The sactions were imposed and enforced by the UN (who by the way has MANY European countries represented). The reason they went on longer than the UN anticipated was that Iraq was not disarming or working with the UN and its representatives. The UN believed this saction would be months long, not years.
Journalists (not just US ones) reported that this regime was using the money it obtained from its oil sales for its own purposes (and illegal ones as the UN weapons inspectors discovered), not for the needs of its people.
Instead of pointing the finger outside of Iraq why dont we start looking at how the money, that was for the people of Iraq, was used by this regime?
The drastic differences in those numbers seem to indicate confusion.
You're using examples from technology and military strategy from over 14 years ago. News agencies and documentaries have outlined how different military campaigns are today. Hundreds of planes don't line up like they did over Germany during WW2 and carpet bomb the countryside killing everything in a several mile radius. Payloads are targeted and mapped out as precise as technology today allows. It is more difficult however, and more civilian lives are put at risk, when this regime deliberately embeds its troops and weapons in its own civilian sectors.
It is tragic when any civilian in any country who never picked up a weapon is killed. It's equally as tragic when a dictator slaughters his own countries civilians and half of his political party to maintain his power. But what's would be more tragic would be to allow this regime to continue its operations, and allow it to pick the time when more will die. Whether it is the death of more Iraqis, war with neighboring countries, or the support of terrorism all over the globe.
It's horrible when civilians die; just ask the thousands of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters of the victims of the WTC.
Bearing in mind #2, #5, and #6 If I were an Iraqi under this regime, I would be burning American flags and tell any reporter that I didn't want the Americans in Iraq either.
Since the Frontline documentaries were created by many journalists from many countries and from former Iraqi citizens, I fail to see how the American government is feeding me anything. These arent half truths made from conjecture, but well documented facts from publicised documents and resources. Its a factual account of history.
Before you start trying to say all the facts are falsified, why dont you read the documentaries and find out what they say and what the sources are?
A war about oil? Im sure oil is a piece of this war, along with many other things, but Ive not seen anything to convince me it is only about oil. Rather I have seen how history has shown how dangerous this regime has been to Kuwait, Iran, and the citizens of Iraq and how much of a threat it can be in the future.
I suppose next we'll be discussing how America never really went to the moon in the 60's.
The U.S. needed Saddam in the 80's. The Iotola was considered an unstable religous zealot who would watch all his people fight to the death. The Carter administration considered him an unstable threat to the entire region. They felt trapped. Saddam was a thug with questionable ethics and M.O. (but they had dealt successfuly with him through thre CIA in the 70's) and the Iotola wanted death to America and its allies.
I remeber the Frontline special saying that the administration gave support to Iraq just enough to support it but not to help it win and funneled illegal arms to Iraq. Sheesh, what a decade and what an administration nightmare!
I remember a piece about that last night. Good example of errors in judgement.
I also remember Colin Powell and Gen. Schwarzkopf discussing whether to press on to Baghdad. Schwarzkopf said he was 24 hours away from being in the heart of Baghdad. However both Powell and Schwarzkopf felt they had achieved the military and political goals and any further fighting would result in more loss of life on both sides. They also said that the combat was starting to get very ugly. I remember pbs had a clip of a US helicopter firing on soldiers walking in the desert at night using Infrared. If they had shown that to the public, there probably would have been outrage.
Whats interesting to note is that an aide to Saddam who has defected said that at that at that time Saddam felt that his regime was over and that allied tanks would be in Baghdad in hours. He was a beat man. Then H.W. Bush announced a cease fire, and then the aide said Saddam's morale went from 0 to 100. He later said that he had a "victory" over the allies.
I know what you mean. I don't think it matters in America if you're a Democrat or a Republican; each administration has done questionable acts. Just because I may have been a supporter for Clinton or Bush or whoever doesn't mean I always agreed on every decision they made. And lets face it, power can corrupt and people are fallible, which is why we have to have checks and balances, of course they don't always work, but I don't know many political systems that do.
Your statement seems to assume we have 1,000 bombers lined up in the air carpet bombing the countryside. And your hostile attitude would seem to assume you never saw the Frontline documenatries, or other ducumentaries on the history of Iraq or Saddam. Lets be realistic and try to keep it civil.
The strikes are as precise as technology allows at this point. But I doubt there will be as many casualties as Saddam himself has inflicted on the peoples of Kuwait, Iran, and Iraq over the last 35 years.
Lets try to stay on topic. What convinced slashdoters to have their current political views of the affairs towards Iraq?
I was wondering what has convinced fellow Slahshdoters to take the stance they have now on the state of affairs with Iraq?
For me it was the Frontline documentaries on PBS which focused on the history of Saddam. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/long road/
Some things that caught my attention:
1. Saddam started out as a hitman for the radical Ba'ath Party and he participated in the failed assassination attempt on the country's strong man, Gen. Kassem, in 1959.
2. The Ba'ath Party killed Gen. Kassem and staff and seized the country in a coup. Saddam became an interrogator in the Fellaheen and Muthaqafeen detention camps. In interrogating people in those camps, he used torture, and undoubtedly like everybody else involved in this activity, eliminated people to the amount of 700 documented deaths.
3. Two weeks after they took over power on the 17th of July 1968, there was what they call "the correction movement." That meant getting rid of the non-Ba'ath elements in the coup, and Saddam was prominent in that. As a matter of fact he held a gun to the head of the prime minister and said, "You're going with me to the airport because you're leaving this country." And the guy pleaded with him, said, "I have family, I have a wife and kids." And Saddam said, "Well as long as you behave, they'll be fine." He took him to the airport, he put him in a plane, he deported him, and of course years after, he assassinated him in front of the Intercontinental Hotel in London. The man couldn't escape him in the long run.
4. In 1970 Saddam was head of the Peasants Department and the Department of General Relations (security), the military, and several other departments. And of course soon enough, like all people who are dictators, who are jealous of the army, he appointed himself general and eventually like Stalin he became field marshal.
5. In 1979 he removed Bakr (the President he helped instate) rather unceremoniously and made himself president. And he reshaped the Ba'ath Party in no time at all by executing half of the command of the party.
6. During the 7 month occupation of Kuwait, Saddam ruled there as head had for years, with oppression and death. Some Kuwaitis were tortured and murdered, others lined up and shot.
6. After the Persian Gulf War Iraq had uprisings in the North and South. This is where Saddam used chemical weapons and killed over a thousand Iraqi men, women, and children. This was the second time he had used chemical weapons, the first time was in the war against Iran. Uses of chemical weapons are forbidden by UN treaties.
7. At the end of the initial round of inspections by the UN weapons teams, Saddam's brother-in-law and cousin defected to Jordan and announced that they had documents that would indicate that the inspectors had not seen all the weapons Saddam had. Saddam told his sons-in-law that, if they came back to Iraq, they would be completely safe. They foolishly believed Saddam. So, as military officers, they donned their uniforms, and they went back to Iraq. The moment they entered Iraq, they were separated from their families. Their families were taken to Baghdad, and they were taken out of the city. Like Saddam, they are very tribal, so they surrounded themselves with bodyguards, not trusting him completely. Two days later, there was an attack on the house by members of the family, to avenge the family honor. So Saddam claimed that he kept his word, as the chief of the armed forces, as the president of Iraq, that he would do nothing to them. So, when it was finally done, the attack succeeded and they were captured and killed. Saddam said, "I didn't go back on my word. This happened according to tribal tradition. The family had to avenge itself. The family had to recover its honor." That's how he explained what he did to them.
After watching this I felt awful that the people of Iraq have who have had to endure fear for so long and I felt I was fortunate to be an American.
I to would be interested. I was discharge with a 10% disability and from what I heard you had to be 20% or greater. Let me know what info you have! mourfeous@nospamhotmail.com. THANKS!
Forgive me if I seem newbieish but I only know about patents what I read here and the linked article.
Patent 6,000,000
This patent covers a method of holding automated sales using computers, databases and the Internet to register and link buyers to a seller, and facilitate transactions.
Change a couple of words and we could patent e-commerce. Better hurry!!!!
What do we expect when we pay a man who plays a boys game of throwing a pigskin $20 million a year and we pay the teachers who shape the minds of tomorrow's Americans (police, politicians, scientsists, philosophers) just above poverty level???????
Should we have expected anything else???
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 1
In today's America, no person born in America has to earn freedom. Its bottled up and given away as a birthday gift the day you are born. Today there is no outward threat to our freedom as a whole. The threats all come from the inside. Yes terrorists will kill Americans, destroy buildings, and provide economic declines, BUT they cannot destroy the "American way of life". Sept 11 proved that Americans will band together like brothers in times of crisis. However many of these same Americans would foolishly cast aside their rights to freedoms that hundreds of thousands of men and women died to provide and safeguard for us over that last 200+ years. It's not possible for most Americans to look through the eyes of a revolutionary American in "the colonies" in 1776, or an American in World War I or World War 2 or through the eyes of a citizen or refugee who live in a totalitarian or communist government. That would require most of us to pick up a book and read about where we came from, how we got here, and what dear costs were payed.
It seems to me that the only saving grace in the past (granted there were still cons) was a focus on American history and traditions (no I don't mean just the American history we took in high school) and a good dose or moralism. Today we tell our youth (or maybe you were told) if it feels good do it, always look out for #1 (you above all else), succeed at your ambitions at whatever the cost, nice guys finish last, the only truth there is what you make up, etc. Kind of spells out the mental ingredients for many peoples interpretation of the "American Dream" in today's America. What can we expect from our youth, when we let them believe America is better off without First Amendment rights, that we all need to be censored and not be allowed to speak our mind in public. Or when we tell them Americans have no right having firearms in their possession and only the government should be allowed to possess them? The more we train our children "Rights? We don't need no stickin rights!" and the less we educate our youth about how we got to where we are today and why being an American is like nothing else on the planet, the more they (and we, as there generation comes into play) will lose.
I cringe at the thought of a person protesting against a body of government in the street and being silenced by that same government (Isn't that what Saddam does????). Or when a reporter is silenced for daring to question our government. Of course we all know that the media is a double edged sword. How many American freedoms are the same way? It is our RESPONSIBILITY to question and monitor our government. Our government is supposed to be for the people and by the people (that's what the Bill of Rights helps us do). Not by the 34% of eligible Americans who show up to vote. Why so low a number? Most of us do not value our rights! If we did why would less than half of us show up to vote? Why do more and more Americans want the government to take over more and more monitoring and decision making? I'm not 100% sure, but I think its because we are lazy, period. As Michael Douglas says in the movie The American President, "America aint easy. You've got to want it...bad." We are starting not to want it and to start pushing more of our responsibilities on the government which could end of being a government of the people by the few elite people.
Lets make a decision today to educate ourselves more about our rich history and pass it on to others so we do not repeat past mistakes and so that we can keep future ones to a minimum. And lets decide to actively participate in our great government!
Slashdot Mirror
The sactions were imposed and enforced by the UN (who by the way has MANY European countries represented). The reason they went on longer than the UN anticipated was that Iraq was not disarming or working with the UN and its representatives. The UN believed this saction would be months long, not years.
Journalists (not just US ones) reported that this regime was using the money it obtained from its oil sales for its own purposes (and illegal ones as the UN weapons inspectors discovered), not for the needs of its people.
Instead of pointing the finger outside of Iraq why dont we start looking at how the money, that was for the people of Iraq, was used by this regime?
The drastic differences in those numbers seem to indicate confusion.
You're using examples from technology and military strategy from over 14 years ago. News agencies and documentaries have outlined how different military campaigns are today. Hundreds of planes don't line up like they did over Germany during WW2 and carpet bomb the countryside killing everything in a several mile radius. Payloads are targeted and mapped out as precise as technology today allows. It is more difficult however, and more civilian lives are put at risk, when this regime deliberately embeds its troops and weapons in its own civilian sectors.
It is tragic when any civilian in any country who never picked up a weapon is killed. It's equally as tragic when a dictator slaughters his own countries civilians and half of his political party to maintain his power. But what's would be more tragic would be to allow this regime to continue its operations, and allow it to pick the time when more will die. Whether it is the death of more Iraqis, war with neighboring countries, or the support of terrorism all over the globe.
It's horrible when civilians die; just ask the thousands of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters of the victims of the WTC.
Bearing in mind #2, #5, and #6 If I were an Iraqi under this regime, I would be burning American flags and tell any reporter that I didn't want the Americans in Iraq either.
Since the Frontline documentaries were created by many journalists from many countries and from former Iraqi citizens, I fail to see how the American government is feeding me anything. These arent half truths made from conjecture, but well documented facts from publicised documents and resources. Its a factual account of history.
Before you start trying to say all the facts are falsified, why dont you read the documentaries and find out what they say and what the sources are?
A war about oil? Im sure oil is a piece of this war, along with many other things, but Ive not seen anything to convince me it is only about oil. Rather I have seen how history has shown how dangerous this regime has been to Kuwait, Iran, and the citizens of Iraq and how much of a threat it can be in the future.
I suppose next we'll be discussing how America never really went to the moon in the 60's.
Absolutely!
The U.S. needed Saddam in the 80's. The Iotola was considered an unstable religous zealot who would watch all his people fight to the death. The Carter administration considered him an unstable threat to the entire region. They felt trapped. Saddam was a thug with questionable ethics and M.O. (but they had dealt successfuly with him through thre CIA in the 70's) and the Iotola wanted death to America and its allies.
I remeber the Frontline special saying that the administration gave support to Iraq just enough to support it but not to help it win and funneled illegal arms to Iraq. Sheesh, what a decade and what an administration nightmare!
I remember a piece about that last night. Good example of errors in judgement.
I also remember Colin Powell and Gen. Schwarzkopf discussing whether to press on to Baghdad. Schwarzkopf said he was 24 hours away from being in the heart of Baghdad. However both Powell and Schwarzkopf felt they had achieved the military and political goals and any further fighting would result in more loss of life on both sides. They also said that the combat was starting to get very ugly. I remember pbs had a clip of a US helicopter firing on soldiers walking in the desert at night using Infrared. If they had shown that to the public, there probably would have been outrage.
Whats interesting to note is that an aide to Saddam who has defected said that at that at that time Saddam felt that his regime was over and that allied tanks would be in Baghdad in hours. He was a beat man. Then H.W. Bush announced a cease fire, and then the aide said Saddam's morale went from 0 to 100. He later said that he had a "victory" over the allies.
I know what you mean. I don't think it matters in America if you're a Democrat or a Republican; each administration has done questionable acts. Just because I may have been a supporter for Clinton or Bush or whoever doesn't mean I always agreed on every decision they made. And lets face it, power can corrupt and people are fallible, which is why we have to have checks and balances, of course they don't always work, but I don't know many political systems that do.
Your statement seems to assume we have 1,000 bombers lined up in the air carpet bombing the countryside. And your hostile attitude would seem to assume you never saw the Frontline documenatries, or other ducumentaries on the history of Iraq or Saddam. Lets be realistic and try to keep it civil.
The strikes are as precise as technology allows at this point. But I doubt there will be as many casualties as Saddam himself has inflicted on the peoples of Kuwait, Iran, and Iraq over the last 35 years.
Lets try to stay on topic. What convinced slashdoters to have their current political views of the affairs towards Iraq?
I was wondering what has convinced fellow Slahshdoters to take the stance they have now on the state of affairs with Iraq?
g road/
For me it was the Frontline documentaries on PBS which focused on the history of Saddam. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lon
Some things that caught my attention:
1. Saddam started out as a hitman for the radical Ba'ath Party and he participated in the failed assassination attempt on the country's strong man, Gen. Kassem, in 1959.
2. The Ba'ath Party killed Gen. Kassem and staff and seized the country in a coup. Saddam became an interrogator in the Fellaheen and Muthaqafeen detention camps. In interrogating people in those camps, he used torture, and undoubtedly like everybody else involved in this activity, eliminated people to the amount of 700 documented deaths.
3. Two weeks after they took over power on the 17th of July 1968, there was what they call "the correction movement." That meant getting rid of the non-Ba'ath elements in the coup, and Saddam was prominent in that. As a matter of fact he held a gun to the head of the prime minister and said, "You're going with me to the airport because you're leaving this country." And the guy pleaded with him, said, "I have family, I have a wife and kids." And Saddam said, "Well as long as you behave, they'll be fine." He took him to the airport, he put him in a plane, he deported him, and of course years after, he assassinated him in front of the Intercontinental Hotel in London. The man couldn't escape him in the long run.
4. In 1970 Saddam was head of the Peasants Department and the Department of General Relations (security), the military, and several other departments. And of course soon enough, like all people who are dictators, who are jealous of the army, he appointed himself general and eventually like Stalin he became field marshal.
5. In 1979 he removed Bakr (the President he helped instate) rather unceremoniously and made himself president. And he reshaped the Ba'ath Party in no time at all by executing half of the command of the party.
6. During the 7 month occupation of Kuwait, Saddam ruled there as head had for years, with oppression and death. Some Kuwaitis were tortured and murdered, others lined up and shot.
6. After the Persian Gulf War Iraq had uprisings in the North and South. This is where Saddam used chemical weapons and killed over a thousand Iraqi men, women, and children. This was the second time he had used chemical weapons, the first time was in the war against Iran. Uses of chemical weapons are forbidden by UN treaties.
7. At the end of the initial round of inspections by the UN weapons teams, Saddam's brother-in-law and cousin defected to Jordan and announced that they had documents that would indicate that the inspectors had not seen all the weapons Saddam had. Saddam told his sons-in-law that, if they came back to Iraq, they would be completely safe. They foolishly believed Saddam. So, as military officers, they donned their uniforms, and they went back to Iraq. The moment they entered Iraq, they were separated from their families. Their families were taken to Baghdad, and they were taken out of the city. Like Saddam, they are very tribal, so they surrounded themselves with bodyguards, not trusting him completely. Two days later, there was an attack on the house by members of the family, to avenge the family honor. So Saddam claimed that he kept his word, as the chief of the armed forces, as the president of Iraq, that he would do nothing to them. So, when it was finally done, the attack succeeded and they were captured and killed. Saddam said, "I didn't go back on my word. This happened according to tribal tradition. The family had to avenge itself. The family had to recover its honor." That's how he explained what he did to them.
After watching this I felt awful that the people of Iraq have who have had to endure fear for so long and I felt I was fortunate to be an American.
I to would be interested. I was discharge with a 10% disability and from what I heard you had to be 20% or greater. Let me know what info you have! mourfeous@nospamhotmail.com. THANKS!
Forgive me if I seem newbieish but I only know about patents what I read here and the linked article.
Patent 6,000,000
This patent covers a method of holding automated sales using computers, databases and the Internet to register and link buyers to a seller, and facilitate transactions.
Change a couple of words and we could patent e-commerce. Better hurry!!!!
What do we expect when we pay a man who plays a boys game of throwing a pigskin $20 million a year and we pay the teachers who shape the minds of tomorrow's Americans (police, politicians, scientsists, philosophers) just above poverty level???????
In today's America, no person born in America has to earn freedom. Its bottled up and given away as a birthday gift the day you are born. Today there is no outward threat to our freedom as a whole. The threats all come from the inside. Yes terrorists will kill Americans, destroy buildings, and provide economic declines, BUT they cannot destroy the "American way of life". Sept 11 proved that Americans will band together like brothers in times of crisis. However many of these same Americans would foolishly cast aside their rights to freedoms that hundreds of thousands of men and women died to provide and safeguard for us over that last 200+ years. It's not possible for most Americans to look through the eyes of a revolutionary American in "the colonies" in 1776, or an American in World War I or World War 2 or through the eyes of a citizen or refugee who live in a totalitarian or communist government. That would require most of us to pick up a book and read about where we came from, how we got here, and what dear costs were payed.
It seems to me that the only saving grace in the past (granted there were still cons) was a focus on American history and traditions (no I don't mean just the American history we took in high school) and a good dose or moralism. Today we tell our youth (or maybe you were told) if it feels good do it, always look out for #1 (you above all else), succeed at your ambitions at whatever the cost, nice guys finish last, the only truth there is what you make up, etc. Kind of spells out the mental ingredients for many peoples interpretation of the "American Dream" in today's America. What can we expect from our youth, when we let them believe America is better off without First Amendment rights, that we all need to be censored and not be allowed to speak our mind in public. Or when we tell them Americans have no right having firearms in their possession and only the government should be allowed to possess them? The more we train our children "Rights? We don't need no stickin rights!" and the less we educate our youth about how we got to where we are today and why being an American is like nothing else on the planet, the more they (and we, as there generation comes into play) will lose.
I cringe at the thought of a person protesting against a body of government in the street and being silenced by that same government (Isn't that what Saddam does????). Or when a reporter is silenced for daring to question our government. Of course we all know that the media is a double edged sword. How many American freedoms are the same way? It is our RESPONSIBILITY to question and monitor our government. Our government is supposed to be for the people and by the people (that's what the Bill of Rights helps us do). Not by the 34% of eligible Americans who show up to vote. Why so low a number? Most of us do not value our rights! If we did why would less than half of us show up to vote? Why do more and more Americans want the government to take over more and more monitoring and decision making? I'm not 100% sure, but I think its because we are lazy, period. As Michael Douglas says in the movie The American President, "America aint easy. You've got to want it...bad." We are starting not to want it and to start pushing more of our responsibilities on the government which could end of being a government of the people by the few elite people.
Lets make a decision today to educate ourselves more about our rich history and pass it on to others so we do not repeat past mistakes and so that we can keep future ones to a minimum. And lets decide to actively participate in our great government!