are any worse than any other? But congrats for going from "showing a movie to a captured dictator" to "omg nukular end of the world", Lewis Black might have a job for you. By the way I'm European too, but I'm not acting like a pussy.
You just got troll'd!
If I were in prison, I would enjoy watching South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.
Where you're one of the characters made fun of? (fun being in this case something that you would find quite demeaning)
It is what it is.
First off the original article is so inconsistent as to be laughable. First it is Marines then the Army. Second there is no reliable evidence or report that Saddam was even shown the movie, much less repeatedly. The original article certainly doesn't offer any and the only indication is Trey saying he was told they did it. But /.ers will still throw a hissy fit about something that probably didn't happen in the first place and if it did is so secondary and trivial compared to all that did happen that it makes me want to puke.
Gee, I don't remember Americans having a problem with Saddam when WE WERE PAYING HIM with our Tax Dollars to fight Iran for us.
How about embracing the teachings of Jesus? He who is without sin, cast the first stone. Didn't the United States kill 1000's of it's own people indescriminately? Oh, you must have forgotten. They were called "Native Americans", or at the time... "Indians". And we're a country that for generations endorsed SLAVERY.
Imagine, if you will.. how this country would be seen if in some kind of Star Trek "Mirror Mirror" universe, we were still doing that to this day, or that American from the 1800's was suddenly catapulted into the year 2000...
Is it really our place to stick our more developed moralities onto the rest of the undeveloped world? Is Saddam any better than Thomas Jefferson, a man who owned slaves and often raped the women (how many Black Americans are part of the Jefferson lineage?)?
So, while you sit on your high horse dispatching justice as you see fit, tell me how you think this country is so much better than Iraq that we had the right to go in there and destroy everything so that we could make life even more miserable for the average Iraqi, but now they are "free"...
At what point in your delusion do you realise that all developing nations go through a period, often lasting 100 years or more, where things are shitty? And just because we got past that period, somehow we assume that everyone else has gotten past that period as well?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I expected the army was about discipline. A soldier incapable of resisting base urges like that reflects badly on his organization. How many other soldiers like that exist in the best-equipped army with the most devastating nuclear capacity in the world?
The USA are capable of setting the world on fire. I'd expect people with that kind of power to be the very example of professionalism. Their sense of self-preservation should already dictate that.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Why not? There are some people - serial criminals - that will *never* reform their ways. The current choices are to imprison them for life (expensive, and generally not in what one would call choice conditions either) or to have done with them. Personally, I'd say that to avoid "revenge killings" perhaps it just best to do it in a closed room with a little gas, as mentioned above, or in the same way one might put down a deranged or ill pet.
Of course, a third choice might be to put them in some form of imprisoned labor camp, so that their productivity at least pays for the cost of their imprisonment. The problems with that are:
a) As it may become profitable to imprison people, corruption will lead to more people imprisoned or kept in prison (Shawshank style).
b) If you know you're never going to get out or profit from your labors, what reason is there work? Maybe a small in-prison incentive system might be needed, but this is again subject to corruption.
Since when has /. tried to descend to the level of gutter journalism? And WTF is this to do with "news for nerds, stuff that matters."?????
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
Oh, stop it already. The "they're all the same" meme is both pernicious and false.
And, more to the point, even if they were exactly the same, why would you still not want to fire Bush after his first term?!?
But having two canidates who both agree that the unnecessary war was necessary, there's not a lot of room to show your displeasure with going to a pointless war.
The official State Department position is you dont publically humilate captured enemies. Its is couter-productive. Its one of those unenforced polcies however.
First of all, if you think "hardcore conservative" is about noun use, then you're really out in the woods when it comes to politics, that's actually more of a liberal bad habit. Conservatives are the ones who don't care about being politically correct.
Second, that's no justification to be inaccurate and sound like an idiot. Calling someone amoral because they don't agree with your morals, now THAT is a conservative bad habit (one that they don't all do by the way.)
They are actually Republicans of my same ilk. I never had a term for my socially progressive Republicanism until I discovered Trey Parker. The term is "South Park Republicans" (very similar to RINOs). As far as Libertarians, I've heard several interviews where they staunchly deny being Libertarians (one I attended live here at the University of Texas). Like many of us, they have some Libertarian leaning views, but they've stated they think Libertarians are just a wee bit out of touch with reality.
Palin and her pals like to ignore the Katie Couric interview, where the world quickly learned what real intelligence is. Anyone who can't answer a simple question like "What do you read on a daily basis?" is either phenomonally incurious or just as stupid, and to lash out with nonsense like "Alaska gets the same papers as the rest of the country" after three tries to get a simple answer to a simple question -- well, they are a whackjob. Those who support said whackjob with ever more ridiculous excuses are worse.
Infuriate left and right
perhaps you'd like to expand your repertoire of righteous indignation and focus it on the crimes of saddam hussein
or perhaps you care less about principles, and more about anti-americanism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Saddam kills a kid with gas; US/UK kill a kid with a bomb. The kid is just as innocent and just as dead.
Saddam considered himself to be legitimately putting down a Kurdish rebellion. It was bullshit, but that was his claim.
The US/UK did not "slide on ice" into the war in Iraq by accident; they attacked Iraq when Iraq was no threat to them. It was aggressive war, pure and simple. They said it had something to do with WMD. That, too, was bullshit.
In other words, both sides claim legitimacy, and both sides are full of it. But who killed more people?
I piss off bigots.
Go for the root of the problem, and persuade people that a strongman ruler is illegitimate if he isn't democratically supported and/or if he violates human rights. Don't just cop out and try to paint yourself as the stronger man.
You mean, use arguments that work in the west, based on western culture, to convince Iraqis it is a bad idea to back Saddam and his Baath party?
In Arab culture a ruler is not rendered legitimate by being elected, but by being so strong nobody could topple him. To tell Iraqis that Saddam is an unelected strongman would be as effective as telling people in the US that they should no longer listen to President Obama because he lost the Mandate of Heaven.
Showing that the US is stronger than Saddam was a necessary first step in giving the democratically elected government the legitimacy it needs to rule. The second was handing Saddam over to an Iraqi court to be tried under Iraqi law and be executed by an Iraqi executioner.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
I've actually found Matt & Trey rather neutral. Their policy is to make fun of everybody equally. For every episode that makes fun of liberals, there is one that makes fun of conservatives. They are very good at playing the devil's advocate, which is what makes their shows great.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
As I read the summary to this story, it had 666 comments posted to it.
Awesome, just awesome.
I don't have any sympathy for Saddam or anger against the Southpark guys, but when you put it like that .. damn! Yeah, I guess there was a standard to uphold, and my country blew it.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
decency is alive and well
decency is applicable only to people who are likewise decent
saddam hussein does not validate as someone who deserves decency
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's not the music that is torture, it's the fact that loud music prevents a prisoner from SLEEPING.
It's sleep deprivation, a form of torture.
GPG 0x1B479C78
You're right, Saddam's trial was not up to US standards. We could have brought him to the US, and tried him in front of a US judge with US attorneys.
Instead, we let the Iraqis do it. You know, the people in whose country he committed the crimes. They used Iraqi law and Iraqi standards, and finally hanged him in accordance with their laws, not ours.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
you are too idealistic, civilizations aren't judged at all. they rise and fall, most commit horrible things, and most are structured to benefit a privileged few at the expense of the many. Western civilization certainly is designed that way, you are a serf and your work and economic transactions are done to benefit the lords, and your pious words will do nothing and mean nothing.
Before the French revolution, commoners were hanged and royalty was guillotined.
But the French revolutionists wanted everyone the be EQUAL, so they decided on "guillotines for everyone". I guess hanging Saddam was one last way to demean him in the eyes of his followers.
Interesting note, driving on the right-hand side of the road also came out of the French revolution (so Britain did the opposite).
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
people in this thread are upset at this. they resent the frat-boys-with-guns ugly american attitude on display here. however, the people upset at this are displaying a sort of hyperactive, over-the-top righteous indignation that is equally ugly, if not more so
here is my thesis for some of you: this high holy righteous indignation worn on your sleave attitude is more deadly to international relations and a civil, decent society than the ugly american frat boy with a gun. how?
if every sleight you perceive is reason to invoke extreme moral outrage, after awhile, nothing provokes extreme moral outrage. in other words, i think some of you need to reserve your easily triggered outrage for truly outrageous events. say, the genocide in darfur, or... say the us invasion of iraq? your problem is akin to the boy who cried wolf: if every little sleight is reason to go ballistic in your moral outrage, after awhile, just like the boy who cried wolf, no one listens to you anymore
you need to let the small things slide. and yes, showing saddam hussein an off color american movie is most definitely a small thing. really. that's 100% true. please accept this, or completely miss my point, and remain a truly ugly american
if you can't learn to do that, you diminish the value of your own outrage, to the point that no one listens to you, no one values your opinion. your opinion is shallow, its always the same. you're upset! you're angry! why? because saddam hussein was shown a movie! the horror! zzz. you do want people to value your judgment, right? or are you just masturbating your moral indignation for some convoluted sense of vanity? some of you really have no percetion of scale or context in what sets you off
and, to take a stab at the usa, in the name of this high holy attitude, you see it all the time domestically: lawsuits over the height of a neighbors bush. you see it in people calling 911 because their fast food order was incorrect. you see it all the time where people bring to bear far too much outrage over slight sleights on their conscience. it is a kind of immaturity on your part. yes, just as immature as frat boys with guns
some of you really need to grow a thicker skin. the phrase "ugly american" can refer to many things. frat boys with guns is one. another is this sort of thin skinned easy outrage on display in a lot of comments in this thread
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If true, as a vet, I find the Marines' behavior unprofessional and embarrassing to the uniform. I can only hope an investigation occurs, and if guilty, that the Marines responsible are made an example of.
Saddam was a shitbag, but that doesn't mean we need to lower our moral standards and professionalism.
This is true. In fact, Matt and Trey are on the record as saying (I'm just paraphrasing here from memory) - "we don't like extreme right-wingers, but we really fucking hate extreme left-wingers."
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
Sure, let's find a forum on the crimes of Saddam Hussein, and we can all discuss it there. But that's not the topic of this article. Other posters have pointed this out - Saddam could have been the devil himself, but that doesn't excuse OUR moral obligations. Nobody liked Saddam and I don't see anyone here defending his past actions, but we expect more out of our civilized people and a lot of our actions actually allowed Saddam to go out as a Martyr instead of the low-life scum that he was for murdering his own people. Hell, some of his supporters were on his side only out of fear. He ruled by fear via an iron fist, not by respect.
Changing the subject to the past crimes of Saddam Hussein and calling the poster an anti-American is just a way of side-stepping the real issue at hand.
Not everyone who disagrees with what the American government does is an anti-American, and we shouldn't have to qualify each and every statement with EVERY bad thing that everyone else has done. Nobody is saying that the U.S. is the lone bad guy on this planet and that the U.S. is the only country that can do wrong. It should go without saying that there are countries out there that do far worse on a daily basis. That still doesn't change the topic of this particular article and the argument the people here are making.
Best "String" Ever!
I've seen people who've taken shotgun blasts to the head. Their body held on for days. DAYS. All the while their brains were, literally, leaking out their ears and nose.
Sure, the person who was housed in that brain is just...gone. But the fact that the body hangs on for that long isn't pleasant, humane, or economical.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
a
fucking
movie
you do realize of course that when people wear their high holy fire and brimstone moral outrage on their sleeves, they undermine their own morality, right?
child slavery. genocide in darfur. or, since you are so good at splitting hairs: how about the us invasion of iraq? these are subjects worthy of moral outrage
but when people cry moral outrage over showing saddam hussein A MOVIE, its the same effect as the boy who cried wolf: no one listens to you anymore. you do want your moral judgments to matter in this world, right? then reserve the fire and brimstone for actions that actually REQUIRE fire and brimstone as a valid response. but if you pick up the holy hand grenade of antioch over every slight you perceive, you in effect reduce your morality to no morality at all
perspective. scale. context. people need to learn subtlety. their easy shallow outrage is just as ugly an american thing, just as immature a thing, as frat boys with guns showing saddam hussein a frat boy movie. really
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Other posters have pointed this out - Saddam could have been the devil himself, but that doesn't excuse OUR moral obligations. Nobody liked Saddam and I don't see anyone here defending his past actions, but we expect more out of our civilized people and a lot of our actions actually allowed Saddam to go out as a Martyr instead of the low-life scum that he was for murdering his own people.
And Grand Parent had said:
We (the US) pretty much pissed on international law the way we treated another head of state (regardless of what you think of Saddam).
Here's your only 'high-ground', that the swiftness of his execution allowed him to become at least partially a martyr. Your cries about OUR moral obligations rang much louder in the years that America stood by and did NOTHING about Saddam or even aided him. Saddam committed genocide, that is the MOST relevant issue regarding our moral obligation because we as human beings are obligated to stop genocide and hold responsible those who commit genocide. Your crying about infinitely smaller matters like making a genocidal dictator watch a bad movie seems kind of besides the point in that light.
Humanitarians have no right to cry about America being evil for ending the reign of a genocidal dictator, the crying and venom is deserved for how long it took them to do it.
I'm sorry, but state executions have as little in common with this as apples and Buicks.
Justice is obtained in the courtroom. Revenge may be a motivator for said justice.
The execution is about expediency. If you have a rabid dog who has attacked someone, you don't cage it and wait for it to die of old age. You make sure it can never EVER do that again. You put a bullet in it.
Any protestations of the prior two sentiments is just wangsty window dressing.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
No. The conscience is the result of tens of thousands of years of warring between the expediencies of staying alive and repression by various forms of authority (parental, social (in a broader scope than the parental), civil, ecclesiastical, etc).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
As someone who's seen Team America, let me be the first to say that would fit every definition of "cruel and unusual".
Is this a news report or a trailer for a motion picture?
If anything this just takes a jab at respect for humanity. Number one, they didn't say what constituted as "forced". I doubt they strapped his eyes open and bound him. Number two, how is this not typical of a few immature soldiers that you can find in anyone's military? I'm pretty sure that this isn't representative of the majority of soldiers (any current/ex-member can feel free to elaborate). In the end, I doubt that we will ever see a country who doesn't torture. Why? Because it's technically always up to the guys that are thousands of miles away from formal authority. And with the sense of urgency and different perspective that you build up in combat, I'm pretty sure another sense of principles develop in you than if you grew up in a highly civilized liberal neighborhood.
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I don't think they're neccessarily worse. It's bad enough that they aren't better. Great power, great respnsibility, that kind of thing. In essence I expect people who hold significant power to be more stable than average people because they can cause much more damage by screwing up.
Besides, I didn't even point out the nukes as the main problem. The nukes merely allow them to do whatever they feel like - and that's the main problem.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
When did all the geeks lose there sense of Humor??? Was it when obama got in office???? Christ people, It's funny... Laugh... U remeber how to laugh right its that thing we did that made us smile back before 9/11..... I mean really this isnt that big of a deal. I always wondered if sadama got cable and saw south park.... now I know and I laugh, I say HA!!!! HA HA!!!! Is it a grown up and mature response, eh who cares, people in american prison get butt raped, beat up while guards turn the other cheek... And yet poor Sadama had to watch the South Park movie over and over again... oh the humanity... PLEASE PEOPLE GET A EFFIN SENSE OF HUMOR...
I call bullshit. Have you even followed the trial. He used every stalling technique there is. He fired is his teams of lawyers and subsequently court appointed lawyers, he refused to recognise the court. Several former serbian army commanders testified against him. He was no where near walking out a free man. The Dutch news covered it extensively as the trial was held in The Hague. He shouldn't be modded up but down.
If you have a cup-holder, or a hand, yes. Only an idiot sticks a cup of hot coffee between their legs.
Moreover, the type of clothing she was wearing held the liquid against her skin longer as well.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I'll go slowly. There is a second sentence in my post that provides context for the first sentence quoted and questioned by the bottleman - i.e., bottleman's was not "an honest question".
Let me spell out what I meant for those literally minded. Iraq war, still on-going, is no joke, and it's asinine that slashdot post this story as an "entertainment" story.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The United States also tried to invade Canada.
Why? What changes if we didn't do this? Nothing. Zilich. zero. nada.
You aren't going to respect anyone any more or any less tomorrow. Chances are in 2 weeks you won't remember this happened. Its not like you remember on a daily basis now that he committed genocide.
While this may be in bad taste to some of you, its probably the first time you've tought about what happened in months.
Killing thousands of people and you've already forgotten, yet you come here to chastise those who haven't because they aren't doing it in a way you approve of, and you can't even come up with a good reason to disapprove other than 'bad taste'. You're calling the soldiers childish? Do you see what you wrote? Those soldiers will remember what happened for the rest of their lives, they will have to know they are the ones that have to sleep at night knowing that they've killed many people including directly contributing to Saddams death, and you call them childish for this shit?
You sir, needs some perspective.
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You should probably look at a history book if you think they are different. The only difference between them that when this started, the president was a Republican.
The democrats controlled congress during the entire time and could have stopped it at any point, but they didn't. If you think the president is the one that did this, then you have absolutely no idea how the American government works. You might also want to look at some voting history of congressmen. I realize that actually knowing what you are talking about requires effort, but I can't stand when ignorant statements like your gets modded insightful by a bunch of party pushing political morons that vote based on 'their team', err, party, rather than what the person has done or stands for.
What occurred is practically impossible without the support of the legislative branch, which was controlled by Democrats and which continued to support what was going on. While the president can get by with a short campaign, a long term war requires congressional support.
Again I say, if you think they are different, you have absolutely no clue how the American government works, and should probably stop talking about it.
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I am not so sure you have gotten past that period, as much as learned to hide it well in some cases.
At any rate, I think a lot of people in the world get very angry at the US for its high-handed assumption of morale superiority and its inherent right to shove that attitude down the throats of the rest of the world.
The US Political system is in no way superior to any other true democracy in the world. It is by no means the best system, and its tiring to hear of people treating the US Constitution as if it was handed down directly by God enshrined in a glowing white light. Sure, its a great document and contains noble sentiments, just as the US has the potential to be a great country. However, its not an inherent feature of the US, you have to keep striving for it, keep applying the rules in that document and living up to them. No mean feat I am sure.
There are other perfectly valid forms of democracy that have survived in other countries for longer than the US has existed. The English Parliamentary system for instance. They all have their faults but they are no worse or better than the US system.
Please, put an end to this Nationalistic Superiority complex. Be proud of what you have achieved but stop assuming it makes you inherently superior human beings. It gets tiring and it only makes the rest of the world hate you, not for being superior, but for being obnoxious and ignorant.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
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I like some SouthPark, sometimes its funny, a lot of times its just stupid for the sake of being stupid. Thought the movie was just an excuse to see how many times you could say the word 'Fuck' in an hour and a half and other wise sucked. Theres no such thing as a reality show, its all made up. Howard stern is a complete waste of resources on our planet and should have been tortured and hung right beside Saddam and anyone else who commits certain crimes.
There, now you have some input.
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Watching a cartoon movie is not ever going to by psychological abuse to a man they found hiding in a hole in the middle of a field because he was afraid he was going to get captured.
If you think thats abuse or torture you really need to get some perspective.
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He was treated FAR FAR nicer than he treated others who were also powerless and his enemies.
I fail to see what, by your very own logic, is wrong with the way he was treated.
This is a typical and fatally flawed statement.
What you mean to say is:
You should always treat others the way YOU (as in Mr Anonymous Coward that posted this statement) think they should be treated.
The Marines didn't fail, Saddam did. He got himself into the situation. His arrogance got him killed for his crimes.
He could have stayed in power in many different ways, had he made any sort of effort to do so. He didn't. He was treated the way he deserved to be treated and it should be obvious from his actions leading up to the invasion. Guess you forgot about what happened before you read this story, eh?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
You must not have any reading comprehension skills because thats what the parent was saying.
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You accuse everyone else when you are the one clearly not informed.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
actually, if you read the circumstance of the McDonald's lawsuit, it was quite proper for her to win it. It's typically used as a poster child for tort reform, but no. Look it up yourself. McDonald's knew what they were doing, had injured tons of people, and refused to pay her $10K medical bills. The judge increased the sentence IIRC, to teach them a lesson they needed to be taught. It was in the public interest. But don't believe me -- look it up yourself.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
se... Try again.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I think that if they had a prime-time (?) reality TV series which televised executions, complete with an hour's worth of footage of the person beforehand, and interviews with people there, that many in the US would find it more distasteful, perhaps enough to campaign either against the death penalty or for more humane methods (e.g., nitrogen as mentioned in a parent post). ... that's probably why we'd never see it.
The true american nature?
Capture the man and torture him about his WMD's that didn't exist.
Can't GI-joes give up when it makes sense?
And what about the signed pic? How can anybody sane be happy or proud about that? American imperialism, American greed, American thirst for control, military-industrial complex, etc. Bad, bad, bad... See what they do when North Korea launches some missile. Not even a warhead. Nobody can do that except for the USA of course.
Unless they strapped the man down with his eyes open I doubt Saddam was actually forced to watch the movie.
The man was entitled to a roof over his head, a bed to sleep in, a pot to piss in, and regular meals. I seriously doubt he was denied access to religious scripture either.
It was, in all likelihood, one of the few movies they'd let Saddam watch as a break from the mind-numbing tedium of sitting in a cell by his lonesome.
Most likely, it is one of those awful misuses of the word "forced" just like people routinely misuse the word "torture." Seriously, by the definition of most folks locking someone in a room by themselves with no entertainment and just food, water, shelter, and waste facilities would be "torture." It certainly sucks, which is why the innocent aren't supposed to be subjected to such treatment on a whim.
Lots of lawful punishments for criminals, unlawful combatants, and POWs would be considered "torture" and "human rights violations" if the state just grabbed a random civilian off the street and subjected them to such conditions.
Sorry, but if you in prison awaiting trial for crimes against humanity and your only choices are to watch "South Park" make fun of you or sit in your cell and watch nothing you aren't being "tortured" or "mistreated." You've got it way better than many people in prison for lesser offenses, honestly.
If constant mocking was a crime against human rights, than John Stewart is Attila the Hun. When you're a powerful political figure, or a former powerful political figure, you don't get a free pass. I don't see anyone up in arms about the veritable storm of say, anti-Bush insults in the past four years. Would forcing George W. Bush to read slashdot be considered torture? As for repetitive television program showings, I've been subjected to worse as a child. Hell, probably any parent with a toddler and a favorite video experiences the same thing.
Wait what? That sounds silly...when someone dies, all their organs become oxygen deprived when the circulatory system fails. If you rips someone's head off or suffocate them, the kidneys are going to end up in the exact same condition either way.
Hanging could only be worse than suffocation, since the body is decelerated abruptly. It would have the possibility of bruising soft tissue from the force.
Your argument makes no sense.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
This has been by far the most hopeful discussion I've ever read on ./, and I've read a lot. While I freely admit that my praise comes at least in part because I support the basic premise, and the ideals, of so many posters, I also think that I've seldom found such a group of intelligent and literate folks. I thank you for reaffirming my hope in mankind.
The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures (Junius)
His kangaroo trial was conducted by Vichy Iraqis at our urging.
So the Iraqis that hated Saddam... which was most of them, BTW... are traitors to Iraq? They'd be good Iraqis if they had supported Saddam Hussein?
WTF is wrong with you?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The Japanese declared war on the USA, and attacked Pearl Harbor. The USA declared war on Japan. Four days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the USA. The USA then declared war on Germany.
None of this had anything to do with the Holocaust. The USA conceivably might never have declared war on Germany if Germany had stayed out of the USA's fight with Japan.
I piss off bigots.
I asked about Saddam's dead Iraqis; the source you quote includes dead Iranians. Iranians are not Iraqis.
It's a bit of a toss-up as to who should carry the can for the estimated 500,000 Iraqi children who died as a result of the trade sanctions. Could Saddam have saved them? Could the US/UK have saved them? Both, probably.
I piss off bigots.
Being a jerk in order to piss someone off is not funny, as their annoying cartoons show, nor it is a great achievement unless you are 13 years old, as you probably are.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Yes. From the very beginning, too. I remember reading about one states execution manuals that were very much done in copy&paste fashion, i.e. the instructions for administering lethal injection contained passages copied verbatim from the manual of the electric chair, down to "Shave ISDPs (inmate subject to death penalty) head". I suspect the system is *designed* to fuck up, however.
Yes. Having people set up iv injections that don't have sufficient training and practice will fuck this up. Oh, and don't forget that administering the barbiturates im instead of iv also interferes with their action. So, first you get a shot of barbiturates into one of your muscles which doesn't knock you out quickly and completely, then you get a shot of pancuronium bromide in the same muscle that doesn't paralyze you quickly, and then a shot of KCl that'll make that muscle feel like it's on fire. In summary, executions in the US are designed to cause suffering. There are plenty of low-tech and painless ways to kill: why are they being used for lab rats not people?
Because the instructions for administering various forms of death penalty are written by bureaucrats.
Sometimes the middle ground fallacy is the lesson.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Hey wait. All this fuss and anger - and you actually believe Parker and Stone's story?
Okay, they might believe it. But even they don't know that 'South Park' was shown to Saddam.
I swear - if they said Saddam and Bill Gates collaborated to build Microsoft Bob, you guys would believe that, too.
Display some adaptability.
I really cannot believe that they actually accepted this. I would have burnt it, as it is totally immoral and despicable. Let me tackle a rather (unrelated) fundemental question, despite the fact that he (in)directly killed LOTS of people - Does that warrant the death sentence? If yes, then lets please hang George Bush. If not, then he certainly doesn't deserve this unnecessary humiliation.
to summon moral outrage. I know it's wrong. Really. Any help would be appreciated.
no need to generalize soldiers as people who have very low moral standards. They simply generally aren't.
No, of course not, they only kill people to order, often including civilians how could that possibly indicate low moral standards?
Better? What has that to do with anything? What does it even mean? Nothing I said has anything to do with being "better" than anyone.
What I care about is the kind of society I live in. It's about the kind of people around me, how I treat them and how they treat me. More: everyone has done wrong. Someday it may be me or someone I care about who is caught in the machinery of justice. When that happens, I hope I will see justice done, not vengeance. Me being some kind of "better" wouldn't do me a damn bit of good. Call me "worse" for all I care. It does not affect my argument one bit.
In what kind of world may vengeance be fun? Our world. History is drenched with it. The cheers and parties when criminals are executed. The bloodthirst of the Roman arena. The celebration and entertainment of public hangings in our countries only a few generations ago. What would you like to see done to the banksters who robbed our government and broke our economy? Vengeance is satisfying. It can be fun. And when the government does it, utterly destructive.
The amusing thing about the movie was that the devil was Sadaam's bitch, not the other way round!
Pretending that we have the moral high ground is precisely why the war on terror has become such a quagmire. Marines are put on Earth for one reason only: to kill the enemies of America in the name of protecting our national interests. Humiliation of a defeated foreign dictator ought to be cause for celebration, not debate over what they did was right or moral. It's this kind of discourse that is robbing our military of it's ability to do it's job. Remember: rules of engagement were what lost the Revolutionary War for the British; if they'd fought the same way we did (dirty, in other words) the Revolutionary War would be known in the history books as a "minor colonial uprising". There is nothing moral about war, and yet it seems to be something that is necessary to the human condition, not to mention necessary to protect citizenry and national interests. To everyone who've been so concerned with Saddam's rights and whether or not he was tortured, remember, it's those self-same Marines who have selflessly defended the rights of men and women all over the world to bad-mouth them every chance they get. Without America's example of freedom to follow, and our willingness most of the people in this discussion would have no right whatsoever to voice their opinions about anything more consequential than the weather. I'm not going to apologize for my country's misdeeds- yeah, we fucked the Native Americans over, yes we kept black slaves, yes we put Saddam in power- but name for me one nation on Earth that hasn't done worse in it's day, in the name of protecting it's interests...
This is true. In fact, Matt and Trey are on the record as saying (I'm just paraphrasing here from memory) - "we don't like extreme right-wingers, but we really fucking hate extreme left-wingers."
Which tends to translate into making fun of celebrities and pop culture figures. Putting their flaws on the same level of importance with the flaws of political figures (see: Team America) seems to undercut Matt and Trey's libertarian "moral messages", IMHO.
For instance, attacking Al Gore or Mel Gibson simply because they're self-obsessed just seems really pointless and unfunny. So I kind of agree with the GP that South Park does get kind of annoying at times. Overall, I'm still a fan, though.