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Posted
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CmdrTaco
from the submitted-two-hundred-times dept.
MoonChild was the first of hundreds to submit that MSNBC, ABCNews and others are reporting that Saddam Hussein was arrested. This isn't normal Slashdot subject matter, but I figured it was worth mentioning.
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There is still a lot that needs to be done.
But, that shouldn't take away from the tremendous victory of the Iraqis and the Americans here.
Some people are perpetually negative. This is a great moment for these people. Relish in it. Stop looking for something to whine about... please!
Congratulations Iraq! Congratulations US coalition!
I'm sure the families of the scores of thousands of people that Saddam has murdered, tortured, and raped care about him being captured. The people celebrating in the streets seem to be caring.
One of the last century's worst thugs is now in custody, and the "insightful" comment around here is "who cares"? Get some sense of history.
Keep in mind folks that this has absolutely nothing to do with September 11. Sure, a dictator is out of power. That's fine. Remember though that to topple him, our government invaded a sovereign nation without international support or a plan for after the initial attacks. The administration is going to spin this as a wonderful thing for Americans and a sure sign that the administration is tough on terrorists. This isn't the war on terrorism (as ill-thought as that war is). It's the war on Iraq that was started many years ago by the father and now reengaged by the son. Nothing more. Iraqi citizens may rejoice, but there is no reason for us to do the same.
Capturing Saddam is a good thing. He's a Very Bad Man(tm).
The fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with... Al-Qaeda, making America safer, the War On Terrorism, WMDs, or any of that other stuff aside, yes, he's a Very Bad Man(tm).
Bush &c. will get an approval bump out of this, right up until the next terrorist attack, when it is plainly shown that the whole Iraq boondoggle was an expensive distraction so that W could feel like a man, and so that people wouldn't ask questions about the actual problem.
While I am thankful that Saddam Hussein was captured, my foil hat -- which has been tuned to "non-paranoid" mode -- can't help but think that it serves a dual purpose for the Bush administration.
Were we able to find Osama bin Laden? No. The war on terror, originated in Afghanistan, was in danger of stagnating, with a conclusion that lacked the novelistic roundless of rounding up the enemy leader.
The focus of the war on terror was thusly shifted to Iraq. "There are connections," they said, which meant the war would really be over when Hussein was taken.
Now he has been. He, not bin Laden, will be at the forefront of millions of Americans' minds, seen as a defeated figurehead for terrorist activity -- despite the fact that he was not responsible for 9/11.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @10:22AM (#7715863)
No doubt that many Iraqis are happy about Saddam being captured, but please be a little more sceptic about what you see on TV. Remember the staged destruction of the Saddam statue? Even without explicitly arranging things to transport a certain message, cameras lie by choosing angles and avoiding others. Yeah, I know IHBT.
Well, I'm glad that Saddam Hussein is no longer at large, but am I the only one who's a little bit disappointed that, in a news conference in which Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez (the US commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq), talked about "closure", there was no mention of weapons of mass destruction?
Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about? Or has that all been forgotten?
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @10:23AM (#7715877)
The 'capture' of sadam will mean no difference to the state iraq and the rest of the world is in.
A huge effect this will have is that Iraqis no longer will have to 'hedge their bets', that is not doing anything that might come back to haunt them if Saddam were to come back to power.
You could have said something similar about Saddam yesterday.
The correct statement (with proper tenses) is: "Have we been able to find Bin Laden? Not yet.".
Bin Laden isn't tied to a single country as was Saddam. His operation has been greatly hindered, and he'll go down...eventually.
In the meantime, don't mistake the fact that this is a great victory for the coalition and President Bush, and a major psychological blow for the Baathist resistance.:-)
If you aren't Arab (and in this case, Arab isn't equivalent to Muslim), you probably don't understand the honor structure of those people. In this case, while Saddam remained free and was able to demonstrate his strength by surviving and directing attacks against coalition forces, his former Ba'ath party supporters were willing to fight for him.
With him captured, you can expect to see the vast majority of the domestic Iraqi resistance disappear.
The foreign (i.e., Syrian and Iranian) destabilization efforts will continue until a effective domestic police force exists.
Note that the Kurds gave the American's the tip of and by "we" I hope you don't just mean America but every one who has fought and died to make this happen?
1. "Hundreds of thousands" might be a slight exaggeration.
2. All that went on with the blessing of the US, UK and the most of rest of the world.
Lest you forget, it was left to organisations like CND to point out that Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons on Kurdish settlements whilst countries like the US stuck their collective fingers in their ears, repeatedly chanted "la-la-la, I'm not listening", and pretended that the whole thing never happened.
You see, back then Saddam Hussein was a Good Guy (TM), because he was fighting those nasty Ayatollahs in Iran that gave the US such a bloody nose at the start of the 1980s. That he was a brutal dictator didn't matter then because he was the West's brutal dictator.
Perhaps you should switch off Fox News, pick up a history book, and ask yourself why it took the Gulf War and this latest War on Terrorism to bring his activities to your attention. For bonus points, find out where else this kind of oppression is going on and how long it's been ignored by the Western world.
Considering the crimes Saddam Hussein has committed against people of several countries, would it not be logical for his ultimate trial to be held in the form of an international war crimes tribunal, a la Nuremberg?
Yes it would. There already is such a court, the International Criminal Court [icc-cpi.int].. The problem is, the USA opposes it.
This was not always the case; Funny you mention Nuremburg, where the american procecuter Robert Jackson expressed a desire to create such a permanent tribunal.
I feel that is the America the world admired and respected. Todays unilateral foreign policy is a shame on America, and the ideals America is supposed to represent. And it is the reason why the USA no long commands the same international respect.
Ok AC. Thanks for the tip. I suppose you'd go AC if you told that to the Iraqi people where millions were slaughtered by that thug.
Have you seen them celebrating in the streets? Irrelevant? Go back to AC dreamland.
Ridiculous. I in no way advocate the suppression of anyone's human rights. Nor do I advocate the brutal attack of any nation in order to "save" the people from a dicatorship. George Bush's foreign policy states that the US can invade when it feels that the justfication is there or that the justfication may soon be there. That's a horrendous, dangerous and absurd policy based largely on hubris.
As for not recognizing the sovereignty of a nation that doesn't recognize the liberty of its people, then you may not want to become a US citizen any time soon. The current US administration places many things higher on its list of priorities than it does the notion of personal liberty. Ask John Ashcroft. Ask the detainees in Guantanamo. Ask the thousands of people held in American jails without habeus corpus on the suspicion of terror sympathy.
The US government DID invade a soveriegn nation. It did so without international support. It did so in violation of international law. The means, especially in this case, do not justify the ends.
Well, Election 2004 ended this morning. Like him or not, Bush is the man right now. He accomplished his goal, and a grand victory is always embraced by a leader's people. Dean's whole schtick was anti-war. While there still are merits to being anti-war (men/women killed, cost $$$, no WMD), Dean just lost his biggest stance against the war: that it hasn't truly accomplished anything.
That picture of Saddam in a disgusting non-bathed attire, dirt-filled beard will be remembered forever.
Plus, his trial for crimes against humanity will probably begin just around November 2004 (yeah yeah, cue trolls calling for "America's crimes against humanity, etc...")
Let's take a look at it this way. Saddam Hussein is captured, tried, and (hopefully) executed. So what exactly do we need Bush for, now? His job is done, we've made good in the eyes of the world by destroying a major evil in the world. Let's step out from behind the machine gun and to the peaceful podium. I'm not going to let this influence my vote. If Bush can pull out of the warmongering psycho mode before November, he may get my vote. What will influence my vote is the candidate's stand on non-military conflict solutions to the Holy Land thing.
We (America) got fucked on 9/11. No doubt about it. We decided to get even. No doubt about that. We kinda forgot about Osama and took out another world-class pain in the ass. Now can we please get back on track and hunt down the real targets? Preferably by having their own people turn against them? For 2004, my big thing will be "military force as a last resort, not first choice". I don't want to see America dragged down into a self-destructive unwinnable war. I don't want to see our country fight itself to death. We need to pursue peaceful solutions in the future when possible.
Great job, soldiers. No one can discredit your efforts and sacrifice. But I'd much rather we didn't have to have sacrificed at all.
(*) Disclaimer: I'm no prophet, so please take my post with a grain of salt.
The international press (for example the press in my country, Austria) is assuming the opposite to happen. And I share their view. Central Europe believes these assaults to happen because the Iraquis would prefer the US to move out of their country.
With Saddam Hussain being put on display in a humiliative fashion - him playing the role of a broken man whose two sons have been killed by the very forces that now have control of his life - this might anger those who lead these assaults even more.
The situation down there is not a beautiful one; the rest of the world blames the many problems on the Bush administration. We are sincerely hoping that you will vote their asses out of office next time and elect somebody with a finer understanding of the world into what's easily the world's most important political function. The rest of the world needs a different US. You might not care, tho - but I for one hope you do.
Directly, you're right, this doesn't effect the election much.
Indirectly, I think many parts of the U.S. economy have been holding their breath to see how the war turns out. This will be seen as the-beginning-of-the-end for that war, and I think the economy will start to pick up momentum from here, which for better or worse will help the Bush re-election. Uncertainty is the bane of an economy, and a certain amount of uncertainty just went away.
Everybody deserves a fair trial. That's what democratic states promise to their citizens, and their enemies.
This basic right used to by highly valued in the US, too. Of course, now suspects are declared "terrorists" and put away to Guantanamo and other places, or left to "friendly" governments for torturing.
The very reason that a few days ago a suspect 9/11-collaborator was set free by the court was a lack of proof against him (likely the US' fault for not allowing an important witness to testify because said witness is "interrogated" by the CIA at an unknown location).
In Germany, at least, people can be sure not to be held prisoner without evidence.
The value of democratic principles can be seen best whan you look at how a state treats its enemies.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @10:46AM (#7716104)
Maybe it is because China is a physically huge country with a population over three times the US population. Maybe it is because China has the ability to directly attack the United States. Maybe it is because China is seen as potentially moving in the right direction - meaning more commercialization (that is the right direction in US leadership's mind at least).
If you are going to ask a question then why aren't we in North Korea. That answer is, of course, because he is even crazier than Saddam and would nuke all of the South Korea in a heartbeat. To me North Korea is the greatest threat to the World - even more then the random car bombers. Nuke is the hands of a nutcase have the potential to not just kill millions but to cause irreparable damage to the environment.
1. "Hundreds of thousands" might be a slight exaggeration.
Latest estimates put the numbers from mass graves, that's just mass graves, at 300,000 [bbc.co.uk].
2. All that went on with the blessing of the US, UK and the most of rest of the world
Hardly. It went on, but most certainly neither the U.S. or the U.K. put their blessing on such an event. By the standard you seem to hold, the fact that hit happened meant it went on with the "blessing" of ALL of the world.
You see, back then Saddam Hussein was a Good Guy (TM), because he was fighting those nasty Ayatollahs in Iran that gave the US such a bloody nose at the start of the 1980s. That he was a brutal dictator didn't matter then because he was the West's brutal dictator.
You accuse those who disagree with you of simplifying the issue ("Perhaps you should switch off Fox News, pick up a history book, blah blah...") when you do the exact same thing. Saddam was an ally of convenience. In spite of your assertions, the United States only provided Saddam with around 1% [command-post.org] of his armaments during the period from 1973-1992.
He was not placed in power by the U.S. and the U.K. and he helped turn back the Ayatollah and, ultimately, the spread of Soviet influence in the Middle East. It was thinking just like yours that got us into the situation with Iran in the first place. Jimmy Carter, whose good intentions and blatant idiocy virtually destroyed our intelligence gathering capabilities during his presidency (gasp! We had dealings with unbecoming people!), got us into that mess in the first place.
For bonus points, find out where else this kind of oppression is going on and how long it's been ignored by the Western world.
Then what should have been done? Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have done anything in Iraq because bad things are going on elsewhere? I really don't why you take the position you have. It would be logically consistent to instead be petitioning for the removal of other murderous regimes such as in Sudan and Zimbabwe instead of bitching about the removal of Saddam.
Maybe it is you who should study history a bit better. I'll let Mr. Bush help you:
The roots of our democracy can be traced to England, and to its Parliament -- and so can the roots of this organization. In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster Palace and declared, the turning point had arrived in history. He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people -- their creativity, their genius and their rights.
President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing, that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this organization its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across the world. Your mandate was important 20 years ago; it is equally important today. (Applause.)
A number of critics were dismissive of that speech by the President. According to one editorial of the time, "It seems hard to be a sophisticated European and also an admirer of Ronald Reagan." (Laughter.) Some observers on both sides of the Atlantic pronounced the speech simplistic and naive, and even dangerous. In fact, Ronald Reagan's words were courageous and optimistic and entirely correct. (Applause.)
The great democratic movement President Reagan described was already well underway. In the early 1970s, there were about 40 democracies in the world. By the middle of that decade, Portugal and Spain and Greece held free elections. Soon there were new democracies in Latin America, and free institutions were spreading in Korea, in Taiwan, and in East Asia. This very week in 1989, there were protests in East Berlin and in Leipzig. By the end of that year, every communist dictatorship in Central America* had collapsed. Within another year, the South African government released Ne
You must not be reading slashdot very often.
Regular readers like me know he is going to win because Diebold is going to hand him the votes.
(negative votes for Mr. Gore was my favorite from all of those articles.)
That's so disingenuous. If the anti-war people had their way, this wouldn't have happened at all.
Remember though that to topple him, our government invaded a sovereign nation without international support
Wrong. We did have international support. Just because it wasn't suppport from the countries you liked doesn't mean it didn't exist. Britain, Spain, Australia were certainly part of the coalition.
The administration is going to spin this as a wonderful thing for Americans and a sure sign that the administration is tough on terrorists.
Maybe because it is. And for Iraqis too.It's the war on Iraq that was started many years ago by the father and now reengaged by the son.
I believe that Saddam was the one who started it by invading Kuwait.
Iraqi citizens may rejoice, but there is no reason for us to do the same.
How shortsighted that is. We've accomplished something that no doubt has made the world just a little better. The entire record of Saddam is still coming out, the fact that we ended him is going to be one of the biggest stories in the modern history.
The so-called "anti war movement" in the West is very pro-Saddam. They opposed efforts to get him out of power, or even dent his power. If the "anti-war" people had their way, Saddam would still be filling mass graves.
This attitude really reminds me of working with my business partner.
Some years ago I introduced him to the term "opportunity cost". He immediately took it to mean the exact opposite of what it does. It is supposed to represent the lost revenue you get by going after a lesser opportunity when it interferes with pursuing a better one. He still thinks it is the opportunities you "lost" by not trying to do everything at once.
I was very anti-war and very anti-Sadaam at the same time, but for this reason. If there were nothing else on our agenda at the time, then by all means I would have supported taking Sadaam out. But after 9/11 we had a unique, once in a generation chance to unite the world in the pursuit of freedom and democracy. Now the action we've taken in the name of freedom and democracy have united freedom's opponents as never before and divided its proponents. This is to say nothing of Al Qaeda or North Korea.
I agree, Sadaam was evil. He should have been removed. But power has its limitations. You can't acheive everything at once. With patience and strategy, we could have removed him, at lower cost, not just in money but to our long term interests and to the interests of humanity at large. Granted, Iraqis would have unfairly borne the cost of Sadaam's regime for some months longer. It wouldn't have been fair to them. But we are now in a precarious and risky situation, and others may suffer if luck is not with us. It's not going to be fair to them either.
I'm glad he was taken out of power. I'm glad he was caught, and that he will be brought to justice. I am optimistic by by nature and continue to hope for the best. If Bush and America are very, very lucky, or if we begin to be a lot more skillful in our affairs, things may yet turn out brilliantly. However I think it was a very unwise course of action.
If you've been watching the news and White House propoganda of late, you'll know that the major forces that have organized behind attacks against coalition forces have been those forces that arrived from out of the country. It's not some disbanded Ba'ath party members that suicide bombing the country side, but it's crazed militants from around the middle east.
The capture of saddam will probably provide some superficial relief, and will likely setup a nice facade to help ease reelection tensions, but more than that -- it's a relatively mute point. Nothing can come of it besides some happiness that hundreds of billions of dollars can go to capturing someone that was already deposed.
And moreover, the questions begs to be asked: where the hell is Osama? The man needs a DIALYSIS MACHINE! That's not some simple tool, or small for that matter. I'm angry that we've invested so much time in other countries, but Bush wants us to forget the real criminal behind 9/11.
Well, you be satisifed with this capture of Saddam. I'll be angry that we paid 25 million USD for a figure head, and a good ol' fashioned taste of Nazi propoganda. Where's Osama?!
Good points. But for the sake of conversation, I'd like to make some counter-points...
doubtful. not all the opposition is saddam supporters. there are islamic terrorists that want to setup another afghanstan, probably some shiites wanting to setup a iran-type islamic gov't, maybe some sunni's and maybe some kurds.
At the same time, Saddam was a symbol. Capturing him is also symbolic - that this regime is not going to return. This may hearten the Iraqi people. And those who feared such a return and kept silent while resistance / terrorists operated amoung them.
And it isn't the attacks that are keeping us there, we have to be there through the setup of the country and to fix a lot of things we broke in a couple of wars (and even more things saddam broke through neglect).
Actually - I have to disagree with this. The longer these attacks keep up, the longer US and its allies will remain in Iraq. True - the goal is to rebuild Iraq, not wipe out insurgants. But Iraq can not be rebuilt while the infrastructure of a new government is picked apart by assasinations and sabotage.
No, because it isn't the reason Bush started this war. Mass-murdering dictators are a dime-a-dozen, unfortunately - there are many others besides Hussein. And the US doesn't hesitate to support them if it suits some politically expedient purpose(Saddam Hussein was supported by the US back in the 80's). China has been committing genocide in Tibet for decades and executes more people than the rest of the world combined - many of them "guilty" of nothing more than criticism of the state. Yet China enjoys "most-favored nation" trading status with the US.
Quit with the silly comments about Saddam not being linked to Al-Queda, or Bin Laden not being caught or WMDs and what have you. It is stupid. Don't pretend like you are The Great Enlightened One and the only person that can see the truth and the rest are mindless sheep.
Slashdot is a fairly sophisticated and educated crowd. Yes, we know that Bin Laden hasn't been located. Yes, we know Saddam isn't the head of Al-Queda. Yes, we know they haven't found WMDs in Iraq. None of that has ANYTHING to do with Saddam's capture and it is insulting that you think we need to be told.
That Saddam is captured is a good thing. Even if you hate Bush, think the war was wrong, unjustified and so on you cannot honestly say that the world is not a better place without him being a free man. Will this magically fix all the problems in Iraq? Of course not, doesn't mean it's still not important.
This is important if for no other reason than that we have a concept of justice, that people should pay for their crimes. Saddam now can be made to do that. He can be tried for what he's done. More important than any punishment itself is the process, society enforcing order and justice.
So knock it off with the stupid comments. We already know, and it's insulting and makes you look childish.
Jews in the holocaust. Ethnic cleansing in eastern europe. Genocide in somalia and other african warzones. Chinese college students murdered in plain public view. North Koreans who aren't in the miliary starving, working in camps.
If you're one of these suffering people, it's your sovereign government that's probably going to kill you. If you plainly respect the soverign government, the people die. I'd rather take down a man made notion of government than let masses of innocent people die.
Remmember Hitler & germany in 1937-1940 ? they had plenty of Strength. I am pretty sure nobody repected them really. but feared yes. Remmember Staline and the purge ? He had plenty of strength too. Are you respecting him ? Do you think the russian people at large are/were respecting him ?
Ther word you search for strength is NOT repsect. Respect comes from admiting the weak point and strong point of the other and admiting for a certain admiration of those point.
US is not respected. US 15 years ago might be. But thanks to a certain... External politic and some pinch of bullying now the US is not respected. It is FEARED for its strength. See the two example above.
Fear and respect are quite not the same things, even if both lead you where you want to go. But remmember this : nothing is eternal. You recolt what you seed. If you think what is seeding right now the US is good, well good to you. I personally fear my kids will have to live "interresting years".
The fact that you fail to see how the fall of a major arabic tyranny that has threatened middle eastern peace for centuries and caused the death of millions helps to make the world (and America, which is still apart of the world) a safer place is disturbing. True, Bush might have done better to go after North Korea first, put more effort in finding ben-laden or concentrate on solving the isr-pal conflict, but to say that liberating Iraq is irrelevant to US security interests is plain wrong.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:05AM (#7716288)
Nope, the sanctions didn't hurt Saddam at all, because he was still living in a giant palace while having sugar blowed up his ass. That's the fucking point.
Don't tell me that you care about Iraqis when you let them die in the millions.
Undoubtly, and with some luck he will have a fair trial, in stark contrast to his own former justice system.
Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops
Hopefully, but very unlikely. Contrary to official propaganda not only Saddam loyalists, but also ordinary people are attacking the occupation forces. US disregard for civilians has made them quite a few enemies :
Oh The LIttle Saddams We Weave [zmag.org]
The War on Iraq's Workers [zmag.org]
and the US can pull out and let Iraq start setting up its own country.
US are already planning to have several permanent bases in Iraq, and are there to stay. And in the process install a puppet regime to protect their oil interests.
It's called empathy. Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine your mom got raped in front of you, and then they cut off her breast and through it on the ground.
Imagine your brother looked longingly at one of Saddam's son's mistresses without knowing and was fed to the lions.
Imagine... oh never mind...
It's called empathy. That's what makes it relevant.
Yes it would. There already is such a court, the International Criminal Court.. The problem is, the USA opposes it.
For good reason, mind you. The US could not join any ICC treaty, as the terms of the treaty are not acceptable under the US constitution. More pragmatically, it seems quite likely that the tranzis would use the ICC to bring frivilous charges against various officials in the US.
War-crimes tribunals should be short-term, focusing on the results of a single conflict and then dissolved. To do otherwise leads to mission creep, and the defining down of crimes against humanity merely to give the tribunal something to do.
What's important is not whether or not Saddam was controlling the cells from his spider hole... What is important is whether the cells thought he was controlling them.
A recent news story heard on NPR (I believe it was a Times reporter that had gotten in with a cell attacking US forces?) had Saddam loyalists flatly stating that, although the cells operated independently and did not know of other cells actions, they got their orders from a military structure that they believe was controlled by SH.
The hope would be, that with SH exposed and captured (and clearly not in command) that these cells will see they are being controlled by a military structure NOT under SH. In a perfect world, they would thus turn against that leadership...
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:09AM (#7716317)
Try explaining to an AMERICAN widow that the invasion of Iraq somehow made us in America SAFER despite the widow's husband is dead due to some random Islamic idiot's roadbomb. Oh, BUT WE'RE SAFER! FOX NEWS SAYS SO!
Saddam was an sadistic, evil, insane, dictator that enjoyed killing masses of people when he was in a bad mood.. He also helped subsidize the terrorists that attacked this country, and others.. And blatantly claimed he hated the US ( and other nations ) He needed to be gone, at most any cost.
Its is a GOOD thing that he is gone. He will no longer serve as incentive for many of the 2bit terrorists to continue. His capture will take a lot of wind out of their 'cause'.
But instead of appreciating the ramifications of what has just been done, I expect this entire forum to consist of people taking personal pot shots at the president.
For those of you that are just too f-ing short sided and must twist everything around to make it an attack on our leader and our country, I only have one thing to say to you: Get the hell out if you dislike it here so much. We don't need you, nor do you deserve any of the benefits or freedoms that you get for living in MY country.
You can't say you are against something unless you are willing to do something about it.
But with your logic you rule out the possibility that doing something about it might have unforeseable and even worse consequences.
If you are against something and the only thing you could do against it would have even worse consequences, it might be demonstration of your 'against'-ness if you would do it anyway, but you wouldn't suddenly become in favor of it if you would say 'Wait, under these circumstances I will wait until I can come up with something better'.
That goes both ways. It all depends on what the views of the people in control of the source are. Liberals show the liberal angle, conservatives show the conservative angle, so on and so forth.
Be careful to not imply that it's only the conservatives that do this.
You are a fool and a bigot. The vast majority of Moslems have no truck with terrorism. In all my years reading Slashdot, I have never seen the sobriquet "Anonymous Coward" more aptly applied.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:15AM (#7716377)
I am saddened to see the arrest occur without offering evidence for Saddam's illegal weapons of mass destruction - the purported reason for the invasion. Saddam is a criminal, but that doesn't permit the US to commit acts of international terrorism in the name of 'preemptive strikes' and homeland security, international law strictly forbids such actions. Weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, but the media fail to report this. The US in this invasion has used, and continues to use, massive amounts of depleted uranium. UN advisors confirm that this radioactive substance is killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi children via dramatically increased cancer rates. Start understanding for yourself http://www.sundayherald.com/32522
Take the red pill and educate yourself, find out what the headlines really mean. Don't use the PR provided by the military as your sole point of reference for current events. Look beyond the media machine of CNN et al and discover what is really going on in the world. The following is a good start to read what the independent media is able to uncover http://projectcensored.org/publications/2004/index.html
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:19AM (#7716410)
Hardly. It went on, but most certainly neither the U.S. or the U.K. put their blessing on such an event. By the standard you seem to hold, the fact that hit happened meant it went on with the "blessing" of ALL of the world.
The US was supplying Saddam with these nasty weapons before he used them on the Kurds, and continued to do so after he had. The US was loaning him billions of dollars to fight his war. He was a brutal dictator who killed his way to power; "he was a bastard, but he was our bastard". His W.O.M.D. were made in Maryland. You can find pictures of people in the current Bush administration shaking his hand in the 1980s. The only reason why Saddam went from being "good guy" to "bad guy" in the US's eyes was because he went from trying to invade Islamist Iran to trying to invade US oil-well Kuwait.
The US is currently supporting several Saddam-alike dictators in the region. The US is allied with Turkey (!)
Your nationalism is blinding you. The US's involvement with Iraq over the last couple of decades has been thoroughly rotten. None of this "bringing freedom" nationalistic rhetoric changes that.
In spite of your assertions, the United States only provided Saddam with around 1% of his armaments during the period from 1973-1992.
Ignoring all other assistance (intelligence, etc) that's still 1 percent too much, isn't it? If not, what percentage would you consider to be OK before a nation becomes culpable for assisting that regime? 5 percent? 10? 20? It must be nice to be able to pretend that assisting an oppressive regime doesn't matter as long as you don't help them too much.
He was not placed in power by the U.S. and the U.K. and he helped turn back the Ayatollah and, ultimately, the spread of Soviet influence in the Middle East.
So you admit he was used by successive US administrations who were willing to turn a blind eye to his "extra-curricular" activities?
"...In the early 1970s, there were about 40 democracies in the world. By the middle of that decade, Portugal and Spain and Greece held free elections. Soon there were new democracies in Latin America, and free institutions were spreading in Korea, in Taiwan, and in East Asia..."
Just what does the fall of General Franco in Spain, etc have to do with your argument? Are you suggesting the conversion of Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc to democracies had something to do with US intervention? Was Franco killed by an exploding CIA cigar? I think not.
As for those "new democracies in Latin America", please, don't make me laugh. The US's record in Latin America is laughable, such as the 1973 CIA-backed coup in Chile [cnn.com] that overthrew the democratically elected President President Salvador Allende in favour of a facist dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, who then proceeded to tortured and murdered tens of thousands. If that's the kind of example you want to bring up of how the US helps bring self-determination to the world then perhaps you want to think twice.
The facts are clear: when Saddam Hussein was murdering his people, the West stood by and watched, happy in the knowledge that he was being just as brutal towards Iranians as he was to his fellow Iraqis.
I agree. GREAT news that we got Saddam, but my blood is burning for Osama...
Someone please explain how this is, currently, modded +4 Insightful. Is it the "I agree" part? Does mere agreeance ("me too!") count as insight? Likely not. How about expressing the opinion that it's great Osama was caught? Hardly an insight there -- maybe "+1 Patriotic" or some such. Perhaps the part which is insightful is the fact that the poster's blood is burning for Osama. After all, unless the poster told us, we'd never know they had burning blood, would we?
All sarcasm aside, there's nothing at all insightful about the post in the slightest. Meta-mods, start your engines!
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:26AM (#7716476)
I seem to remember the United States recently invading a country illegally. The burden of proof before going to war should be sufficiently high - don't forget the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Osama bin Laden was not part of the CIA-backed Afghan mujahideen. He was part of the Arab component that was brought in to assist the Afghans, but he has hated the United States for a long time. He has never accepted backing from the US, and there have been several reports by journalists of the time that they had to remain hidden and not speak while in areas of Afghanistan under bin Laden's nominal control during the Soviet invasion.
He had no need for money or training from the US. He could get that with his own money.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:28AM (#7716503)
What, not on the terrorists or extremist Muslims? Unlike the Old World powers (who seemed to prefer to simply profit from Saddam), the U.S. had the will to take on a nasty dictator who was openly supporting terrorism. That little detail seems to escape all the detractors...
You watch too much Fox News pal.
NO ONE SUPPORTS SADDAM HUSSEIN! But you straw-man slayers cannot understand the nuances of the worlds objections... YOU CANNOT UNILATERALLY ATTACK FOREIGN NATIONS! UNDER ANY GODDAMNED IMAGINED (real or otherwise) REASONS!
First Afghanistan, then Iraq... you Yankess are going to start WWIII! Dont be so fucking stupid.
Try to explain to a widow of a Saddam victim that the war is illegal.
Lets get her in a room with a widow of a Bush victim, get Gerry Springer in there, you got a show.
The war was illegal, the war was about weapons of mass destruction and after months of not finding any, they changed their story for "Booh Saddam! Bad bad Saddam!".
I see it worked great on some people...big powerpoint user are you?
Slight (major) problem with the "illegal war" thing. At the end of Gulf War I, there was no peace treaty, only a cease fire (something of which we had a dozen or so of in Afghanistan alone during that war). It went along the lines of "disarm all WMDS and prove to our satisfaction the destruction of said WMDs and cease all hostilities and we won't finish the job." Since Saddam violated the cease fire on many counts and on many occasions, the only way the continuation of hostilities by the US could be considered an illegal war would be if the first Gulf War was itself illegal. Since that was done by the authority of the UN, that's highly unlikely, unless you doubt the authority of the UN, in which case there's no one to call any war illegal. But of course, this conflicts with your erotic anti-Bush world dreams, so I'm sure you won't let facts get in your way.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:33AM (#7716545)
(20%+ of any population is always going to fall for the "big lie")
And you appear to be in the 20% of the US population that fell for the big lie of the Republican party.
I shudder to think where we'd be today if Gore had won in 2000.
Riiight. All our men would be wearing beards and our women burkhas.
God knows we had 8 years of horror and economic disaster last time we had a Democrat in office. Oh no, wait, that was just 40 million taxpayer dollars spent investigating a blowjob and a shady land deal...
Why don't you go into detail about how the country would be hypothetically different if Gore had been elected? I'd like to read that...
---
I do commend you on your taste in pistols, though...
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:33AM (#7716549)
With Saddam Hussain being put on display in a humiliative fashion - him playing the role of a broken man whose two sons have been killed by the very forces that now have control of his life - this might anger those who lead these assaults even more.
But the Coalition forces aren't completly
humiliating him (Based on 30 minutes of
news radio while making pancakes). He's not
blindfolded and shackled. They gave him
a medical exam and a shave and a haircut. He's being shown
as meek and cooperating. Regardless of the truth
of the situation, he is being shown in such
a way as to dis-illusion the remaining resistance.
Or at least one can hope.
It will be interesting to see how the US stage-manages this. Clothes will be interesting.
I expect to see him in nice, comfortable, western
clothes.
We are sincerely hoping that you will vote their asses out of office next time and elect somebody with a finer understanding of the world...
Unfortunately, the events of the last 24 hours don't make this very likely.
What problem could we have solved that would have prevented Osama Bin Laden being a terrorist?
Are you joking? The US had a large hand in training much of the resistance force in Afghanistan, including Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), of which Osama was the head. Osama later split from MAK and established al-Qaida. So the US's efforts gave a lot toward Osama's current terror regime. It's also hard to be friendly toward a force that uses you to fight for them. The Afghanistan rebels were useful to the US as long as they fought the Soviets. When they didn't need them anymore, the US left, leaving Afghanistan in ruins and paving the way for the Taliban and worse.
According to Wikipedia, Osama's main beef with the US is it's support of Saudi Arabia monarchy, which, if you'll pardon a cliche, was largely supported due to it's oil reserves. Osama is, of course, a psychopath, but that doesn't mean that the US didn't have a hand in the creation of the terrorist leader we know today.
9/11 didn't occur because of something we did, it happened simply because of what we were. A successful, free, secular society.
Almost all modern terrorism is due to US foreign policy. It is not because terrorists "hate freedom". That is, franky an extremely naive view of the world, seperating people into blank and white views of "good" and "bad".
This War on Terror can be won and will be by acting decisively and crushing them all.
Even more naive. By "acting decisively and crushing them all" you only incite more people to harm the US. As a UK citizen, I've seen what happened when terrorism was tackled by force. It increased. Whilst terrorism must not be tolerated, a "War on Terror" is going to be as successful as the US "War on Drugs".
The rest of the world needs a different US. You might not care, tho - but I for one hope you do.
The rest of the world might want a different U.S., but the President acts strictly for the interests of his own country. I, for one, think Bush has done an amazingly good job with foreign policy. Not one citizen has died from foreign terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11...that is a tremendous track record for the Bush administration. I shudder to think where we'd be today if Gore had won in 2000.
Good point about how the President should be looking out for the best interests of his own country.
However, your point of U.S. citizens not dying from terrorism is extremely weak.
No US citizens have died from foreign terrorism on U.S. soil EVER... until GWB. So, that means, according to your logic, since George Washington, it was a tremendous track record for every single president of the US to avoid this... except for Bush because he was the only president to ever allow U.S. citizens to die from a foreign terrorist act on U.S. soil.
This is important if for no other reason than that we have a concept of justice, that people should pay for their crimes.
Funny -- in my view justice isn't being served here. The crimes that this man is responsible for went unpunished (and, in fact, were given the unofficial okay) at the time they were carried out.
This man is paying for Bin Laden's crimes. The war started with 9/11 and took a major (albeit preplanned) detour here.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:38AM (#7716596)
Yeah, right. And there are people who claim that there's still a Third Reich everyone is at war with because there was no peace treaty with the Third Reich.
Some obscure legal backdoor doesn't make the war legal. Use some common sense here.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:43AM (#7716639)
Lots of people have been killed by terrorists on US soil, now that terrorism includes bank robbers, kidnappers, school kids caught with butter knives in their cars, and anyone involed in peaceful demonstrations.
China has nuclear weapons. Iraq does not. Much easier to invade a country and get rid of some assholes when they can't turn you or your major cities into a radioactive cinder. Oh and then there's that thing about having a bajillion troops. Just a few small points to remember.
Saying "you have no wmd, so he cant be tried" is like saying "we cant try a shooter since we dident find bullets in his gun".
He's used these weapons before. we know he's killed hundred of thousands through genocide and outright war.
If he goes in front of Geneva, its a death penalty for sure.
But that does not mean that this will end the current resistance. It depends on who is right about what is really going on.
Theory 1: Saddam loyalists are attacking the Americans, et al. In this scenario, capturing Saddam weakens the resistance.
Theory 2: Outside terrorists are the main sponsors. In this scenario it makes NO DIFFERENCE where Saddam is captured or not.
Theory 3: The main rank and file of the resistance are formed by patriotic Iraqis who see themselves not as fighting for Saddam but rather as fighting for Iraqi independence. In this case, the arrest of Saddam removes a MAJOR obstacle to the resistance, namely the fear that by resisting, it will be allowing Saddam to come back to power.
The truth is probably a mixture of all three. The real danger in the arrest (not to say that I am opposed to the arrest, but let's not have rosy tinted glasses about the whole thing) is that it will take a resistance movement which has seen a growing mainstream patriotic wing and remove the final obstacle for the mainstream Iraqi to support it. In this case, it could mean that the war will simmer and slowly boil up.
This is not without precedent. Look into WWI and the experience of the British in the area that became Iraq.
Blah blah blah.... We hate anything American does.
The U.S. cann't attack any nation.... blah blah blah.... Well pal we did, and the world is now a much safer place for it. We gave up British, American and Italian lives for this (sorry if I missed any other country), and this is a huge day.
You watch too much BBC and CNN. Remember there is a GOOD reason the Iraqie Bob hugged the CNN reporter.... and that the BBC was thrown off of a British ship.
Well, I think they might bring up the small matters of ethnic cleansing, murder, violence, extortion, biological weapons.... oh and that gold bathroom, I believe Jean Paul Gaultier and co want word with him about taste;-)
Well, yeah. It'd be a political body in a political body that has often been used as an anti-us platform.
I can't think of a good reason why there can't be an exception for sodliers serving under a UN mandate; that'd kill both the US's fears of the court and the world's fear of the US in one fell swoop.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @11:53AM (#7716771)
Look, you idiot. How long did it take to find Saddam? OK, now go find every fucking 55 gallon drum of something.
Oh, wait, biologicals can be stored in smaller containers than that. So it took us months to find Hussein with a bounty on his head. How long do you really think it will take to find containers in a country the size of a mid sized state in the US? They could be burried anyplace. Look, Iraq had months to figure out where to hide stuff before they were attacked.
Even Clinton said that Iraq hadn't accounted for everything when he left office.
I'm so tired of people talking about this like Saddam wasn't a bad guy. You seem to forget that he did have a history of gassing the Kurds. He was using these weapons. You forget that France and Russsia were the ones supplying him and big surprise they're the ones that didn't want to go to war. France supplied the planes that applied the gas and he still owed them billions for it. So who needs this history lesson?
See your beloved Saddam now. http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html
These were the people of his own country. Look at the dead children and their moms.
Do you know any real Iraqis? People who really come from there. I do. I used to work with someone who defected from there a few years before the first war whose sole job was verifying for Saddam that people he wanted executed were executed. He told me this back in 1987 before I even had a clue who Saddam was.
I've come to the conclusion that there is no "liberal media" nor a "conservative media". It's just "The Media"
There is no view they're trying to push, no idea they want people to follow...they're a shark that feeds on itself and will eat anything and everything in it's way.
They only look at the almighty dollar and only care how many people are watching so they can sell their ads. That's the bottom line. They will report on anything and everything...the more sensational the better. Facts rarely enter into the fray...just so long as they have a headline.
The government doesn't control them because if that were true, then that in itself would be a major story...that "CNN has evidence that FOX is controlled by X" or vice versa. Remember, they eat anything and everything.
It never cease to amaze how people doesn't care to know minimal facts before supporting every stupid wars. Let me give you some facts that you can check easily.
Facts:
Saddam Hussein was a cruel ruler that killed thousands of Kurds with gas.
Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi, like most of the 7-11 attack terrorists.
Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were know enemies, at least before this year.
Iraq had nothing to do with 7-11 attack. Even Paul Wolfowitz (deputy secretary of defense) can't say otherwise.
It's not know that Iraq had supported any terrorist attack in the world.
No massive destruction weapon was found yet in Iraq.
AFTER USA invaded Iraq Bin Laden supposedly made some speechs urging iraquies to fight against coalition forces.
Terrorism in Iraq started from null to today situation since President Bush anounced end of fights.
"Old Europe" countries foretold this situation will happen. USA reacted renaming french fries.
Of course Old Europe also had important economical interests an Iraq, like USA.
There a lot of other interesting facts that you could find if you ever care.
Based on today's events, I feel that Bush is the guy that will protect America (and her allies). If you go after America, we'll get you.
OMG!
When, exactly WHEN did Saddam "go after America"? When, and how?
Saddam was all cozy in his little kindom, not having any weapons of mass destruction or anything, and Bush decided to go after Iraq, not the other way around. He did it for many reasons: Oil, a distraction from internal scrutiny, a well known villain, but NOT because Saddam attacked America, because he never did.
Let supose you are in USA and the police enters your house, arrest you and keeps you months in prison while they search for a weapon you had. Is that legal? how much time could they keep you if they don't find evidence?
Oh give it a rest! Saddam was the one that killed his own people. All that oil money and the 12 multimillion dollar mansions and the oppulent life style that he and his followers lived in and yet his people nearly starved *BEFRE* the sanctions!
No matter if you believe the pictures seen on tv right now that show a male person looking similar to Saddam Hussein in captivity to be real, the question wether this event will have any impact on the insurgency taking place in iraq or not is an entirely different one.
First of all, it should be noted that several western intelligence services consider the acts of terrorism to be conducted not by loyalists but by activist with ties to/inspired by Al Qaeda. However, there is no reliable information on who's behind all this.
What if it were loyalists? Well, in that case I doubt it will make much of a difference. It has been noted that now the plain vanilla arabian person will consider Hussein a coward and will no longer fight for him. This, in my humble opinion, displays a lack of understanding of the sort of people Hussein surrounded himself with as well as having pretty rigid stereotypes.
You have to realize that his 'followers' are not motivated by ideology, honor or religion. They are/were motivated by their hunger for power. And riches. If they thought they had a chance to get that back, they might pretty well still think so. Hussein isn't dead yet, and even if he was, someone could replace him. They mostly want their power and wealth back, not necessarily Hussein.
And if it isn't (mostly) 'Saddamists' behind the terror? Then it will make even less of a difference. And if you think more troops or more/better police will improve the situation, think again. Every house search, every accidently killed civilian, every repressive action by the occupation forces or the so-called iraqi police will drive more people into the underground.
Is this a victory for the US? Certainly. Any acts of terrorism occuring after the arrest of Hussein can be discounted as the desperate last acts of a bunch of lunatics that lost their leader.
Is this a victory for the Iraqi people? Perhaps a very small one. They can have their vengence, but it's unlikely their quality of life will improve now.
The War is illegal, not because the US invaded a soverign state on the justification that there was the possibility of a chance of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.
The War is illegal because it was never declared. In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991. Since then we've bombed a soverign state for shits and giggles, but haven't really declared war. War has fairly cristiline properties in international law.
Further, your argument on WMD is excessively vapid. Just because we haven't found the WMD doesn't mean they don't exist. Therefore the war is not based on unfounded accusations and improperly motivated?
Great! So when Bush invades Madagasgar or possibly The Vatican City looking for Nuclear Weapons we'll say "well he hasn't found them yet, but they must be there?" At some point you have to break from the political claptrap the administration feeds you and start thinking for yourself.
When you've been in possession of a country for months at a time and you've had thousands of people to search it with the co-operation of most of the people in that country, how hard should it be to find anything? We're not gonna find WMD in Iraq. And if they turn up after all this time I'd be more inclined to go into tin-foil hat mode and accuse the Bush administration of planting the evidence then I would belive that we were so incompitant as to be unable to locate them up to now.
That, and by all reports and estimates of Saddam's state of mind he'd have used those weapons if he'd had them when we marched on Baghdad.
Quit with the silly comments about Saddam not being linked to Al-Queda, or Bin Laden not being caught or WMDs and what have you. It is stupid. Don't pretend like you are The Great Enlightened One and the only person that can see the truth and the rest are mindless sheep.
I will keep replying to the mindless sheep who are happy that the Great Bush has "accomplished his goal" and "protected America" and "won a victory in the war against terror" by having his troops capture Saddam.
Because none of it is true, and they DON'T allready know, and they need to be reminded. And if you think that the truth is stupid and childish, then I pity you.
A tremendous victory? Why? Do you think Iraqi resistance will stop because of this?
But what I don't understand is why so many people know so little about Iraq. If there is a democracy in Iraq the ones who will be elected will be shiites leader... And the first thing they will do is transform Iraq into an islamic state like Iran.
The really funny part is that Saddam was fighting those shiites leader. For our safety, it would have been better to keep Saddam or at least keep the old regime.
You know, I'M getting tired of this crap about having to "pick one of the two".
The man is, quite simply, the truest form of a politician.
He's sleazy. We go to war with Afghanistan because Al Quaeda attacked us (let's not mention that we're taking that assertion that it was Al Quaeda on faith since the administration wouldn't share any of the "evidence" it magically had only hours after the attacks). Bin Laden, the psychofuck we're supposed to get, gets away. Solution? Look harder? No. Divert attention to Iraq. Pretend they have a current WMD program (again, present no [truthful] evidence), blow them the fuck up, and then, when you realize your ass is getting handed to you by all the people who want to see this Great Big Threat to America and all these WMDs, start pretending like you started yammering about all this a year ago because you wanted to "liberate" people.
Bull fucking shit. He knows damn well that Hussein is already a villian in everybody's minds and that he can back that up because the man IS a villian. He knows he can whip people into a frenzy every time he passes "ter'rism" through his lips and he can sweep his fuck-ups under the carpet by changing his story later.
You want to know why I hate him more than any recent prez in history? More than lying, two-faced, backstabbing Clinton? Because everytime I cried for evidence when the man started making claims, I got nasty looks from idiots who just wanted to hear that ter'rists were being taken out of their happy little world. When I start pointing out that the man has lied his way into two wars so far and changed the story or conveniently just closed the book halfway through, I get the same goddamn looks.
I'm tired of Bush apologists in particular and political apologists in general. The man doesn't know what the truth is and probably wouldn't know it if he choked on it watching football. He wasn't elected to push his own personal agendas, and I'm sick of it. The man is the epitomy of slimy politicians through and through. The fact that good things (like this) occasionally happen as a result of his constant fucking about doesn't excuse the fact that he's a sniveling, manipulative, two-faced liar. At least when Clinton lied about a blow job from a mildly unattractive ditz nobody got killed. Can't say nobody died as a result of this asshole's lies. I don't appreciate that.
sorry to rain on your parade of lies, but when they do the body count, they're also counting deaths saddam's own people caused. They aren't all people killed by US bombs. They take any deaths that have any connnection to the war at all. The reason, why to make a higher body count, of course.
Aside from the question if you fully believe the news, the question if others believe it is always more important. Whatever your opinion is, you can be sure that for every one person who has doubts there will be a million who don't. They are led to believe something, and that should be the main concern here. Because a million people have a lot more impact than one. And if you've been reading major newspapers lately, you might have noticed that, for instance, the majority of the people in the US believe Hussein to be responsible for 9/11 - despite the fact there is no evidence.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the actual facts are always most interesting, but they have no impact if people rather believe what they want to believe, if they oversimplify, make uninformed decisions and don't bother to revise their model of the world. Simply put, actual facts don't matter to the majority.
You could say that, in a case like this, facts are made through news.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @12:26PM (#7717084)
Sounds like you are the one with the erotic world dream of Bush.
Why don't you mention the legailty of pre-emptive war that Bush unilatirally imposed during his rule? The first time in hundreds of year that we need no reason to invade other countries and take them over? Does that fact bother you?
So during the 90's, between Iraq wars, we were actually at war with Iraq?! My mistake, I guess you think Vietnam wasn't really a war either.... your facts are not straight. Gulf War I started and ended (treaty and cease fire irrelevant technicalities aside) and Gulf War II started separately and for less reason.
Saddam and Iraq provided information that their WMD were non-existant and destroyed, they provided thousands of pages of documentation to prove it. All of the world experts who went to Iraq found nothing. Our subsequent invasion found no WMD.... yet you claim the facts are on your side.
So what was our reason for invading then, douche bag? Let's hear your "facts"... The best you can say is the Gulf War I never ended? This is the least valid argument I've yet to hear about this whole fiasco.
Go suck Bush's dick and let me know if it passifies your erotic dreams.
...He also helped subsidize the terrorists that attacked this country...
What are you talking about? The US government (despite trying desperately to do so) has found absoloutly no evidence that Saddam or the Iraqi government ever funded or consorted with Al Queda or any other "terrorist" group.
On the other hand, we have plenty of evidence that Saudi Arabia HAS directly funded, armed, aided and abedded known terrorist leaders and groups. When do we invade Saudi Arabia?
The "pot shots" as you call them that I take at the US President are simply requests for factual information that makes his stated case. To date I have not seen that ANYTHING that Bush stated as a reason for illegally invading Iraq to be true (no weapons, no terrorist support, no intent to harm neigbors).
Bush lied, he is a cad and a coward. If you think otherwise, then please link to official government press releases/information that provides me with this information. NOT press releases that say they have the information, but the actual information.
You know slashdot has a liberal crowd when a story that is clearly positive for the coalition and Bush has responses that mention:
Guatonoma Bay and illegal arrests Bush's election being illegal Osama Bin Laden is still free US opposition to the International Court No WMD has been found If the war was about human rights then why not attack China
>Well, Election 2004 ended this morning. Like him or not, Bush is the man right now.
"Right now" is nearly a year away from the elections themselves. GHW Bush was "the man" in 1991 but still managed to blow the elections in '92.
Things that can still hurt W:
1. another terrorist attack (unless it's so bad that this (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/ 20/185048.shtml) occurs, which may or may not remove W.
2. not finding Osama. If they can get him in August or September of next year, *then* the election is over.
3. a trial for Saddam that brings to light all the dirty stuff the US did back when he wasn't considered the anti-Christ. You're right, though, it could well start late enough to be a non-issue.
4. more insurgents (despite what country they're actually from) and more quagmire for a supposed "mission accomplished"
5. North Korea
6. An economic downturn, or a rally that peters out
7. what else? I'm curious to hear others' comments.
Frankly, if I were a Macchiavellian bastard who wanted to stay in power, I'd arrange to have several 'necessary' military actions (of the apparently non-quagmire type) going on at the same time as the elections. As long as it's considered treason to question those actions, there will be a majority of people who think a continuity of leadership is necessary, so I know I could be re-elected.
> Try explaining to an AMERICAN widow that the invasion of Iraq somehow made us in America SAFER despite the widow's husband is dead due to some random Islamic idiot's roadbomb. Oh, BUT WE'RE SAFER! FOX NEWS SAYS SO!
"Ma'am, your husband died doing what he volunteered to do. He got killed 'over there' because every Islamic thug we kill 'over there' is one less Islamic thug who can eventually try his luck at killing civilians 'over here', but sometimes the Islamic thugs get lucky 'over there' too. War is hell."
And since I'm really a civilian posting from behind the safety of my keyboard in the States, I'll add one more thing: "Your husband, as someone willing to put more than Slashdot karma points on the line for what he believed in, grew a pair and served, which is more than I ever did."
To all who've served in the past, and who are serving today - at home or abroad - I'll say "w00t", which is the geek equivalent of the Marines' "Semper Fi" (sorry for not knowing the Army, Navy, and Air Force equivalents!), and celebrate another victory with a nice steaming cup of Shut The Fuck Up.
Oh, and Saddam? j00=pwn3d. we>j00. Of course you fail it. Your last spider hole of a base is belong to us. Your people, for several million, welcome their new US overlords. No Natalie Portman and hot grits. All we had left was 50-grit. Your next interview is with Goatse Guy, and I suggest you listen very carefully to his advice.
It is not about whining. It is about looking at where the real problem is rather than going after symptoms. Sadaam was never a threat to the US. OBL is a threat to all, but extremists. There is enough evidence to support the view that most of the attacks in Iraq are not ex-sadaam loyalists, but are new Al Qaeda who will be happy to keep doing what they have been doing all along.
As to feeling good about capturing Sadaam, Yeah (assuming that it really is him; DNA tests take much longer than 2 hours). It is nice to know that we got him alive. Hopefully, we allow the local Iraqis to try him and give him some mid-eastern justice; an eye for an eye.
As I've stated before, I'm a veteran and that's an illogical argument. Personnel in the military are expected to figt battles and people die in battle. Am I supposed to think that John Doe dying in battle is any less important than Joe Smith? You people had better spend a few months in the military and with their families before making blanket statements like 'AMERICAN widow'. The risks were known, accepted and called upon. That American widow you spoke of knows that as well and should feel proud that she had the honor of intimately knowing someone who was willing to take the challenge of performing this task. The pain is still there but life goes on. My friends and family HATED that I was in the service but it wasn't up to them and I gladly accepted the challenge. BTW...we ARE safer with Saddam out of the picture and no, I'm not Rush Limbaugh.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @12:45PM (#7717253)
Slight (major) problem with the "the authority of the UN" thing. If UN authorization of the first Gulf War makes it legal, what does UN (and World) oposition to the second Gulf War make it? Illegal.
(3) Until I hear of nukes with "Hi, there!" painted on the sides being dragged out of Iraq, we have still invaded Iraq for no good reason. The only reason the UN went along with this little war is because US intelligence lied about WMD and thus believed that they posed a serious threat to neighboring nations. No WMD = unjustified war = unjustified deaths on both sides.
Pardon me, but have I been missing something? As far as I know the UN didn't "go along" with the war. It merily supports "reconstruction effords" now and has recognized the "coalation of the willing" as the current temporary governing force of iraq.
wow, the mods were right...that was insightful. Please give me a definition of a 'legal' war....that way I'll know when to shut up and bow to the gods of ancient Mesopotamia. And please don't use the UN argument, the UN is a farce.
This was never the issue. This was a stalling point that France, Germany, and the Soviets used to hide their illegal (i.e. against sanctions) business relationships with Iraq. Bush got tied down in the political mess that is the U.N., and the WMD issue was picked a part ad nauseum by other governments who are highly skilled at spin doctoring. The only reason they wanted to this to be brough to the UN, was to stall the issue.
The real issue in my mind is, shortly after 911, Saddam Hussien up'd the pay out for the families of suicide bombers. That association alone makes Iraq a state that harbors/supports terrorist. The old Iraq had to go, Saddam was in charge of the old Iraq.
And before you start bitching about WW2: The US got involved because Mister Fuhrer sunk a few US ships too many.
Another poster already pointed out that Japan, not Germany, did the ship sinking.
Perhaps you'd better brush up on your history. While Pearl Harbor was the start of the US's overt involvement in hostilities, care to estimate how many American pilots entered into the RAF and RCAF with the tacit permission of the US government? What about all those Americans fighting the Japanese in China as part of the American Expeditionary Group aka The Flying Tigers. What about the US Navy actively hunting German U-Boats in the North Atlantic? What about the military hardware that was supplied to Britain, the Soviet Union, and their allies? What about the economic blockades of Axis countries?
The US was involved with WWII well before Pearl Harbor. As just a start, try reading Roosevelt's Secret War by Joseph Persico. Please come back and offer your opinions when you actually have some knowledge behind them.
The US could not join any ICC treaty, as the terms of the treaty are not acceptable under the US constitution.
That is quite debatable. A good number of politicians feel differently. In any case, it's a question best decided by the Supreme Court. So why not let them?
More pragmatically, it seems quite likely that the tranzis would use the ICC to bring frivilous charges against various officials in the US.
That is simply the paranoid mode of thought which leads to unilateralism. It's ridiculous. The same argument could be used by any nation. Are we supposed to belive the USA is somehow unique?
Using the ICC for frivolous politically motivated indictments is in nobodys best interest. Any and all systems of justice require faith in the legitimacy of the legal process, you can't have justice otherwise.
War-crimes tribunals suffer from this lack of faith. A trial of the vanquished by the victors can never be considered impartial.
Faith in justice is one of the American ideals I mentioned. There is no reason besides xenophobia to think that America should not extend this faith to the international scene.
Try explaining to an AMERICAN widow that the invasion of Iraq somehow made us in America SAFER despite the widow's husband is dead due to some random Islamic idiot's roadbomb.
When you sign up for the military you have no guarantee for life - that's just part of the job.
When you're a citizen of a nation, the government must do everything it can to protect your life and your well being... that's part of it's job.
When you have a government that gasses and kills its own people, then the government isn't doing its job and must be removed. The forces that remove that government know it's going to be hard, know people are going to die or get wounded, and know that every day they're over there their life is in danger...
If they have a problem with that then they shouldn't have signed up with the military in the first place.
Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq? A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction. Q: But the inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction. A: That's because the Iraqis were hiding them. Q: And that's why we invaded Iraq? A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections. Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn't find any weapons Of mass destruction, did we? A: That's because the weapons are so well hidden. Don't worry, we'll find something, probably right before the 2004 election. Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction? A: To use them in a war, silly. Q: I'm confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn't they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them? A: Well, obviously they didn't want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves. Q: That doesn't make sense. Why would they choose to die if They had all those big weapons with which they could have fought back? A: It's a different culture. It's not supposed to make sense. Q: I don't know about you, but I don't think they had any of those weapons our government said they did. A: Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway. Q: And what was that? A: Even if Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country. Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to Invade his country? A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people. Q: Kind of like what they do in China? A: Don't go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer. Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it's a good country, even if that country tortures people? A: Right. Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured? A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured. Q: Isn't that exactly what happens in China? A: I told you, China is different. Q: What's the difference between China and Iraq? A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath party, while China is Communist. Q: Didn't you once tell me Communists were bad? A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad. Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad? A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured. Q: Like in Iraq? A: Exactly. Q: And like in China, too? A: I told you, China's a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not. Q: How come Cuba isn't a good economic competitor? A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government Passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being communists and started being capitalists like us. Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn't that help the Cubans become capitalists? A: Don't be a smart-ass. Q: I didn't think I was being one. A: Well, anyway, they also don't have freedom of religion in Cuba. Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement? A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he's not really a Legitimate leader anyway. Q: What's a military coup? A: That's when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States. Q: Didn't the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup? A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend. Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate? A: I never said Pervez Musharraf
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @01:01PM (#7717419)
Of course the US opposes the Rome treaty. So would anybody with half a brain that read the damn thing. But that's not the point. The point is that the treaty, if it were signed, would be unconstitutional.
The Constitution of the United States guarantees all citizens of this country access to what we call "due process." That means that everybody who's accused of a crime will get treated in the same way. The Rome treaty (that would have, if ratified, formed the ICC) includes no provisions for respecting the due process provisions of our Constitution. Since treaties signed by the president and ratified by the Senate carry the full weight of federal law, and since all federal laws must act only within the limits set out in the Constitution, the Rome treaty would, if ratified, be immediately struck down by the Supreme Court.
Todays unilateral foreign policy is a shame on America
Wrong. The rest of the world has shamed America, not the other way around.
Oh, so it's OK to back coups against democratically-elected governments if they are socialist?
Ah, I see now. It doesn't matter that the people of Chile elected Allende in free and fair elections. It only matters that his election wasn't desirable in Washington.
Do you even have a clue at what the word "socialist" means or even how many governments in Europe would be called socialist? Tony Blair's Labour Party may have reinvented itself, but it's essentially a socialist party. Do you see Blair ordering the murder of "comrades" and "peers"? Has the election of a Labour government ever been a justifiable reason for the US deciding to overthrow the British government?
Frankly, your post is full of lies and rubbish. "It was a bad choice between two terrible butchers", you say. Well, care to provide any evidence that Allende was a butcher?
Face facts: the CIA-led overthrow of a democratically-elected government and installation of a fascist dictator is not something in which the US should take pride. Even Colin Powell, when asked about it by a teenager on a MTV debate called it "unfortunate". If Mr Powell recognises it was wrong then why can't you?
WTF are you talking about...the reward of $15 million a head was paid for Saddam's two sons. The reward for the CIA killer was paid as well. The $25 million will be paid in this case...don't get your panties in a knot.
When Stalin died those hundreds of thousands of people on the streets weren't there by force, the country was so brainwashed that people cried truthfully. You can still find WW2 veterans who see him as a God, even after seeing their own friends and family killed or iomprisoned for life. If you want a nice English explanation of the real horror of the Soviet regime, read the last part of "1984" where the difference between the Inquisition, the fascists and communists is explained.
And with regard to America it is not about respect now, it's about other countries not having the same clout and failing even after starting a huge public relations battle against the US. It's interesting to note that the countries leading the anti-American/anti-Bush crusade are the ones who are most threatened by a strong US presence in various parts of the world. France isn't exactly falling over itself to go against America because of high moral values, rather it has to appear nice to it's large muslim population as well as making sure that it's not completely powerless in the new century.
As for Russia well I think anyone can see the huge insult that ignoring the wishes of an ex-world power would be to them. Not to mention that the presence of large amounts of American troops in areas which they historically had a lot of influence in and which they had always supported and strategically valued is just something they have to control if they wish to keep any kind of status or power in the region.
There are very few countries opposing Bush for humanitarian reason, though they'd like the world to think so. They want to do the same exact thing America does, to have the military power to push their own interests and the economic power to control all the emerging countries. I mean everyone calls the US imperialistic and bent of waging illegal wars yet no one remembers French atrocities against Algerians who wanted their freedom. Or what exactly the French Foreign legion does in Africa or what the Russians do in Chechnya. In the end every government only thinks strategically, and anyone who thinks otherwise is either naive or a fool. While president's might spout great humanistic speaches or make up excuses about WMDs it's all about strategy. For the US is ideal strategy to be able to have a controlling circle of countries around Iran and to make sure potential terrorist bases are taken out where possible. It's strategically important to have a successfull non-Jewish democratic state in the region to act as an example, and it's strategically important to have army bases that are in well controlled countries instead of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The other countries want the same things but don't have the clout, either military or financial to achieve them and that's why they are so against American dominance in the most energetically important region in the world. If I were Putin I'd be pissing in my pants about Bush or a Free Iraq throwing cheap Iraqi oil on the market, in one fell swoop killing the nascent Russian economy. If I were Chirac I'd be deathly afraid of my huge Arab population making trouble or of loosing hundreds of lucrative deals with embargoed governments in that region, I mean who would they supply nuclear reactors to, other then unstable maniacal leaders.
USA supports Pakistan. Isn't that a truly evil dictatorship? didn't they give training to Talibans? then why supporting them and making them allies? My point is that while dictatorships are evil and we are all happy there is one less dictator, we shouldn't be blinded that Iraq invation was inspired for a complex mix of economical-geopolitical interests and not for the love of freedom or war againt terrorism. That being the driving force of the ocupation there are high probabilities that this issue ends bad for all the parties involved (coallition, Iraq, UN, etc). Other dictactors/terrorists are happily supported until they become inconvenient or get out of hand. Doesn't that disturb you?
Saddam's capture also has nothing to do with returning my overdue library books (2 weeks late!) but what's your point?
Saddam was flaunting terms of armistice after Gulf War I, acting as if he believed he had WMDs. Looks like he didn't, and that he didn't is due to the deceit of his scientists, who lead him on to thinking they were carrying out his orders to pursue WMD development. A few years of continued indecision by the "United Nations" (ironic designation if there ever was one) lead by the complicit French and insidious Germans could have given enough time to expose the scientists' scheme and allow Saddam to replace them with willing scientists.
Remember, there was no doubt in the UN that Saddam did in fact HAVE WMD -- just that the French lead opposition to the ENFORCEMENT of UN resolutions was hearlded under the banner that Saddam was beginning to comply with their distruction after years of resistance! That we didn't find the WMDs which even the French assumed he had is truly immaterial -- he was willing to pursue them and proved time and time again he would use them.
Terrorism: he paid a bounty to Palestinian families of suicide bombers. He was a funding source of international terrorism. Maybe unrelated to 9/11 directly, but still an International Terror sponsor with an agenda to obtain WMDs.
America safer: We are. The world recognizes that we are resolute in our determination to take the war to the terrorists. Also, we gave weight to the UN's heretofore meaningless resolutions.
War on Terrorism: It wasn't just anti-NY or even just anti-US terrorism that Bush declared our enemy. (I'm sure you'd be yelling the other direction had he limited the battle to our enemies alone; am I not right?) It was terrorism. The Middle East is a hot-bed of terrorism with the leaders (politico-religious) inciting the common people to acts of terrorism teaching hate at every turn. Having a foothold in the Middle East in strategically positioned Iraq is a critical move to bring the war to the source of the terror.
Did you notice that we have control of two borders of Iran (Afghanistan and Iraq)? Did you notice how easily the Iranians caved in on the production of weapons grade uranium? Think that is a coincidence?
Think it is a coincidence that the third Saudi Cleric came out denouncing militaristic Islam?
I found the post to be very insightful, but there is one thing I must disagree with: "I suspect that The world preferd the Isolationist America of 1906 or 1936 to the Gulliver Unchained of 2003."
This is plainly not true. I am a European and I know how the debates went here, when Bush was elected. The big problem was that he withdrew the US from the international arena; especially the Israeli-Palestine conflict. The gripe when Bush became interested in foreign affairs after 9/11 was not that US invaded Afganistan, most people in Europe agreed with this. The opposition is always the loudest though.
The real critique came when Bush decided to invade Iraq. The reason people generally opposed this in Europe is (I asume) that Saddam had made no real agressive moves, and thus the US/UK conducted an unprovoked aggression against Iraq.
Of course, while a lot of European voices were raised against the invasion, a lot of voices were raised for it as well.
If viewed from as a state to state matter, a lot of things in the decision to invade are discussable. However, when viewing the invasion from a moral and philosophical point of view, there really isn't much to discuss. Ayn Rand said: "The evil of the world is made possible by only the sanction that you give it"
Bush can't declare war. That takes an act of Congress.
Saddam is one guy. He's about 3 cubic feet in volume and requires a supply of water and glucose (with trace elements) to be kept alive.
Weapons of Mass Destruction, at least in any useable form, are row after row after row of chemical/biological shells. Along with that comes storage and production facilities and other infrastructure. Volume of this material measures in the cubic kilometers (when taken as a whole).
Which one do -=you=- think is easier to hide. You assert that it's taken time X to find Saddam. I assert that time Y (the time it takes to find existing WMD and associated infrastructure) is at LEAST an order of magnitude less than X.
Seriously. One guys VS the chemical/biological/nuclear arsonal of one of the worlds most powerfull armies (I think Iraq ranked in the top 15 before 1991).
I realize that in most of Europe, you don't have that standard, so you may not know what it means, but it means that all actions are legal unless outlawed.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @01:31PM (#7717671)
(3) Until I hear of nukes with "Hi, there!" painted on the sides being dragged out of Iraq, we have still invaded Iraq for no good reason. The only reason the UN went along with this little war is because US intelligence lied about WMD and thus believed that they posed a serious threat to neighboring nations. No WMD = unjustified war = unjustified deaths on both sides.
You misunderstand the situation (as does almost everyone it seems). The deal was (and this was supported by the UN), as long as Iraq didn't interfere with the weapons inspectors, he would be fine. If not, he would be attacked. He interfered with the inspectors, so the USA said "hey UN, he broke his part of the bargain, it's time to bomb him". But France, Germany, and Russia had lent him a lot of money, and knew that if Saddam were deposed, they would be forced to forgive Iraq's debts. So they used the WWII/Cold War-relic positions on the security council to block the attack. Ironically, the USA attacked Iraq to enforce a UN resolution that the UN refused to enforce, in an attempt to protect the UN's own authority.
Finding weapons of mass destruction was (and still is) totally irrelevant. Saddam broke a deal that protected his regime, and the UN refused to enforce their own law. That is the reason for this war. That has always been the reason for this war.
Actually, it shows that they are picking apart the Ba'athist infrastructure. If most of the insurgents currently operating in Iraq are foreign Islamic fundamentalists, this says nothing about how well the special forces and intelligence agenices are doing against them. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they were responsible for this - most of them hate Saddam just as much as the USA does.
And remember, we've still found no sign of bin Laden, and have no clue how the fundamentalist terrorist networks get or use their money. The "intelligence capabilities of the American forces" have shown themselves to be utterly incompetent at infiltrating or even understanding these networks.
The War is illegal because it was never declared. In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991
Technically, the 1991 war remained a cease-fire, a truce which Iraq violated by firing on US patrols during said cease-fire. This invoked the US's right to resume hotilities.
Furthermore, Iraq was in violation of about 2 dozen UN resolutions.
When you've been in possession of a country for months at a time and you've had thousands of people to search it with the co-operation of most of the people in that country, how hard should it be to find anything?
Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.
I'll be interested to learn what Saddam has to say on the matter after intense interrogation.
That, and by all reports and estimates of Saddam's state of mind he'd have used those weapons if he'd had them when we marched on Baghdad.
So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power? All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built woth the Iraqi people's money, and still torturing and killing dissenters.
Actually, it's going to be funny to watch the response of the Democratic candidates. Just last week, Al Gore started speaking out against Iraq, and Howard Dean and Weslesy Clark have been outspoken opponents.
Granted, we still have out work cut out for us over there, but as far as the American public is concerned, this is a significant milestone.
So, have you proven that those people in camp X-ray are guilty? No you have not, in fact, you haven't even charged them with any crime! You are just holding them there!
And where is the evidence saying Iraq threatened USA? Where is the evidence that they had WMD's? remember: "innocent untill proven guilty".
And here in Europe, we are innocent untill proven guilty. Law-enforcement official don't keep records on the books we borrow from the library, unlike in USA.
What I'm affraid that Iraq was ill-conceived and the months since the start of hostilies have confirmed this IMHO. Terrorism has been incresing instead of the other way, as many predicted. This is independent of SH fall and arrest. Don't think it will change too much from now, that why it may seem I'm ignoring it. In my country we had a dictatorship that leave with what many estimate in 30000 missing and tortured people in the name of the fight against subversion, that's why I have a lot of sceptism about what's going on.
And you forget to how the French bypassed the sanctions and had special deals with Saddam and how Saddam pocketed a bunch of the money from the UN food program while the French turned a blind eye!
Look - the facts are pretty simple. The UN sanctions were suppose to let food and medicine get to the people of Iraq - but instead that money lined Saddam's pocket instead of doing what it was designed to do - and the Russians and French helped! If you want to find someone to blame for the misery of the Iraqi people you'll find his picture on CNN/Foxnews/MSNBC as the guy we captured today!
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @02:00PM (#7717913)
After hearing the news on television, I was interested in hearing how the Democratic prez candidates would spin this. Since they are in the public view, they can't really speak their mind, so I decided that tuning in here on Slashdot would provide the amusment I was seeking. Boy was I right! Thanks everyone for a amusing time.
It's obvious that the liberals are just hating that Sadaam was captured. It's there worst nightmare, even worse than at Thanksgiving, when that mean President Bush upstaged the fair princess Hillary on her trip to publicly criticize our troops while they are serving their country.
I'm lovin' this - keep up the good work everyone!
(I'm posting anonymously because the exercise of free speech only extends to people with liberal opinions, so some moderator will surely consider this flamebait, while also marking the anti-Bush rantings as "informative")
Let the parade begin of slashotters who among other things will be happy he's captured, but scared to death it will make Bush look good!! I can't wait!
Bush has basically taken more than a year of vacation from fighting the people who killed nearly 3000 Americans in order to overthrow Saddam
Oh really, so we haven't been fighting Taliban and Afghani terrorists? My bad.
cost/benefit analysis? Were you doing a cost/benefit analysis when Clinton reduced our intelligence to peanuts? Did you do one when he bombed the aspirin factory?
I'm not saying Bush is perfect. I'm not saying the war is perfect either. But come on - we had a victory over an evil murderer. Put down the slide-rule and celebrate.
And what freedom is that? The freedom to go poor while americans get rich? The freedom to be declared enemies if you don't believe in a war? Get over your screwed up version of freedom. Real freedom means an Arab can walk into an airport and not be looked at as a terrorist. Real freedom is not having the government which countried you can visit on a vacation or do business with (i.e. Cuba). The only thread Saddam was to the United States was in business interests. Your relations with Saudi Arabia was put into question after 15/19 hijackers were from Saudi decent and you needed an alternative oil source. What better way to get oil then lie to the american people about Iraq creating "weapons of mass destruction" which were partially given to Iraq from your retarded government and help settle the scores the Bush's had with Iraq in the fact they lost the first Iraq war to yet another third world country (for those keeping count North Korea, Vietnam). The united states is no safer today than it was 3 years ago and until you arrogant people stop thinking your the almighty freedom country of the world, people will continue to despise you. Your freedom is nothing more than a word. You always say your country is free but how free is it? Your freedoms are becoming less and less each day in the name of your own security. In the time Junior Bush has been in office, he's been in 2 wars, kill innocent men/women/children in numerous countries Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and others while trying to target some "terrorist".
I laughed at your last presidential election because you call yourselves the "greatest democrasy" yet your voting process was full of scandle. Even Russia has a better voting system in place then the almighty freedom loving americans did. Until the regime of Bush is over, there is no freedom, and standing behind your typical slogan of "we're fighting for your freedom", doesn't make the world safer, but adds more hatred towards your country. This will lead to more killings world wide and eventually to another major attack against your country, when you least expect it. You'll then want the entire world to feel your "pain" for a minor loss compared to the atrocities that happen around the world due to your foreign policies and then you'll want revenge and target a third world country to invade in the name of something stupid to show your "military might". Your freedom is over, face it you've got a dictator who doesn't give a shit about your lives but only about the corporate dollers.
And, as usually happens when I post this sort of rant, the response is to a completely different topic.
The point isn't that something good came of the attack on Iraq. I have NO qualms about blowing away nutjobs like Hussien. HOWEVER "freeing the Iraqi people" is not the reason that was originally given, it's just what the asshole is playing up now. The administration subtly drew connections between Saddam and Al Quaeda that DO NOT exist. It lied about a current WMD program. It lied about Iraq being a significant threat to the U.S. It put out garbage like "they could sell their weapons" or "the weapons could be stolen" as if Iraq was a serious threat for this happening. Newsflash people: N. Korea has threatened to nuke portions of the U.S. and has been selling shit to countries like Iran for years. No mention of them anywhere.
The POINT is not WHAT he did, but HOW he did it. He's a liar. He's a sniveling crybaby that can't play nice with anyone else, so he grabs his ball and heads home. Fuck it - I'm tired of him doing this sort of shit. I want to see the 9/11 evidence. I want to see these WMDs. I want to see credible reports that Iraq was a significant threat to the U.S. in early 2003. I want to see credible reports showing how terrorism has been affected since 9/11/01.
I will never see them while Bush is in office. Because they don't exist. They won't exist until another President requests them, because they will prove that GWB is a total... fucking... liar.
3) Just because Saddam didn't have nukes with "Hi, There!" written on the side doesn't mean he wasn't trying his hardest to get them. Would you rather we waited until he actually had working nuclear weapons to try to stop him? I think the lives lost in this conflict would have been insignificant compared to the lives that would have been lost if we had tried to remove Saddam after he had actually gotten his hands on nukes.
4) The UN agreed that Saddam was a brutal dictator, and the UN has signed resolutions that state that they know that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the burden of proving this wasn't on the US.
5) We still are looking for Osama, he still is a top priority, and we still have people in Afghanistan looking for him, but chances are he has escaped to another terror supporting state. Just because the spotlight is on Iraq now doesn't mean anyone has forgotten about him. The US military has the ability to do more than one thing at a time.
6) Yes, I agree that Saddam must be treated humanely, but if, after a trial, he is proven guilty of everything the rest of the world thinks he has done, I also support execution.
7) I'm pretty sure no one at the CIA was involved in training Osama. He has always hated the US, and I don't think he would ever accept help from them. Besides that he has way more than enough money to train thousands of people without the help of anyone else.
8) Terrorists have already declared war on us, Bush has only just announced that we are now willing to push back, much harder than any terrorist could. If the world is eventually rid of countries that are willing to harbor terrorist, then planning attacks without a base of operations or a country willing to supply them with weapons will be a lot harder.
9) Just because no one on Slashdot has asked this doesn't mean no one is thinking about it. In the past I can't think of an instance where creation of a democracy following a regime change has failed (eg: Germany). Regarding precedents, well I hope that governments aren't just doing things today because they have done it in the past. The whole situation has to be looked at; I think the fact that the US wanted a regime change shows that they already have learned from the first gulf war. And finally, I too am greatly saddened by laws like the patriot act. Sometimes I guess people in the government get a little overzealous (eg: John Ashcroft). Perhaps the government was just using the 9/11 attack as an excuse to take away some of our freedoms. I only hope that more people notice this and laws like this are challenged and repealed in the future.
In fact I copied it shamelesy from dailyroxette [dailyroxette.com] and forgot to mention it. I like the CopyrightMoron moderation idea. I propose also that./ adds Satire +1, Ironic +1, Sarcastic +3, stupid -1 and ACbrag -1 moderations.
This post should be at Insightful +5, if it isn't use your moderation points to correct the error.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @02:23PM (#7718124)
Nope, you didn't. The US just wrote more fake history books than any country in the history of the world. But they'll be rewritten the day that the US empire falls. Count on it.
Other than Bush's statements (and forged evidence and demonstrable false statements ) there isn't any evidence or reason to believe MWDs exist.
Well, no reason except that Saddam has used them in the past and the U.N. has "found" that Iraq probably posessed them at some point which is why the world (not just the U.S.) insisted on the arms inspectors. They weren't there because the world thought Saddam was innocent.
The fact is, everyone believes he had them at some point. If he no longer has them he should have cooperated fully with U.N. arms inspectors, proven it to the world, and taken the wind out of Bush's arguments for war. Saddam did the exact opposite. He was not cooperative, did not give us (or the U.N.) any reason to believe him, and paid the consequences.
If Saddam didn't have WMDs then he will go down in history as the most inept poker player in the world. If he did have WMDs, they'll be found.
Anyway, only people like you believe that the only reason to believe WMDs exist is because of what you perceive as Bush lies and forged evidence. There is plenty of evidence and history behind why the U.N. believed he had WMDs--or had failed to properly account for missing WMDs. He has used them in the past. If you want to close your eyes to that, feel free, but don't be surprised when people ignore you as just another bitter, anti-Bush-hated without a clue and a very loose grip on reality.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @02:35PM (#7718224)
What, the same Hans Blix who was saying, over and over again like a stuck record, that Saddam did not have any WMD? Along with the same Kofi Anan who branded U.S action in Iraq "dangerous"?
What sort of bad acid do you have to take to believe any of the guys you listed supported action against Iraq?
The Iraqis are grateful. If you can't see this then you are truly blind.
Yup. So grateful that they've been killing American solders at a rate of roughly 1 per day since GWB's "Mission Accomplished" photo-op. Interesting way these Iraqis show their gratitude...
Look, I'm not saying that Saddam Hussain wasn't a vile thug, he was. The fact that he is out of power is a good thing, no argument. But. Hating Saddam isn't the same as loving the US. Most Iraqis are doubtless overjoyed that Saddam's government has been toppled, that doesn't mean they like a US occupation of their country either.
On a broader note, I object to the "we're doing it for the poor downtroden people" chest-thumping coming from the Bush government because it is a horrible lie. The same Bush government that is now telling us the war was about human rights, not oil or WMD, has steadfastly ignored the abuses of other dictators, and continues to provide military support for several people at least as bad as Hussain. Look at Indonesia and Uzbekistan, both ruled with an iron fist by people who use mass murder and torture (just like Saddam). Yet neither nation is even being publicly rebuked by the Bush government. Uzbekistan is getting $100M in aid, and the Bush government is pushing to "normalize" military relations with the dictator of Indonesia.
As soon as the Bush government stops giving money and military support to torturing, mass murdering, dictatorships, I'll start believing the "we did it because Saddam was a bad man" line. But let's be honest, getting rid of the vile Saddam Hussain was a side issue. The real issue was letting Halliburton and other corporations that gave millions in "campaign contributons" access to Iraq's oil.
"So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power? All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built"
Uhm... Didn't Sadam comply? The weapon inspectors were in Iraq, being compied fully with, when USA decided Saddam had to go.
Other than that, the weapons were supposed to be launchable within 45 minutes or so at any given moment, so they can't have been buried that deeply. Why didn't Sadam use all those dangerous weapons when they were finally invaded?
I am a Brit and have been in Manchester when we've been bombed by the IRA, who incidentally received a lot of funding in the US. I can absolutely assure you it's scary when you know poeple from school who get scarred for life from flying glass.
Of course it is wrong and immoral to blow up innocent people and I cannot understand their mentality. However, they do NOT see it as wrong!
We went for years where we used to increase the agression in pursuing them IRA and Loyalist terrorists. We were more brutal, we policed harder, we vowed never to give in. They tried to blow up our Government, we stepped up the patrols and made life harder. We killed people who protested sometimes and sometimes killed people at checkpoints. Still the attacks continued.
The only thing which has helped the situation is by talking, engaging and starting to dismantle the reasons which fire their anger and aggression. If you think that bombing and hunting people solves the problem I can tell you from our experiences that you bettre get used to facing years and years of terrorist actions.
You forget that "the number one terrorist state" you hate so much happens to be sittng on 7,339 nuclear warheads [membrane.com] with a total yield of over two thousand eight hundred megatons. I'm guessing you're hoping and praying for a crude nuclear strike on NYC - you and your friends try that, and I assure you everything between Israel and India, from Egypt to Turkey, will be vaporized. You obviously understand the strength of violence, so why do you promote the use of it against a nation that has both the means and the determination to retaliate a hundred times over? Oderint dum metuant.
I never have been for the war in Iraq. And that is my own opinion. I'm not anti-American, and I love my country. But in this case, I just don't love what my country did.
All of these disagreements aside, I really think that America has to heal soon. The issue with the "war" goes much deeper than just the "war" itself.
A lot of people simply hate Bush because of what happened in the 2000 elections. There was never a decisive victory (Bush had more electoral votes, Gore had the popular vote). And that simply was horrible to swallow... for myself included. There was absolutely no closure.
I have never seen the US more divided than it is right now. I will not vote for Bush in 2004 (nor would I vote for Gore if the situation presented itself). Simply for the reason that I think to vote for either person is bad for the country.
As long as Bush is in power, there will be a huge rift between people in the United States. We really need someone who is a uniter... someone who can help the nation get past what happened in 2000. It isn't Bush. It isn't Gore. It has to be someone who has nothing to do with any of those people.
I don't know who that person is... I wish I did. But Democrats and Republicans alike should be seeking to unite and heal this country again. I, for one, am tired of all the hate. This should be the number one priority of whatever leader we elect.
Awesome evidence there, buddy. I'm sure inclined to believe incomplete conclusions drawn from indirect comparisons when stories include quotes like:
"Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?" - Newsmax
and
Another intriguing coincidence... - Newsmax
And of course, "proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist." obviously proves everything, right? Yes, of course. We're not drawing more irrelevant conclusions here, are we? Nooooo... not at all! A terrorist IN a country must mean that the country is responsible for what the terrorist does! Yes, of course! It makes sense now! Of course, that means we just implicated ourselves in 9/11 since they LEARNED TO FLY THE FUCKING PLANES IN THE U.S.
As for backing up my claims about the administrations bullshit WMD garbage, I think Dubya's boys and girls can do that for themselves, thank you:
In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons... - Cheney
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. - Cheney
We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. - Rice
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. - Bush
Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. - Bush
The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. - Bush
After eleven years.. Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. - Bush
Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists... - Cheney
And, here's a real kick in the nuts for you if you were going to try and tell me that this doesn't prove that's why he started the war:
If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us. - Powell
And I'll kick you in the nuts about the 2 "mobile factories" that were found before you get a chance to bring them up:
They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were -- facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons. - British Weapons Inspector
Come on then. The Telegraph link and the Newsmax link both draw baseless conclusions on current unknowns and TWP link doesn't really say much of anything the proves there's a connection. It just says that there's potentially new evidence that there was one. Once that new intel has been scrutinized and verified, THEN I'll look. Got any evidence for me NOW, or am I supposed to just infer things from your BS links and pretend that my guesses prove something?
There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.
Nice to know. Go pester THEM and leave ME the fuck alone until you have real evidence, not a bunch of opinionated bullshit on new developments. My point stands, as of 12/14/03 at 2:19 P.M. EST, the real reasons for the war in Iraq are as yet unproven claims about terrorist links and Weapons of Mass Destruction. And, I might point out before we get too deep into that, why the fuck is this idiot even TRYING to justify a war AFTER it's over!? I'd say that starting a war without evidence of its necessity is grounds for impeachment, wouldn't you?
You're hearing it here first, folks. This is good news for Saddam Hussein and bad news for Bush. Saddam now gets a bath, a shave, clean clothes, a lawyer, and a global platform from which to reaffirm that he had no weapons of mass destruction and to accuse the U.S. of hypocrisy if not war crimes. He also has such a high profile that he can't be shipped off to Syria or Pakistan to be tortured. The Iraqi politicians who run his trial will, in the interest of national reconciliation, give him exile or a long prison term, from which he will be reprieved in 10 or 15 years. He will have time and opportunity to leave his mark on the history books.
Bush would have been better off if Saddam had been killed instead of captured. I'm shocked that he wasn't; the army didn't give his sons (and grandson) a chance to surrender. Bush's version of history would have been safer if Saddam had either been killed or been left in his rat hole.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @03:16PM (#7718573)
First, let me thank you for an intelligent comment from an obviously intelligent young person.
Second, let me address one issue you brought up: "7) Speaking of Osama, shouldn't we be going after the top brass at the CIA for training him? I mean, they basically started the largest terrorist movement in the world"
We in America fought a cold war for half a century against the Soviet Union; at times calling it the Korean War, the Vietnam war or a Cuban embargo among many other terms used for dozens of local situations. It was initially thought to be a war against communism, but it turned out it was really a war against a single government - the Soviet Union. We atarted the largest terrorist movement in the world (jihad in Afganistan against the Soviet Union (who had a very large Muslim population ready to be a fifth column (see Sain).)
We won that cold war. It was a real war that could have destroyed the world. My father flew nuclear bomb laden planes with orders to destoy vast swathe of USSR in retaliation should it come to that. I wrote ECCM code so their systems would mis-identify the locations of our aircraft. SUDDEBLY during Gorbachov the other side just gave up and STOPPED changing their ECM systems that we had to continually counter. Then the wall fell.
Then the USSR fell. And a terrible war was over , a burden lifted, and a jihad movement - intact. And we just walked away from Afganistan, leaving its citizens to the tender cares of those who had been our allies but had always considered us just a little less of an enemy (like what England thought of USSR in WWII).
So we had good reasons for creating the jihad in the first place. We learned too late just how big a mistake it was to just walk away when the USSR fell. Who knew hwat the cost would become? No one.
Now that we've captured Saddam, may I please have my rights back? I promise to use them responsibly and to never support terrorism (just like I did before 9/11).
But the chinese didn't attack us on 9/11, Arabs did.
Actually, religious fanatics attacked us on 9/11. Therefore, your logic shows that we should go killing religious fanatics. Maybe starting with John Ashcroft...?
Bush always intended to go after Saddam. That much is clear. President Clinton told Bush on his exit interview that Osama Bin Laden was the most dangerous man to the U.S., and Bush replied that Saddam was. Two days after 9/11 - before we even knew who did it - his administration started telling our intelligence agencies to "build a case against Iraq". The war in Afghanistan was a war on terror. The war in Iraq was intended to intimidate Arabs, but will only serve to strengthen the power of al-Qaeda.
It will also serve to increase the number of deranged autocracies with nuclear weapons. Don't think for a moment that the lesson of North Korea is lost on the world. Kim Song Jong Ill, who has let eleven million of his countrymen starve to death, is able to directly threaten the U.S. with nary a peep from this administration. Why? Because, unlike Saddam, when he promised to get rid of nuclear weapons, he lied.
Bush has made it unsafe to be in America's bad graces without a nuclear weapon. Therefore, everyone will get one.
Stop propagating the myth that liberals and Democrats want Saddam running free. That's bullshit.
If anything, it is the Republicans who have benefitted most from Saddam being in power. The Regan administration sold Hussein conventional, chemical and biological weapons and sat idly by while he mass-murdered people.
I think everybody wants to see this tyrant punished. At least the liberals don't seem to have the terminally short, hypocritical attention span that conservative/republicans do.
Time for everyone to yimmer and yammer about the non-importance of Saddam's capture. Point out how Iraqi resistance won't stop, how Osama is still out there, how Bush is evil, how Ashcroft has somehow "taken your rights," and generally behave like your average Kuro5hin reader (when did that site become so left-wing? I remember when I used to go there for the cool technology articles Slashdot wouldn't post).
I'm not affiliated with either the "left" or the "right" (Bill Hicks described political parties as two puppets being held up by the same guy). But all the anti-Bush stuff really makes me laugh sometimes. We get people like Michael Moore who literally make up facts just to bash Bush, and it hurts the cause. The foaming, Bush-hating liberal becomes a stereotype, and I just know they'll have a field day trying to downplay the capture of Saddam come election time (I just have to ask...would you rather he still be in power, or in prison?)
I'm sure I'll get modded down for this, but if you're not a knee-jerk, radical, left-wing person, I'm not referring to you anyway!:) So relax. Just giving my opinion.
>Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops
Unlikely. Most attackers aren't opposing the occupation of Iraq by 'Coalition' forces with violent means because they like(d) Saddam, but because they (understandably) don't like being occupied, by 'freedom fighters' or not, and there's no way for them to express this except with direct action, at the moment.
If it takes the cessation of attacks on occupying forces to get the occupying forces to withdraw, then I fear we're in an infinite loop.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @04:49PM (#7719270)
Does this really convince you? Over the last year we've had heaps of supposed evidence for Iraq's involvement in 9/11 and weapons of mass destruction, which was later debunked. And now they find a memo which at the same time provides evidence for two stories that were already falsified before: 1) The Mohammed Atta-Bagdad link 2) The Niger-Iraq uranium shipment Yeah, right!
For further 'evidence' see that same newspaper you like to cite: - Iraq link to Sept 11 attack and anthrax is ruled out - Bush under pressure over 'dodgy' Iraq weapons claim
When stories like this break, I always read al-Jazeera in English [aljazeera.net] to get the other view of the story.
If the news of the West and al-Jazeera coincide in their analysis, as is (mostly!) the case here, then it's fairly safe to say that the news are true. Most of the time, the stories diverge, and you're left to draw your own conclusions.
Your logic is good but there are a few facts you're missing. Namely, we have been looking for Saddam pretty ardently for awhile, but we have essentially given up regarding Osama, deciding that he's "out of the picture".
http://www.proles.net/archives/000385.html
As such, the correct statement (with proper tenses) is: "Have we been able to find Bin Laden? Nope, we've given up."
As Bob Graham says, he's become "Osama Bin Forgotten". Too bad Osama is a much more significant issue than Saddam, since we know he has multiple times masterminded attacks on the U.S., and could potentially still be doing so (while Saddam was likely doing little to nothing).
First photo: top right street is deserted of civilian vehicals and the statue is standing. Second photo: top right street is completely obstructed due to accumulated civilian vehicles and the statue is down. The first photo was taken very early, long before the statue came down. People had first gotten the news and had first started to gather.
Third photo: There are about 100 people in the close up swarmed BEHIND the vehicle that pulled down the statue. Second photo: Note that there is essentailly nobody standing behind that vehicle. The second photo was taken much later, after people started dispersing.
First photo / second photo : I can only identify a SINGLE military vehical stationary between - the tank at the bottom right. For the first photo someone grabbed a snapshot of when a CONVOY happened to drive past well before hand to paint an illusion! Yes, there were military vehicles stationed that circle. The circle was a central choke point, the city was still a WAR-ZONE, and of course there the military was keeping an eye on ANY crowd of people. Even if we assume every vehicle in the second photo is parked on-station, it strikes me as a very reasonable military presence under the circumstances. The first photo is pure trickery.
Now look at the sidewalk across the street behind the statue, the only thing visible in all 4 photos. The first wide view photo supposedly proving "the truth" shows a deserted sidewalk. The second wide view photo supposedly proving "the truth" shows a deserted side walk. The third photo mid-zoom photo shows a mob around the statue plus may a dozen people on a wide stretch of sidewalk. The fourth very close-up photo during the peak of events shows at least a dozen people on a tiny stretch of sidewalk. If that narrow angle is representitive of 360 degrees then I figure it represents maybe a two-hundred person increase in the time between the third and fourth pictures alone.
The close up photos are there so the viewer will mentally link all four photos as being during the event. Not only were the photos are presented out-of order, but the two wide angle photos were actually taken several hours apart.
If they want to claim the media overstated the situation the how about they try presenting a wide-angle photo from when they were actually pulling down the statue! Instead they are being intentionally deceptive!
OK, most of these posts need to be marked redundant. The US captured a tyrant dictator and no one can say whether or not this is significant unless you live in Iraq. Those people will ultimatly decide if this incursion was justified.
I am sorry that American soldiers are dying in Iraq but guess what, it is there job to follow the commands of the commander in chief. If he says go and fight, then go. Since 1991, it is the first time these people have been asked to do what they were hired to do. I have not been at my job for 10 years and only asked to do it once. We don't draft in America anymore and so everyone that is in the military chose to be there. I am not for those people getting a free paycheck. I pay my taxes and expect people in the military defend me both domesticaly and abroad. I thank them for doing there job and doing better than anyone else in the world. I am not some self-righteous person that beleives I can make better decisions that the person that was elected to do so.
Now time to seriously burn Karma. I am tired of people in the miltary and in the reserves that cannot fight for some reason. I am sorry if you had childern and don't have anyone else to take care of then. Pay the government back for all the money you made defrauding the government when you said you would defend it and now cannot.
WOAH!
You're saying that it's the French and Russians fault that this was allowed to happen?
Bullshit.
The sanctions themselves were the problem. Iraq couldn't import vital items like CHLORINE, a critical ingredient for the purification of water.
THIS is a human rights violation (in a sense) worse than anything that Saddam did. Allowing innocent children die due to poor water is a GROSS violation of human rights. These childred were dieing by the THOUSANDS because THE UNITED STATES wouldn't let them import critical water/food treatment chemicals.
Granted, a lot of the problems wouldn't have existed if Saddam wouldn't have been in power, but the fact still remains that the US allowed these sanctions to destroy the people of Iraq.
And, we can't forget the fact that Bush OPENLY ADMITTED that there would be civillian casualties. This was in direct violation of the Geneva convention.
Here's the proof [unhchr.ch]
Step off your high horse and realize that Bush was just as bad for openly killing thousands of innocent civillians, as Saddam was for killing his people.
In a certain light, Bush is even worse because he brought it upon himself (against nearly every other country in the world) to force democracy down the throats of Iraq.
Look at political philosophers that specialize in the middle east and you'll see that DEMOCRACY WON'T WORK IN THE MIDDLE EAST. There are so many opposing groups (and I'm not talking Democrats vs Republicans opposition... I'm talking about 'willing to suicide bomb' opposition) in Iraq, that there will NEVER be a clear majority in favor or in opposition of any proposition that a democratic government needs to work.
All democracy will succeed at doing is commiting cultural genocide in the region, and that is by far the worst kind of dehuminization imaginiable. If I were to die, it wouldn't be as large a deal, because people would still be able to carry on my heritage. If my culture is taken away, I might as well not even live because something was taken away from me that can NEVER be replaced. These people are being raped of their herritage to satisfy Big Oil (tm)!
That's the real war crime.
You know, it's possible that BOTH are correct. An occupying army in a foreign country typically causes damage to the civilian populace if it wants to or not. Civilians die at the hands of the army because soldiers make really poor law enforcement. Army doctors can't replace a proper medical infrastructure. And unless the military relinquishes control back to the Iraqii people, many of those civilians will become frustrated with the prolonged occupation by foreign forces in their own country.
Both sides of this debate like to look at the situation through their very own rose coloured glasses. Accept the few facts that support their position, ignore all the rest. American forces in Iraq are helping the citizens, but they're also hurting them. It's all an unavoidable consequence of occupation.
I was personally opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, but now that US forces are there, they'd better make sure they do a damn good job of getting the Iraq people self-sufficient.
You are a complete idiot. How can you possibly say that the "Iraqis" have been the ones killing American troops? Blowing up the Red Cross? Destroying their own police stations? Cutting their own power lines?
The "resistance" is just the remnants of Saddam's foul old regime, with some foreign help.
Look, if 99% of the population supports the US, but theres 1% that don't that means there are going to be ppl willing to kill US soldiers for their belifes. Why is it when ppl hear of the attacks on the US's forces their they assume it means the ENTIRE population is fakeing their joy at being free and saddam being now captured, just so they can stab the US in the back tomorrow.
no, its that theres a small portion of the population that resents the US and all they stand for and will continue to attack regardless of what the US does, if tomorrow the US decided to spend 100 billion dollers to rebult all of iraq. they would still hate it and still kill us forces.
Also the fact the iraq is not being rebuilt as fast as some would like, or that everything is back to normal yet is also causeing ppl to get angry.
I belive the ppl killing US forces are only a smally minority of the iraq population, witch will get smaller as time goes on (unless the US fuckes up bigtime witch could happen)
Hey, Saddam was a bad guy, no doubt about it. But we should have never stopped looking for Osama. By pulling our best troops off that hunt, we let him get away. Brilliant move, guys.
Yeah, and we got Saddamn Fucking Hussein.
This is like being angry that we let a burglar go to catch a rapist. Osama is not anywhere nearly the problem Saddam is. Open a history book that goes back more than three years.
When I woke up this morning to go to msnbc.com and look at the image of a captured Saddam on the main page.
Here were my thoughts:
1. I felt a twinge of pity for him - I saw a tired, pathetic old man more than I saw a cruel dictator.
2. This may take the fight out of some of the insurgents, but I think the more hardcore ones will keep on truckin' especially the foreign infiltrators who seem determined to fight us and die.
3. For those who used to say, "we can't get Saddam and Osama" please note that Osama's whole life has been a rootless one, moving from place of concealment to place of concealment. Saddam has been tied to Iraq - I never felt it unlikely we would find him.
4. I wondered where all of the reported body doubles went? I don't recall hearing of us capturing any of them. It certainly does not make sense for Saddam to have had them killed, since having them floating around would help confuse the trail.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday December 14, 2003 @06:18PM (#7719998)
"was that Iraq posted an imminent threat to our country,"George Bush never said that. A better paraphase is that Iraq is likely to become an immenent threat if left unchecked. Your straw man arguement is being used by Democratic candidates, and it doesn't pass muster.
I'd like to reply to all your responses but I need to leave for work in a few so I'll keep it down to the main points.
3) Just because Saddam didn't have nukes with "Hi, There!" written on the side doesn't mean he wasn't trying his hardest to get them. Would you rather we waited until he actually had working nuclear weapons to try to stop him? I think the lives lost in this conflict would have been insignificant compared to the lives that would have been lost if we had tried to remove Saddam after he had actually gotten his hands on nukes.
By all accounts I've heard of Saddam's missiles could go at most a few hundred miles. The worst he could do even if he had nukes is turn 5 miles of Israel into a crater. (And rain radioactive particles a few hundred miles downwind for a few days.) Saddam was by no means a threat to anyone other than his immediate neighbors.
This whole thing leaves a sour taste in my mouth. First off, Clinton tried to do what Bush has now done, and the Republicans cried foul saying that Clinton was trying to get America's minds off his dick. (Which is most likely the case.) Now, if Saddam is/was really such a huge threat then why wasn't Clinton getting bipartisan support back then while Bush gets it now?
Moreover, North Korea may have nuclear capabilities by now, and is actively firing off test missiles into the Sea of Japan. All things considered, their military technology makes Iraq look like the stone age. While not much is known publicly about their military capabilities, I personally believe it fair to say that they either currently have the ability or soon will have the ability to build a ICBM capable of striking somewhere in the North American continent. I doubt that many would argue with me when I say that N. Korea is a huge potential threat not only to all of Asia, but also possibly America.
Why the hell haven't we turned Korea into a crater by now if we're attacking potential threats?
The whole thing seems off. I'm not going to get into any of the usual accusations because lord knows we've all heard them by now. But for every reason given for the war on Iraq there is at least 5 nations that have it much worse, and a lot of oil companies with old ties to people in the Bush administration are getting some very sweet contracts...
Even beyond that, there were many reasons we waited until Pearl Harbor before we got involved. I'll leave it to the reader to crack open a few history books so I don't have to type a few novels out. (Lord knows I've already written a short story on this one reply alone.);)
We still are looking for Osama, he still is a top priority
"Osama Bin Laden is no longer a priority" - George W. Bush (paraphrased from memory)
6) Yes, I agree that Saddam must be treated humanely, but if, after a trial, he is proven guilty of everything the rest of the world thinks he has done, I also support execution.
Death is too good for that man. Let him rot in a cell for the rest of his natural life.
7) I'm pretty sure no one at the CIA was involved in training Osama.
A poster below you [slashdot.org] actually said some very interesting things about this, and I think I'll let his experience speak for me.
If the world is eventually rid of countries that are willing to harbor terrorist, then planning attacks without a base of operations or a country willing to supply them with weapons will be a lot harder.
(Real quick, running out of time) Timothy McVeigh is an American who was trained by the American army. America sure the hell doesn't support having its federal buildings bombed, and yet he got the tools to do it and made OKC go boom.Terrorism is not a country. Terrorism is not a static object. Terrorism is a metho
I hope that USA have learned not to support tyrants and terrorists as they did in Chile, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and SaudiArabia. Because that is what they have been doing, while claiming to fight for freedom. Rumsfeld is not a liberator. He was one of those supporting Saddam during the 80's. Why am I saying this? Because the historically ignorant Americans will sit around and believe that their leaders always try to fight for freedom in the world.
Absolutely not.
They are fighting for their own power.
Mod me down if you think that will make you feel better, because I am sure it will feel better than the truth does.
Now, let's celebrate that Saddam was arrested. Too bad you didn't do the same with Idi Amin.
Yup. So grateful that they've been killing American solders at a rate of roughly 1 per day since GWB's "Mission Accomplished" photo-op. Interesting way these Iraqis show their gratitude...
Ah yes, because in cities with millions of people, having one of tens of thousands of occupying soldiers attacked two or three times a day clearly shows that the whole populace is up in arms. I mean, if they all hated it, they probably would have attacked more than... oh, wait.
See, this is the problem. It's a war torn nation. Formerly rich families are destitute, but still proud. There's starvation. Infrastructure is ruined. Therefore, tempers are high. This isn't even New York barfight level anger, if only one person is dying a day. Soccer mobs actually do more damage.
In the meantime, we've got well fed well paid well clothed well apointed white people, a few of whom are genuinely racist, a number of whom are going to be drunk or occasionally high, saying things they shouldn't, doing things they shouldn't. Many things which are normal to us are morally, religiously and legally abominable to them - such as being drunk.
Furthermore, there's the small branch of Iraqis which profited under Saddam. They're almost certainly mightily pissed.
Oh, and right, there's all the political mumbo jumbo going on in the area; a number of these are actually funded by (insert random dictator x) whose vested interest in making the foreign powers seem evil to maintain domestic control has a particularly fruitful avenue while tampering with one of the first major mations to revert to rule by the people in the area in decades.
I think it's a show of incredible control that in a ruined once prosperous city of millions which has been crippled first by dictatorship and next by sanction and resultant economic collapse a set of ill-behaved foreigners which have been propogandized to be about to do this very thing haven't been murdered in droves.
There hasn't been a single street mob. No lynchings. No organized revolt. No underground. We can't say that about any three adjacent states in our country's history. Doesn't it strike you as odd that these people seem about as riled up as a Saint Patrick's Day parade? Yeah, maybe Rumsfeld took everyone out of baghdad and made those human celebrations - WHICH YOU COULD SEE MOVING ON TERRASERVER - with a giant 1920s style dancing cast. Good thing they didn't fake it in Utah; FOX would have found it and done a special.
Jackass.
But. Hating Saddam isn't the same as loving the US. Most Iraqis are doubtless overjoyed that Saddam's government has been toppled, that doesn't mean they like a US occupation of their country either.
I'm sure a great many Germans were none too happy about the French occupation of Berlin, either. Nevertheless, when you escape Mumm-Ra only to fall into the hands of Ratar-O, you know you've traded up in the world.
Look, I'm not standing up for our coup government. But W isn't nearly as capably evil as Saddam is, and Cheniwell is basically a Hanna Barbera bumbling ne'er-do-well. Their kind of antics are things like charging double for gasoline and misplacing girders at the cost of the US taxpayer, not cutting off limbs for wayward glances. If I were king, cheney would indeed be against the wall, but there are a helluvalot of people that would go first.
Note to secret service: the above is literate exaggeration. Look up the dictionary entry for sarcasm, and proceed to investigate every facet of my life. Hint: it's a music reference.
On a broader note, I object to the "we're doing it for the poor downtroden people" chest-thumping coming from the Bush government because it is a horrible lie.
A villiage sits at the base of a valley. One year, the winter is bad, and damages the soil holding back a river; the surveyors suggest it will break through in a few years, and that though it can be shored up, a dam is needed.
Let's turn it arround. Let's imagine Iraqis conquered the US, Bush goes into hiding, they take over various governmental functions. All over the country, Red Blooded Americans start uprising. Not because of Bush, but because there are Iraqis running our country.
I think I understand what you're trying to say. And sure, the capture of Saddam will not immediately end violence in the area. But your anology is incorrect.
Iraq is not the US. The US culture is very different than Iraqi culture. The people are different - and so are their experiences and history. The two governments are entirely different in attitude and structure. This includes how that government was formed, who was put in to what positions and why, and individual loyalties.
There are basic simularities between people. But that does not mean you can simply take one set of events, transplant them artificially in to a new environment, and then expect to gain any insight towards the culture and politics involved in the origional events.
If more people thought, "Well what would an American do if the situation were reversed?" And stopped thinking like imperialists, then I think there would be far less blood spilt in the Cradle of Civilization.
Because what... the Middle East was the bastion of peace before the US showed up?
Starting with the most off-topic issue, then working my way back to topic here.
if tomorrow the US decided to spend 100 billion dollers to rebult all of iraq
Ahem. The US is already spending $87 billion rebuilding Iraq, and current estimates indicate that it will cost at least tripple that overall. The price is doubtless inflated due to the "no-bid, let's just give GWB's friends huge contracts with no oversight and no audit" style of spending the Bush government seems to like, but we (the US taxpayer) has already spent very close to $100 billion. On the US side of things we're seeing the economic crunch greatly accelerated by the Bush government's wild spending coupled with equally wild tax cuts for billionares. Remember, when the Bush government cuts taxes for billionares, *someone's* got to pick up the tab. Guess who gets to foot the bill for GWB's departure from the hunt for Al-Qida? If you said "gee, I guess its the average joe" then you guessed right. The bottom 40% of the population in the US controls about 1% of the money, yet they *pay* about 2% of the taxes. By comparison, the top 1% controls about 36% of the money, and they pay about 36% of the taxes. Dollar for dollar this means that the upper 1% pay half as much in taxes as the bottom 40%.
Look, if 99% of the population supports the US, but theres 1% that don't that means there are going to be ppl willing to kill US soldiers for their belifes
Actually, it would be quite useful if there were some way to get real numbers out of Iraq, but it isn't. I suspect that quite a few more than 1% want the US out. Again, this doesn't mean that Saddam wasn't bad, and that they aren't happy that he's gone; they just want the US gone too. The reason I suspect that more than 1% are unhappy (to put it mildly) with the US is because of what happens *after* a US soldier gets killed: there's usually a cheering crowd gathered around, which can't be good for moral.
More to the point, 1% can't organize the kind of gurilla attacks that we've been seeing. It doesn't take many people to shoot a gun, or fire off an RPG, or what have you, but it does take a rather large support base in the general population to hide the combatants, keep them supplied, etc. Notice that the US soldiers have only caught a handful of Iraqi gurillas. This means that, at a minimum, the average Iraqi isn't helping the US find these gurillas, which implies a certain degree of sympathy with the gurillas.
I honestly don't know what the answer to the problem is, a complete US withdrawl from Iraq at this point would plunge the entire country into the kind of anarchistic chaos that grows dictators, and hurts lots of people. The US soldiers don't like being there, and they are (quite understandably) nervious every time they see an Iraqi. They're trained to respond to a threat of violence with overwealming force; which is great for winning wars, but not so good for keeping order after you win.
More international help would doubtless be tremendously helpful. Unfortunately, the Bush government managed to waste all the goodwill the US had worldwide by starting this war the way he did... The general attitude among other nations seems to be: "He started this war on his own, why should I help now?" I can't say I really blame them for having that attitude, it'd be nice if the other major powers would just forget about all the insults, etc, that the Bush government has smacked them with, but that isn't going to happen.
Of course, in the midst of all this Osama is still at large, Afghanistan is coming back under Taliban control (remember back in the old days when the US beat someone and they stayed beaten? Not under the Bush government), and international terrorism seems to have been completely unaffected by the Bush government's decision to invade Iraq. The entire thing has been a hundreds of billions dollar distraction from the *real* objective of ending kind of terrorism that resulted in 9/11.
This is like being angry that we let a burglar go to catch a rapist. Osama is not anywhere nearly the problem Saddam is. Open a history book that goes back more than three years.
Osama bin Laden killed 3000 people in the US.
Saddam Hussein killed none.
Osama has, and continues to kill people all over the world (and for a lot longer than the past 3 years, maybe you should open your history book).
Saddam has not been a threat to anyone outside of Iraq since the Gulf war over ten years ago.
It seems that we let the rapist get away to catch the burglar.
Virtually no Americans (Canadians maybe?) believe Hussein planned the 9/11 attack. We are not stupid.
Bush never said that. He never implied it. What he said was Saddam Hussein supports terrorists, including Al Qaeda. That is a fact. He said Hussein refused to demonstrate he had destroyed WMD's. That is a fact even asserted by the U.N. Go READ Bush's speeches again-- I have.
If people want to infer something that was never implied, that is an issue for them and their respective psychiatrists.
Wow. You really like analogy, don't you? Personally, I kinda like analogy, but I think yours was both a bit too long, and a bit too fuzzy.
A few points here that you seem to be either in error on, or putting words into my mouth on.
I have no particular opposition to a for profit corporation making money out of rebuilding Iraq. I object quite strongly to the fact that the contracts have been awarded with no bid to GWB campaign contributors. I also object to the fact that oversight and audit of said firms is non-existant.
I have no doubt that the average guy in Iraq is quite pleased, even jubulant, that Saddam is dead. Likewise during the initial liberation people were happy, of course. But that sort of thing doesn't last long, its the "what have you done for me lately" syndrome. Probably some of the people attacking US soldiers are old Saddam supporters, but in all likelyhood several of them were part of the celebrations that took place when the Saddam government fell. I say again: someone who hates Saddam can, at the same time, hate the US.
The fact that the average Iraqi doesn't seem to be saying "Look, I just saw a gurilla running that way" and offering help to US forces after an attack tends to indicate that the average Iraqi isn't that happy with the US occupiers. Again, they certainly didn't like Saddam, but they don't have to like the US just because they don't like Saddam.
None of this means that I liked Saddam, or that an occupation of some sort isn't necessary.
The aid money we give to Uzbekistan goes to the people, doesn't it?
Nope, its mostly going to buy the dictator more weapons to oppress them with. That was kinda my point. I'm not in favor of the US assinating foreign heads of state, and I'm not in favor of the US trying to police the world. But the very fricking least our government could do would be to stop supporting dictators.
This is why I say that the Bush government's "we did it because Saddam was bad" line is nothing more than a disgusting lie. Nevermind the fact that the US isn't trying to overthrow other people just as bad, no, the Bush government is supporting people who are as bad as Saddam was. Read up on what the Indonesian dictator is doing to his people (and to American citizens, two were raped and tortured last year). Yet the Bush government is actually working to send aid to the Indonesian dictator. And they have succeeded in getting $100M sent to Uzbekistan, where the dictator engages in rape, murder, and torture, just like Saddam, yet the Bush government treats him like a friend. This is hypocracy, plain and simple, and its why I cannot stand hearing the Bush government claim that it took out Saddam because of his human rights violations.
I have done my share of posting today and allowed my self to stoop to some pretty damn low levels. I was just having a conversation with my girlfriend about how I was worried about the state of the world. Here we are on slashdot...arguable some of the more educated members of the world and I see posts about hating this nationality or hating the amercans and blah blah blah....people we gotta all wake up...shit man myself included. It is our generation that is going to be running the world in a few years I would hate to thing that we would take the world farther from peace than it is now. we don't have to agree on everythig, but can't we at least agree to not hate each other. Please!
But Burma is closer to China. So even if it has oil, it might be a bit dicey to do anything about it. (Ever hear of a place called Viet Nam...We had the arms, they had a good local supply line that couldn't be cut.)
And now China has a space program. Manned capsules in orbit. Clear proof that if they want to have ICBMs, they'll have them. You want to give the cause to WANT a bunch of ICBMs? And China has nuclear weapons, and a highly rated biological and genetics facilities. Basically, they can do anything we can do. They just can't afford to do it in as flashy a way. They're tight on money & food, not on technology. But China & India are creating gentically modified plants..thongh not the kind Monsanto makes. What is holding them back is trade regulations. (The European Commonwealth is quite sticky about that kind of thing!)
So you don't give China causes to get nervous. That's probably more than half of what's protecting North Korea. North Korea could devastate Japan. China could devastate the US...and probably the rest of the world, so they don't push too hard against us either. But also we don't back them into a corner.
Man, whoever edited that video of Saddam being checked out by that medic sure knew what he was doing:
1. First of all Saddam looks like he's being examined by a vet! His shaggy hair and beard being checked for lice and bald spots...
2. The shaving of the beard is not something incidental. In Arabic culture a man's beard has a huge importance and to shave Saddam's beard and display his pictures before and after the shave is one of the biggest forms of humiliation possible in arabic culture.
3. The first shot of Saddam in that clip shows him pointing to something on the left side of his head. The point is it looks as if he's cowaring and covering his head in fear during the first couple of seconds. The psychological effects this has on the average Iraqi viewer are profound. It even gave me a slight tingling, to see the man who attacked my country with rockets during the first Gulf war displayed so patheticaly.
I say it again, whoever edited that video sequence knew what he was doing. Damn fine entertainment.
I think you misunderstood the question. The poster asked WHICH RIGHTS were taken away, not which laws you don't like. Maybe you did understand the question, but you didn't have an answer for it?
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Monday December 15, 2003 @03:01AM (#7722810)
70 years? Then surely you mean European oppression and dominance of the Middle East, not American. Or at least you would if you knew what you were talking about.
There's a lot if untapped oil in Iraq. Regardless of offsetting it and all that bullshit, it is going to be an oil company that goes there, prospects, drills and taps that resource. No one else. They're not going to give it away for free. They're going to get paid. Oil is a big business. They're going to get paid big money.
Now look at the Washington regime. Do they have connections to oil industry? Who put them into position of power? Follow the money.
Bush is just a puppet. The country is run by the almighty buck. Yes the war is expensive. You, as a tax payer, are not going to get that money back. But someone else will. They made an investment and now they expect a return for that investment. Opening the gates to Iraq oil wells is that ROI.
I suggest you browse through
Executive Order 13303 [akamaitech.net]. Bush has now exempted oil companies operating in IRAQ from liability for health and safety violations, child labour, minimum wage and other employment rights such as equal opportunity, consumer fraud, clean environment duties, etc. This under the pretext of "national security".
Not really. A treaty can't take precedence over the constitution.
That was not the issue. The issue is whenether the treaty does supplant the constitution or is complementary to it. I find it difficult to believe that a treaty ratified without constitutional problems in every other western democracy, is somehow incompatible with the US constition. I find it even harder to believe that this is such a certainty that it shouldn't even be tried by the Supreme Court.
I don't have much faith in the members of an international tribunal, picked not by people by by governments, which do not share my ideals.
Said governments have all ratified the UN declaration of human rights. Whenether they truly share your ideals or not, they have voluntarily signed a treaty to that extent. Unless you mean that states aren't bound to the treaties they sign (in which case there can be no law whatsoever), it's not much of an argument.
Besides that, out of the 18 Judges in the ICC, not a single one of them originates from a non-democratic country.
Kennedy was mere days away from beginning a rapid pull out from Vietnam, and if he hadn't been assasinated the cold war would have come to an end much sooner as well. More or less as soon as Kennedy was dead the papers were signed to not only stop the intended pull out, but send more troops in, to Vietnam.
He drove your people to space travel, and indeed reach the Moon (although sadly he didn't see that) which united the world in awe.
Kennedy died because it was not good business for the warmongers to have him in power, and there was no other way to remove him.
I'm not saying Kennedy was a great, or good man, only that had he not been cut down that the world would likely be a very different place. It would be hard to do worse than we are now.
You seem to forget that the "reason" Iraq was invaded was to find "Weapons of Mass-Destruction.
I don't think anyone forgets that because that's not the reason Iraq was invaded. You may think I'm splitting hairs, here, but there is a big difference between what you state and what the justifications were.
First, nobody - not the U.S., U.K., or even France, Russia or Germany, thought that Iraq was free from WMD, so I love it when liberals point to the "weasals" and say "see, they were right!" Everybody agreed on the problem - what we disagreed on was the solution.
The justification for the war was Iraqs defiance of the U.N. resolutions which required U.N. weapons inspectors to view the evidence that Iraq had destroyed the WMD that everybody knew they had.
Do you see the difference? The weapons inspectors job was not to seek out weapons of mass destruction, their job was to verify Iraqs evidence that they had been destroyed. Iraq failed to provide that evidence. It doesn't matter if they did actually destroy the weapons, they did not provide the evidence, required by the U.N. Case closed. But, if that's not enough for you, when they were claiming they had no weapons, they still wouldn't let the inspectors verify that. For crying out loud, it was only under threat of actual action that they even let the inspectors back in the country, and they STILL didn't give them full access. "We have no weapons, but no you can't look in that warehouse... it's... uh... a soveriegn palace of Saddam Hussein."
The inspectors only started playing "hide and go seek where Saddam will let you" when they couldn't complete their job. The whole concept of "give inspectors more time" was bogus - because that would require them to have more time to verify the evidence that Iraq failed to provide.
It would be nice to find a few smoking guns, but the war was justified 12 years ago when Saddam's representatives signed a cease-fire agreeing to U.N. terms - that they then failed to follow.
Frankly, it's funny how no one was complaining when Clinton periodically lobbed a few cruise missiles into Iraq, or complained about our "taking out" radar installations in the no-fly zone. IMO, the first gulf war never ended - there was agression every year since, all we're doing now is ending it once and for all.
So they used the WWII/Cold War-relic positions on the security council to block the attack.
No, they didn't. The attack was never put to a vote, because the US/UK knew that even without a French or Russian veto (and both countries had indicated that they might refrain from vetoing) they would lose the vote. If you want examples of using Cold War-relic positions to block resolutions, look at the US's record of veto, and think about what conflicts have been going on for ovre 50 years without UN intervention.
bin laden.. (Score:1, Insightful)
who cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
The 'capture' of sadam will mean no difference to the state iraq and the rest of the world is in.
Naysayers (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Naysayers (Score:5, Insightful)
GOOD JOB GUYS!!!!
Re:bin laden.. (Score:0, Insightful)
Bush (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
But, that shouldn't take away from the tremendous victory of the Iraqis and the Americans here.
Some people are perpetually negative. This is a great moment for these people. Relish in it. Stop looking for something to whine about
Congratulations Iraq! Congratulations US coalition!
Re:who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the last century's worst thugs is now in custody, and the "insightful" comment around here is "who cares"? Get some sense of history.
No connection (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. So? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with...
Al-Qaeda,
making America safer,
the War On Terrorism,
WMDs,
or any of that other stuff aside, yes, he's a Very Bad Man(tm).
Bush &c. will get an approval bump out of this, right up until the next terrorist attack, when it is plainly shown that the whole Iraq boondoggle was an expensive distraction so that W could feel like a man, and so that people wouldn't ask questions about the actual problem.
Classic misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
Were we able to find Osama bin Laden? No. The war on terror, originated in Afghanistan, was in danger of stagnating, with a conclusion that lacked the novelistic roundless of rounding up the enemy leader.
The focus of the war on terror was thusly shifted to Iraq. "There are connections," they said, which meant the war would really be over when Hussein was taken.
Now he has been. He, not bin Laden, will be at the forefront of millions of Americans' minds, seen as a defeated figurehead for terrorist activity -- despite the fact that he was not responsible for 9/11.
And this means re-election.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well sorry to wake you up from your erotic Bush world dreams, but capturing Saddam IS pretty irrelevant and you're still fighting an illegal war.
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not bad. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about? Or has that all been forgotten?
Re:who cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
A huge effect this will have is that Iraqis no longer will have to 'hedge their bets', that is not doing anything that might come back to haunt them if Saddam were to come back to power.
Re:who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Capture him and the fear of his name will go away.
Capture him and he can not pay a penny.
Re:Classic misdirection (Score:3, Insightful)
You could have said something similar about Saddam yesterday.
The correct statement (with proper tenses) is: "Have we been able to find Bin Laden? Not yet.".
Bin Laden isn't tied to a single country as was Saddam. His operation has been greatly hindered, and he'll go down...eventually.
In the meantime, don't mistake the fact that this is a great victory for the coalition and President Bush, and a major psychological blow for the Baathist resistance. :-)
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you aren't Arab (and in this case, Arab isn't equivalent to Muslim), you probably don't understand the honor structure of those people. In this case, while Saddam remained free and was able to demonstrate his strength by surviving and directing attacks against coalition forces, his former Ba'ath party supporters were willing to fight for him.
With him captured, you can expect to see the vast majority of the domestic Iraqi resistance disappear.
The foreign (i.e., Syrian and Iranian) destabilization efforts will continue until a effective domestic police force exists.
Re:Not bad. (Score:4, Insightful)
We went in because he has weapons of mass- Damn. Nevermind.
We went in because he's really bad, okay? Just wave your plastic American flag, citizen, go back to bed. All is well. The monitors are your friends.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
See no evil, hear no evil... (Score:5, Insightful)
2. All that went on with the blessing of the US, UK and the most of rest of the world.
Lest you forget, it was left to organisations like CND to point out that Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons on Kurdish settlements whilst countries like the US stuck their collective fingers in their ears, repeatedly chanted "la-la-la, I'm not listening", and pretended that the whole thing never happened.
You see, back then Saddam Hussein was a Good Guy (TM), because he was fighting those nasty Ayatollahs in Iran that gave the US such a bloody nose at the start of the 1980s. That he was a brutal dictator didn't matter then because he was the West's brutal dictator.
Perhaps you should switch off Fox News, pick up a history book, and ask yourself why it took the Gulf War and this latest War on Terrorism to bring his activities to your attention. For bonus points, find out where else this kind of oppression is going on and how long it's been ignored by the Western world.
Re:Classic misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it would. There already is such a court, the International Criminal Court [icc-cpi.int]..
The problem is, the USA opposes it.
This was not always the case; Funny you mention Nuremburg, where the american procecuter Robert Jackson expressed a desire to create such a permanent tribunal.
I feel that is the America the world admired and respected.
Todays unilateral foreign policy is a shame on America, and the ideals America is supposed to represent. And it is the reason why the USA no long commands the same international respect.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you seen them celebrating in the streets? Irrelevant? Go back to AC dreamland.
Re:No connection (Score:5, Insightful)
As for not recognizing the sovereignty of a nation that doesn't recognize the liberty of its people, then you may not want to become a US citizen any time soon. The current US administration places many things higher on its list of priorities than it does the notion of personal liberty. Ask John Ashcroft. Ask the detainees in Guantanamo. Ask the thousands of people held in American jails without habeus corpus on the suspicion of terror sympathy.
The US government DID invade a soveriegn nation. It did so without international support. It did so in violation of international law. The means, especially in this case, do not justify the ends.
The Election's over... (Score:5, Insightful)
That picture of Saddam in a disgusting non-bathed attire, dirt-filled beard will be remembered forever.
Plus, his trial for crimes against humanity will probably begin just around November 2004 (yeah yeah, cue trolls calling for "America's crimes against humanity, etc...")
A Perverse Angle (Score:3, Insightful)
We (America) got fucked on 9/11. No doubt about it. We decided to get even. No doubt about that. We kinda forgot about Osama and took out another world-class pain in the ass. Now can we please get back on track and hunt down the real targets? Preferably by having their own people turn against them? For 2004, my big thing will be "military force as a last resort, not first choice". I don't want to see America dragged down into a self-destructive unwinnable war. I don't want to see our country fight itself to death. We need to pursue peaceful solutions in the future when possible.
Great job, soldiers. No one can discredit your efforts and sacrifice. But I'd much rather we didn't have to have sacrificed at all.
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
The international press (for example the press in my country, Austria) is assuming the opposite to happen. And I share their view. Central Europe believes these assaults to happen because the Iraquis would prefer the US to move out of their country.
With Saddam Hussain being put on display in a humiliative fashion - him playing the role of a broken man whose two sons have been killed by the very forces that now have control of his life - this might anger those who lead these assaults even more.
The situation down there is not a beautiful one; the rest of the world blames the many problems on the Bush administration. We are sincerely hoping that you will vote their asses out of office next time and elect somebody with a finer understanding of the world into what's easily the world's most important political function. The rest of the world needs a different US. You might not care, tho - but I for one hope you do.
Re:Thread: place yer bets (Score:3, Insightful)
Indirectly, I think many parts of the U.S. economy have been holding their breath to see how the war turns out. This will be seen as the-beginning-of-the-end for that war, and I think the economy will start to pick up momentum from here, which for better or worse will help the Bush re-election. Uncertainty is the bane of an economy, and a certain amount of uncertainty just went away.
Everybody deserves a fair trial -- look at Germany (Score:5, Insightful)
This basic right used to by highly valued in the US, too. Of course, now suspects are declared "terrorists" and put away to Guantanamo and other places, or left to "friendly" governments for torturing.
The very reason that a few days ago a suspect 9/11-collaborator was set free by the court was a lack of proof against him (likely the US' fault for not allowing an important witness to testify because said witness is "interrogated" by the CIA at an unknown location).
In Germany, at least, people can be sure not to be held prisoner without evidence.
The value of democratic principles can be seen best whan you look at how a state treats its enemies.
Re:Not bad. (Score:1, Insightful)
If you are going to ask a question then why aren't we in North Korea. That answer is, of course, because he is even crazier than Saddam and would nuke all of the South Korea in a heartbeat. To me North Korea is the greatest threat to the World - even more then the random car bombers. Nuke is the hands of a nutcase have the potential to not just kill millions but to cause irreparable damage to the environment.
Clearing up your own mess (Score:3, Insightful)
TWW
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:See no evil, hear no evil... (Score:2, Insightful)
Latest estimates put the numbers from mass graves, that's just mass graves, at 300,000 [bbc.co.uk].
2. All that went on with the blessing of the US, UK and the most of rest of the world
Hardly. It went on, but most certainly neither the U.S. or the U.K. put their blessing on such an event. By the standard you seem to hold, the fact that hit happened meant it went on with the "blessing" of ALL of the world.
You see, back then Saddam Hussein was a Good Guy (TM), because he was fighting those nasty Ayatollahs in Iran that gave the US such a bloody nose at the start of the 1980s. That he was a brutal dictator didn't matter then because he was the West's brutal dictator.
You accuse those who disagree with you of simplifying the issue ("Perhaps you should switch off Fox News, pick up a history book, blah blah...") when you do the exact same thing. Saddam was an ally of convenience. In spite of your assertions, the United States only provided Saddam with around 1% [command-post.org] of his armaments during the period from 1973-1992.
He was not placed in power by the U.S. and the U.K. and he helped turn back the Ayatollah and, ultimately, the spread of Soviet influence in the Middle East. It was thinking just like yours that got us into the situation with Iran in the first place. Jimmy Carter, whose good intentions and blatant idiocy virtually destroyed our intelligence gathering capabilities during his presidency (gasp! We had dealings with unbecoming people!), got us into that mess in the first place.
For bonus points, find out where else this kind of oppression is going on and how long it's been ignored by the Western world.
Then what should have been done? Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have done anything in Iraq because bad things are going on elsewhere? I really don't why you take the position you have. It would be logically consistent to instead be petitioning for the removal of other murderous regimes such as in Sudan and Zimbabwe instead of bitching about the removal of Saddam.
Maybe it is you who should study history a bit better. I'll let Mr. Bush help you:
The roots of our democracy can be traced to England, and to its Parliament -- and so can the roots of this organization. In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster Palace and declared, the turning point had arrived in history. He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people -- their creativity, their genius and their rights.
President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing, that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this organization its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across the world. Your mandate was important 20 years ago; it is equally important today. (Applause.)
A number of critics were dismissive of that speech by the President. According to one editorial of the time, "It seems hard to be a sophisticated European and also an admirer of Ronald Reagan." (Laughter.) Some observers on both sides of the Atlantic pronounced the speech simplistic and naive, and even dangerous. In fact, Ronald Reagan's words were courageous and optimistic and entirely correct. (Applause.)
The great democratic movement President Reagan described was already well underway. In the early 1970s, there were about 40 democracies in the world. By the middle of that decade, Portugal and Spain and Greece held free elections. Soon there were new democracies in Latin America, and free institutions were spreading in Korea, in Taiwan, and in East Asia. This very week in 1989, there were protests in East Berlin and in Leipzig. By the end of that year, every communist dictatorship in Central America* had collapsed. Within another year, the South African government released Ne
Re:Bush (Score:2, Insightful)
What the? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No connection (Score:1, Insightful)
That's so disingenuous. If the anti-war people had their way, this wouldn't have happened at all.
Remember though that to topple him, our government invaded a sovereign nation without international support
Wrong. We did have international support. Just because it wasn't suppport from the countries you liked doesn't mean it didn't exist. Britain, Spain, Australia were certainly part of the coalition.
The administration is going to spin this as a wonderful thing for Americans and a sure sign that the administration is tough on terrorists.
Maybe because it is. And for Iraqis too.It's the war on Iraq that was started many years ago by the father and now reengaged by the son.
I believe that Saddam was the one who started it by invading Kuwait.
Iraqi citizens may rejoice, but there is no reason for us to do the same.
How shortsighted that is. We've accomplished something that no doubt has made the world just a little better. The entire record of Saddam is still coming out, the fact that we ended him is going to be one of the biggest stories in the modern history.
Re:Anti War IS Pro Saddam (Score:5, Insightful)
This attitude really reminds me of working with my business partner.
Some years ago I introduced him to the term "opportunity cost". He immediately took it to mean the exact opposite of what it does. It is supposed to represent the lost revenue you get by going after a lesser opportunity when it interferes with pursuing a better one. He still thinks it is the opportunities you "lost" by not trying to do everything at once.
I was very anti-war and very anti-Sadaam at the same time, but for this reason. If there were nothing else on our agenda at the time, then by all means I would have supported taking Sadaam out. But after 9/11 we had a unique, once in a generation chance to unite the world in the pursuit of freedom and democracy. Now the action we've taken in the name of freedom and democracy have united freedom's opponents as never before and divided its proponents. This is to say nothing of Al Qaeda or North Korea.
I agree, Sadaam was evil. He should have been removed. But power has its limitations. You can't acheive everything at once. With patience and strategy, we could have removed him, at lower cost, not just in money but to our long term interests and to the interests of humanity at large. Granted, Iraqis would have unfairly borne the cost of Sadaam's regime for some months longer. It wouldn't have been fair to them. But we are now in a precarious and risky situation, and others may suffer if luck is not with us. It's not going to be fair to them either.
I'm glad he was taken out of power. I'm glad he was caught, and that he will be brought to justice. I am optimistic by by nature and continue to hope for the best. If Bush and America are very, very lucky, or if we begin to be a lot more skillful in our affairs, things may yet turn out brilliantly. However I think it was a very unwise course of action.
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've been watching the news and White House propoganda of late, you'll know that the major forces that have organized behind attacks against coalition forces have been those forces that arrived from out of the country. It's not some disbanded Ba'ath party members that suicide bombing the country side, but it's crazed militants from around the middle east.
The capture of saddam will probably provide some superficial relief, and will likely setup a nice facade to help ease reelection tensions, but more than that -- it's a relatively mute point. Nothing can come of it besides some happiness that hundreds of billions of dollars can go to capturing someone that was already deposed.
And moreover, the questions begs to be asked: where the hell is Osama? The man needs a DIALYSIS MACHINE! That's not some simple tool, or small for that matter. I'm angry that we've invested so much time in other countries, but Bush wants us to forget the real criminal behind 9/11.
Well, you be satisifed with this capture of Saddam. I'll be angry that we paid 25 million USD for a figure head, and a good ol' fashioned taste of Nazi propoganda. Where's Osama?!
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
At the same time, Saddam was a symbol. Capturing him is also symbolic - that this regime is not going to return. This may hearten the Iraqi people. And those who feared such a return and kept silent while resistance / terrorists operated amoung them.
Actually - I have to disagree with this. The longer these attacks keep up, the longer US and its allies will remain in Iraq. True - the goal is to rebuild Iraq, not wipe out insurgants. But Iraq can not be rebuilt while the infrastructure of a new government is picked apart by assasinations and sabotage.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator... (Score:5, Insightful)
Enough already (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot is a fairly sophisticated and educated crowd. Yes, we know that Bin Laden hasn't been located. Yes, we know Saddam isn't the head of Al-Queda. Yes, we know they haven't found WMDs in Iraq. None of that has ANYTHING to do with Saddam's capture and it is insulting that you think we need to be told.
That Saddam is captured is a good thing. Even if you hate Bush, think the war was wrong, unjustified and so on you cannot honestly say that the world is not a better place without him being a free man. Will this magically fix all the problems in Iraq? Of course not, doesn't mean it's still not important.
This is important if for no other reason than that we have a concept of justice, that people should pay for their crimes. Saddam now can be made to do that. He can be tried for what he's done. More important than any punishment itself is the process, society enforcing order and justice.
So knock it off with the stupid comments. We already know, and it's insulting and makes you look childish.
Re:No connection (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're one of these suffering people, it's your sovereign government that's probably going to kill you. If you plainly respect the soverign government, the people die. I'd rather take down a man made notion of government than let masses of innocent people die.
Strength and respect are not the same. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ther word you search for strength is NOT repsect. Respect comes from admiting the weak point and strong point of the other and admiting for a certain admiration of those point.
US is not respected. US 15 years ago might be. But thanks to a certain
Fear and respect are quite not the same things, even if both lead you where you want to go. But remmember this : nothing is eternal. You recolt what you seed. If you think what is seeding right now the US is good, well good to you. I personally fear my kids will have to live "interresting years".
Re:Good. Period. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't tell me that you care about Iraqis when you let them die in the millions.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Undoubtly, and with some luck he will have a fair trial, in stark contrast to his own former justice system.
Hopefully, this will stop the attacks on the coalition troops
Hopefully, but very unlikely. Contrary to official propaganda not only Saddam loyalists, but also ordinary people are attacking the occupation forces. US disregard for civilians has made them quite a few enemies : Oh The LIttle Saddams We Weave [zmag.org] The War on Iraq's Workers [zmag.org]
and the US can pull out and let Iraq start setting up its own country.
US are already planning to have several permanent bases in Iraq, and are there to stay. And in the process install a puppet regime to protect their oil interests.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine your brother looked longingly at one of Saddam's son's mistresses without knowing and was fed to the lions.
Imagine
It's called empathy. That's what makes it relevant.
Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, the USA opposes it.
For good reason, mind you. The US could not join any ICC treaty, as the terms of the treaty are not acceptable under the US constitution. More pragmatically, it seems quite likely that the tranzis would use the ICC to bring frivilous charges against various officials in the US.
War-crimes tribunals should be short-term, focusing on the results of a single conflict and then dissolved. To do otherwise leads to mission creep, and the defining down of crimes against humanity merely to give the tribunal something to do.
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
A recent news story heard on NPR (I believe it was a Times reporter that had gotten in with a cell attacking US forces?) had Saddam loyalists flatly stating that, although the cells operated independently and did not know of other cells actions, they got their orders from a military structure that they believe was controlled by SH.
The hope would be, that with SH exposed and captured (and clearly not in command) that these cells will see they are being controlled by a military structure NOT under SH. In a perfect world, they would thus turn against that leadership...
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let The Bush Bashing Begin (Score:3, Insightful)
Its is a GOOD thing that he is gone. He will no longer serve as incentive for many of the 2bit terrorists to continue. His capture will take a lot of wind out of their 'cause'.
But instead of appreciating the ramifications of what has just been done, I expect this entire forum to consist of people taking personal pot shots at the president.
For those of you that are just too f-ing short sided and must twist everything around to make it an attack on our leader and our country, I only have one thing to say to you: Get the hell out if you dislike it here so much. We don't need you, nor do you deserve any of the benefits or freedoms that you get for living in MY country.
You may me sick.
Re:No invasion == pro Saddam (Score:2, Insightful)
But with your logic you rule out the possibility that doing something about it might have unforeseable and even worse consequences.
If you are against something and the only thing you could do against it would have even worse consequences, it might be demonstration of your 'against'-ness if you would do it anyway, but you wouldn't suddenly become in favor of it if you would say 'Wait, under these circumstances I will wait until I can come up with something better'.
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful to not imply that it's only the conservatives that do this.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are a fool and a bigot. The vast majority of Moslems have no truck with terrorism. In all my years reading Slashdot, I have never seen the sobriquet "Anonymous Coward" more aptly applied.
WOMD found! (Score:1, Insightful)
Take the red pill and educate yourself, find out what the headlines really mean. Don't use the PR provided by the military as your sole point of reference for current events. Look beyond the media machine of CNN et al and discover what is really going on in the world. The following is a good start to read what the independent media is able to uncover http://projectcensored.org/publications/2004/inde
Re:See no evil, hear no evil... (Score:2, Insightful)
The US is currently supporting several Saddam-alike dictators in the region. The US is allied with Turkey (!)
Your nationalism is blinding you. The US's involvement with Iraq over the last couple of decades has been thoroughly rotten. None of this "bringing freedom" nationalistic rhetoric changes that.
Re:See no evil, hear no evil... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignoring all other assistance (intelligence, etc) that's still 1 percent too much, isn't it? If not, what percentage would you consider to be OK before a nation becomes culpable for assisting that regime? 5 percent? 10? 20? It must be nice to be able to pretend that assisting an oppressive regime doesn't matter as long as you don't help them too much.
He was not placed in power by the U.S. and the U.K. and he helped turn back the Ayatollah and, ultimately, the spread of Soviet influence in the Middle East.
So you admit he was used by successive US administrations who were willing to turn a blind eye to his "extra-curricular" activities?
"...In the early 1970s, there were about 40 democracies in the world. By the middle of that decade, Portugal and Spain and Greece held free elections. Soon there were new democracies in Latin America, and free institutions were spreading in Korea, in Taiwan, and in East Asia..."
Just what does the fall of General Franco in Spain, etc have to do with your argument? Are you suggesting the conversion of Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc to democracies had something to do with US intervention? Was Franco killed by an exploding CIA cigar? I think not.
As for those "new democracies in Latin America", please, don't make me laugh. The US's record in Latin America is laughable, such as the 1973 CIA-backed coup in Chile [cnn.com] that overthrew the democratically elected President President Salvador Allende in favour of a facist dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, who then proceeded to tortured and murdered tens of thousands. If that's the kind of example you want to bring up of how the US helps bring self-determination to the world then perhaps you want to think twice.
The facts are clear: when Saddam Hussein was murdering his people, the West stood by and watched, happy in the knowledge that he was being just as brutal towards Iranians as he was to his fellow Iraqis.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:0, Insightful)
I agree. GREAT news that we got Saddam, but my blood is burning for Osama...
Someone please explain how this is, currently, modded +4 Insightful. Is it the "I agree" part? Does mere agreeance ("me too!") count as insight? Likely not. How about expressing the opinion that it's great Osama was caught? Hardly an insight there -- maybe "+1 Patriotic" or some such. Perhaps the part which is insightful is the fact that the poster's blood is burning for Osama. After all, unless the poster told us, we'd never know they had burning blood, would we?
All sarcasm aside, there's nothing at all insightful about the post in the slightest. Meta-mods, start your engines!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not bad. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
He had no need for money or training from the US. He could get that with his own money.
Re:who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
You watch too much Fox News pal.
NO ONE SUPPORTS SADDAM HUSSEIN! But you straw-man slayers cannot understand the nuances of the worlds objections... YOU CANNOT UNILATERALLY ATTACK FOREIGN NATIONS! UNDER ANY GODDAMNED IMAGINED (real or otherwise) REASONS!
First Afghanistan, then Iraq... you Yankess are going to start WWIII! Dont be so fucking stupid.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets get her in a room with a widow of a Bush victim, get Gerry Springer in there, you got a show.
The war was illegal, the war was about weapons of mass destruction and after months of not finding any, they changed their story for "Booh Saddam! Bad bad Saddam!".
I see it worked great on some people...big powerpoint user are you?
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:who cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
And you appear to be in the 20% of the US population that fell for the big lie of the Republican party.
Riiight. All our men would be wearing beards and our women burkhas.
God knows we had 8 years of horror and economic disaster last time we had a Democrat in office. Oh no, wait, that was just 40 million taxpayer dollars spent investigating a blowjob and a shady land deal...
Why don't you go into detail about how the country would be hypothetically different if Gore had been elected? I'd like to read that...
---
I do commend you on your taste in pistols, though...
How Saddam's being treated,( Re:who cares?) (Score:1, Insightful)
Or at least one can hope.
It will be interesting to see how the US stage-manages this. Clothes will be interesting. I expect to see him in nice, comfortable, western clothes.
Unfortunately, the events of the last 24 hours don't make this very likely.-- ac at home
Re:Classic misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you joking? The US had a large hand in training much of the resistance force in Afghanistan, including Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), of which Osama was the head. Osama later split from MAK and established al-Qaida. So the US's efforts gave a lot toward Osama's current terror regime. It's also hard to be friendly toward a force that uses you to fight for them. The Afghanistan rebels were useful to the US as long as they fought the Soviets. When they didn't need them anymore, the US left, leaving Afghanistan in ruins and paving the way for the Taliban and worse.
According to Wikipedia, Osama's main beef with the US is it's support of Saudi Arabia monarchy, which, if you'll pardon a cliche, was largely supported due to it's oil reserves. Osama is, of course, a psychopath, but that doesn't mean that the US didn't have a hand in the creation of the terrorist leader we know today.
9/11 didn't occur because of something we did, it happened simply because of what we were. A successful, free, secular society.
Almost all modern terrorism is due to US foreign policy. It is not because terrorists "hate freedom". That is, franky an extremely naive view of the world, seperating people into blank and white views of "good" and "bad".
This War on Terror can be won and will be by acting decisively and crushing them all.
Even more naive. By "acting decisively and crushing them all" you only incite more people to harm the US. As a UK citizen, I've seen what happened when terrorism was tackled by force. It increased. Whilst terrorism must not be tolerated, a "War on Terror" is going to be as successful as the US "War on Drugs".
Are you a troll, or just incredibly uninformed?
Re:who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
The rest of the world might want a different U.S., but the President acts strictly for the interests of his own country. I, for one, think Bush has done an amazingly good job with foreign policy. Not one citizen has died from foreign terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11...that is a tremendous track record for the Bush administration. I shudder to think where we'd be today if Gore had won in 2000.
Good point about how the President should be looking out for the best interests of his own country.
However, your point of U.S. citizens not dying from terrorism is extremely weak.
No US citizens have died from foreign terrorism on U.S. soil EVER... until GWB. So, that means, according to your logic, since George Washington, it was a tremendous track record for every single president of the US to avoid this... except for Bush because he was the only president to ever allow U.S. citizens to die from a foreign terrorist act on U.S. soil.
oh come on (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny -- in my view justice isn't being served here. The crimes that this man is responsible for went unpunished (and, in fact, were given the unofficial okay) at the time they were carried out.
This man is paying for Bin Laden's crimes. The war started with 9/11 and took a major (albeit preplanned) detour here.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Some obscure legal backdoor doesn't make the war legal. Use some common sense here.
Re:who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Forgetting one or two things (Score:5, Insightful)
Iraq does not.
Much easier to invade a country and get rid of some assholes when they can't turn you or your major cities into a radioactive cinder.
Oh and then there's that thing about having a bajillion troops.
Just a few small points to remember.
Re:Saddam ... (Score:2, Insightful)
I doubt that Saddam's capture will provoke anger (Score:5, Insightful)
Theory 1: Saddam loyalists are attacking the Americans, et al. In this scenario, capturing Saddam weakens the resistance.
Theory 2: Outside terrorists are the main sponsors. In this scenario it makes NO DIFFERENCE where Saddam is captured or not.
Theory 3: The main rank and file of the resistance are formed by patriotic Iraqis who see themselves not as fighting for Saddam but rather as fighting for Iraqi independence. In this case, the arrest of Saddam removes a MAJOR obstacle to the resistance, namely the fear that by resisting, it will be allowing Saddam to come back to power.
The truth is probably a mixture of all three. The real danger in the arrest (not to say that I am opposed to the arrest, but let's not have rosy tinted glasses about the whole thing) is that it will take a resistance movement which has seen a growing mainstream patriotic wing and remove the final obstacle for the mainstream Iraqi to support it. In this case, it could mean that the war will simmer and slowly boil up.
This is not without precedent. Look into WWI and the experience of the British in the area that became Iraq.
Re:who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Blah blah blah.... We hate anything American does.
The U.S. cann't attack any nation.... blah blah blah.... Well pal we did, and the world is now a much safer place for it. We gave up British, American and Italian lives for this (sorry if I missed any other country), and this is a huge day.
You watch too much BBC and CNN. Remember there is a GOOD reason the Iraqie Bob hugged the CNN reporter.... and that the BBC was thrown off of a British ship.
Re:Saddam ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, yeah. It'd be a political body in a political body that has often been used as an anti-us platform.
I can't think of a good reason why there can't be an exception for sodliers serving under a UN mandate; that'd kill both the US's fears of the court and the world's fear of the US in one fell swoop.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, wait, biologicals can be stored in smaller containers than that. So it took us months to find Hussein with a bounty on his head. How long do you really think it will take to find containers in a country the size of a mid sized state in the US? They could be burried anyplace. Look, Iraq had months to figure out where to hide stuff before they were attacked.
Even Clinton said that Iraq hadn't accounted for everything when he left office.
I'm so tired of people talking about this like Saddam wasn't a bad guy. You seem to forget that he did have a history of gassing the Kurds. He was using these weapons. You forget that France and Russsia were the ones supplying him and big surprise they're the ones that didn't want to go to war. France supplied the planes that applied the gas and he still owed them billions for it. So who needs this history lesson?
See your beloved Saddam now. http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html
These were the people of his own country. Look at the dead children and their moms.
Do you know any real Iraqis? People who really come from there. I do. I used to work with someone who defected from there a few years before the first war whose sole job was verifying for Saddam that people he wanted executed were executed. He told me this back in 1987 before I even had a clue who Saddam was.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
SUTTON KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN! (Score:1, Insightful)
media is media... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no view they're trying to push, no idea they want people to follow...they're a shark that feeds on itself and will eat anything and everything in it's way.
They only look at the almighty dollar and only care how many people are watching so they can sell their ads. That's the bottom line. They will report on anything and everything...the more sensational the better. Facts rarely enter into the fray...just so long as they have a headline.
The government doesn't control them because if that were true, then that in itself would be a major story...that "CNN has evidence that FOX is controlled by X" or vice versa. Remember, they eat anything and everything.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Facts:
Saddam Hussein was a cruel ruler that killed thousands of Kurds with gas.
Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi, like most of the 7-11 attack terrorists.
Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were know enemies, at least before this year.
Iraq had nothing to do with 7-11 attack. Even Paul Wolfowitz (deputy secretary of defense) can't say otherwise.
It's not know that Iraq had supported any terrorist attack in the world.
No massive destruction weapon was found yet in Iraq.
AFTER USA invaded Iraq Bin Laden supposedly made some speechs urging iraquies to fight against coalition forces.
Terrorism in Iraq started from null to today situation since President Bush anounced end of fights.
"Old Europe" countries foretold this situation will happen. USA reacted renaming french fries.
Of course Old Europe also had important economical interests an Iraq, like USA.
There a lot of other interesting facts that you could find if you ever care.
Re:The Election's over... (Score:5, Insightful)
OMG!
When, exactly WHEN did Saddam "go after America"?
When, and how?
Saddam was all cozy in his little kindom, not having any weapons of mass destruction or anything, and Bush decided to go after Iraq, not the other way around. He did it for many reasons: Oil, a distraction from internal scrutiny, a well known villain, but NOT because Saddam attacked America, because he never did.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
God damned ignorant assholes.
A little reminder... (Score:2, Insightful)
No matter if you believe the pictures seen on tv right now that show a male person looking similar to Saddam Hussein in captivity to be real, the question wether this event will have any impact on the insurgency taking place in iraq or not is an entirely different one.
First of all, it should be noted that several western intelligence services consider the acts of terrorism to be conducted not by loyalists but by activist with ties to/inspired by Al Qaeda. However, there is no reliable information on who's behind all this.
What if it were loyalists? Well, in that case I doubt it will make much of a difference. It has been noted that now the plain vanilla arabian person will consider Hussein a coward and will no longer fight for him. This, in my humble opinion, displays a lack of understanding of the sort of people Hussein surrounded himself with as well as having pretty rigid stereotypes.
You have to realize that his 'followers' are not motivated by ideology, honor or religion. They are/were motivated by their hunger for power. And riches. If they thought they had a chance to get that back, they might pretty well still think so. Hussein isn't dead yet, and even if he was, someone could replace him. They mostly want their power and wealth back, not necessarily Hussein.
And if it isn't (mostly) 'Saddamists' behind the terror? Then it will make even less of a difference. And if you think more troops or more/better police will improve the situation, think again. Every house search, every accidently killed civilian, every repressive action by the occupation forces or the so-called iraqi police will drive more people into the underground.
Is this a victory for the US? Certainly. Any acts of terrorism occuring after the arrest of Hussein can be discounted as the desperate last acts of a bunch of lunatics that lost their leader.
Is this a victory for the Iraqi people? Perhaps a very small one. They can have their vengence, but it's unlikely their quality of life will improve now.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The War is illegal, not because the US invaded a soverign state on the justification that there was the possibility of a chance of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.
The War is illegal because it was never declared. In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991. Since then we've bombed a soverign state for shits and giggles, but haven't really declared war. War has fairly cristiline properties in international law.
Further, your argument on WMD is excessively vapid. Just because we haven't found the WMD doesn't mean they don't exist. Therefore the war is not based on unfounded accusations and improperly motivated?
Great! So when Bush invades Madagasgar or possibly The Vatican City looking for Nuclear Weapons we'll say "well he hasn't found them yet, but they must be there?" At some point you have to break from the political claptrap the administration feeds you and start thinking for yourself.
When you've been in possession of a country for months at a time and you've had thousands of people to search it with the co-operation of most of the people in that country, how hard should it be to find anything? We're not gonna find WMD in Iraq. And if they turn up after all this time I'd be more inclined to go into tin-foil hat mode and accuse the Bush administration of planting the evidence then I would belive that we were so incompitant as to be unable to locate them up to now.
That, and by all reports and estimates of Saddam's state of mind he'd have used those weapons if he'd had them when we marched on Baghdad.
Re:No connection (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Enough already (Score:2, Insightful)
I will keep replying to the mindless sheep who are happy that the Great Bush has "accomplished his goal" and "protected America" and "won a victory in the war against terror" by having his troops capture Saddam.
Because none of it is true, and they DON'T allready know, and they need to be reminded.
And if you think that the truth is stupid and childish, then I pity you.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
But what I don't understand is why so many people know so little about Iraq. If there is a democracy in Iraq the ones who will be elected will be shiites leader... And the first thing they will do is transform Iraq into an islamic state like Iran.
The really funny part is that Saddam was fighting those shiites leader. For our safety, it would have been better to keep Saddam or at least keep the old regime.
Oh yes, it's a tremendous victory... for Islam!
Re:Not bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I'M getting tired of this crap about having to "pick one of the two".
The man is, quite simply, the truest form of a politician.
He's sleazy. We go to war with Afghanistan because Al Quaeda attacked us (let's not mention that we're taking that assertion that it was Al Quaeda on faith since the administration wouldn't share any of the "evidence" it magically had only hours after the attacks). Bin Laden, the psychofuck we're supposed to get, gets away. Solution? Look harder? No. Divert attention to Iraq. Pretend they have a current WMD program (again, present no [truthful] evidence), blow them the fuck up, and then, when you realize your ass is getting handed to you by all the people who want to see this Great Big Threat to America and all these WMDs, start pretending like you started yammering about all this a year ago because you wanted to "liberate" people.
Bull fucking shit. He knows damn well that Hussein is already a villian in everybody's minds and that he can back that up because the man IS a villian. He knows he can whip people into a frenzy every time he passes "ter'rism" through his lips and he can sweep his fuck-ups under the carpet by changing his story later.
You want to know why I hate him more than any recent prez in history? More than lying, two-faced, backstabbing Clinton? Because everytime I cried for evidence when the man started making claims, I got nasty looks from idiots who just wanted to hear that ter'rists were being taken out of their happy little world. When I start pointing out that the man has lied his way into two wars so far and changed the story or conveniently just closed the book halfway through, I get the same goddamn looks.
I'm tired of Bush apologists in particular and political apologists in general. The man doesn't know what the truth is and probably wouldn't know it if he choked on it watching football. He wasn't elected to push his own personal agendas, and I'm sick of it. The man is the epitomy of slimy politicians through and through. The fact that good things (like this) occasionally happen as a result of his constant fucking about doesn't excuse the fact that he's a sniveling, manipulative, two-faced liar. At least when Clinton lied about a blow job from a mildly unattractive ditz nobody got killed. Can't say nobody died as a result of this asshole's lies. I don't appreciate that.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I still dont know what to think... (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the actual facts are always most interesting, but they have no impact if people rather believe what they want to believe, if they oversimplify, make uninformed decisions and don't bother to revise their model of the world. Simply put, actual facts don't matter to the majority.
You could say that, in a case like this, facts are made through news.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:0, Insightful)
Why don't you mention the legailty of pre-emptive war that Bush unilatirally imposed during his rule? The first time in hundreds of year that we need no reason to invade other countries and take them over? Does that fact bother you?
So during the 90's, between Iraq wars, we were actually at war with Iraq?! My mistake, I guess you think Vietnam wasn't really a war either.... your facts are not straight. Gulf War I started and ended (treaty and cease fire irrelevant technicalities aside) and Gulf War II started separately and for less reason.
Saddam and Iraq provided information that their WMD were non-existant and destroyed, they provided thousands of pages of documentation to prove it. All of the world experts who went to Iraq found nothing. Our subsequent invasion found no WMD.... yet you claim the facts are on your side.
So what was our reason for invading then, douche bag? Let's hear your "facts"... The best you can say is the Gulf War I never ended? This is the least valid argument I've yet to hear about this whole fiasco.
Go suck Bush's dick and let me know if it passifies your erotic dreams.
Re:Let The Bush Bashing Begin (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? The US government (despite trying desperately to do so) has found absoloutly no evidence that Saddam or the Iraqi government ever funded or consorted with Al Queda or any other "terrorist" group.
On the other hand, we have plenty of evidence that Saudi Arabia HAS directly funded, armed, aided and abedded known terrorist leaders and groups. When do we invade Saudi Arabia?
The "pot shots" as you call them that I take at the US President are simply requests for factual information that makes his stated case. To date I have not seen that ANYTHING that Bush stated as a reason for illegally invading Iraq to be true (no weapons, no terrorist support, no intent to harm neigbors).
Bush lied, he is a cad and a coward. If you think otherwise, then please link to official government press releases/information that provides me with this information. NOT press releases that say they have the information, but the actual information.
No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one. (Score:3, Insightful)
This has been proven untrue. What is difficult to stand is that members of the Administration knew this to be untrue before the war ever started.
Its comical (Score:3, Insightful)
Guatonoma Bay and illegal arrests
Bush's election being illegal
Osama Bin Laden is still free
US opposition to the International Court
No WMD has been found
If the war was about human rights then why not attack China
Some links:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89225
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?
sid=89225&
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89225&ci
Ever thought about actually dicussing the topic? Would it be too crazy to actually talk about the capture and its effects on Iraq?
Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The Election's over... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Right now" is nearly a year away from the elections themselves. GHW Bush was "the man" in 1991 but still managed to blow the elections in '92.
Things that can still hurt W:
1. another terrorist attack (unless it's so bad that this (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11
2. not finding Osama. If they can get him in August or September of next year, *then* the election is over.
3. a trial for Saddam that brings to light all the dirty stuff the US did back when he wasn't considered the anti-Christ.
You're right, though, it could well start late enough to be a non-issue.
4. more insurgents (despite what country they're actually from) and more quagmire for a supposed "mission accomplished"
5. North Korea
6. An economic downturn, or a rally that peters out
7. what else? I'm curious to hear others' comments.
Frankly, if I were a Macchiavellian bastard who wanted to stay in power, I'd arrange to have several 'necessary' military actions (of the apparently non-quagmire type) going on at the same time as the elections. As long as it's considered treason to question those actions, there will be a majority of people who think a continuity of leadership is necessary, so I know I could be re-elected.
--Kimota!
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Ma'am, your husband died doing what he volunteered to do. He got killed 'over there' because every Islamic thug we kill 'over there' is one less Islamic thug who can eventually try his luck at killing civilians 'over here', but sometimes the Islamic thugs get lucky 'over there' too. War is hell."
And since I'm really a civilian posting from behind the safety of my keyboard in the States, I'll add one more thing: "Your husband, as someone willing to put more than Slashdot karma points on the line for what he believed in, grew a pair and served, which is more than I ever did."
To all who've served in the past, and who are serving today - at home or abroad - I'll say "w00t", which is the geek equivalent of the Marines' "Semper Fi" (sorry for not knowing the Army, Navy, and Air Force equivalents!), and celebrate another victory with a nice steaming cup of Shut The Fuck Up.
Oh, and Saddam? j00=pwn3d. we>j00. Of course you fail it. Your last spider hole of a base is belong to us. Your people, for several million, welcome their new US overlords. No Natalie Portman and hot grits. All we had left was 50-grit. Your next interview is with Goatse Guy, and I suggest you listen very carefully to his advice.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is enough evidence to support the view that most of the attacks in Iraq are not ex-sadaam loyalists, but are new Al Qaeda who will be happy to keep doing what they have been doing all along.
As to feeling good about capturing Sadaam, Yeah (assuming that it really is him; DNA tests take much longer than 2 hours). It is nice to know that we got him alive. Hopefully, we allow the local Iraqis to try him and give him some mid-eastern justice; an eye for an eye.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.) (Score:3, Insightful)
(3) Until I hear of nukes with "Hi, there!" painted on the sides being dragged out of Iraq, we have still invaded Iraq for no good reason. The only reason the UN went along with this little war is because US intelligence lied about WMD and thus believed that they posed a serious threat to neighboring nations. No WMD = unjustified war = unjustified deaths on both sides.
Pardon me, but have I been missing something? As far as I know the UN didn't "go along" with the war. It merily supports "reconstruction effords" now and has recognized the "coalation of the willing" as the current temporary governing force of iraq.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
WMD && Oil != the issue (Score:1, Insightful)
The real issue in my mind is, shortly after 911, Saddam Hussien up'd the pay out for the families of suicide bombers. That association alone makes Iraq a state that harbors/supports terrorist. The old Iraq had to go, Saddam was in charge of the old Iraq.
Re:who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Another poster already pointed out that Japan, not Germany, did the ship sinking.
Perhaps you'd better brush up on your history. While Pearl Harbor was the start of the US's overt involvement in hostilities, care to estimate how many American pilots entered into the RAF and RCAF with the tacit permission of the US government? What about all those Americans fighting the Japanese in China as part of the American Expeditionary Group aka The Flying Tigers. What about the US Navy actively hunting German U-Boats in the North Atlantic? What about the military hardware that was supplied to Britain, the Soviet Union, and their allies? What about the economic blockades of Axis countries?
The US was involved with WWII well before Pearl Harbor. As just a start, try reading Roosevelt's Secret War by Joseph Persico. Please come back and offer your opinions when you actually have some knowledge behind them.
Re:The Election's over... (Score:2, Insightful)
Tell that to Churchill.
Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate (Score:4, Insightful)
That is quite debatable. A good number of politicians feel differently.
In any case, it's a question best decided by the Supreme Court. So why not let them?
More pragmatically, it seems quite likely that the tranzis would use the ICC to bring frivilous charges against various officials in the US.
That is simply the paranoid mode of thought which leads to unilateralism. It's ridiculous.
The same argument could be used by any nation. Are we supposed to belive the USA is somehow unique?
Using the ICC for frivolous politically motivated indictments is in nobodys best interest. Any and all systems of justice require faith in the legitimacy of the legal process, you can't have justice otherwise.
War-crimes tribunals suffer from this lack of faith. A trial of the vanquished by the victors can never be considered impartial.
Faith in justice is one of the American ideals I mentioned. There is no reason besides xenophobia to think that America should not extend this faith to the international scene.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
When you sign up for the military you have no guarantee for life - that's just part of the job.
When you're a citizen of a nation, the government must do everything it can to protect your life and your well being... that's part of it's job.
When you have a government that gasses and kills its own people, then the government isn't doing its job and must be removed. The forces that remove that government know it's going to be hard, know people are going to die or get wounded, and know that every day they're over there their life is in danger...
If they have a problem with that then they shouldn't have signed up with the military in the first place.
Father and son, bedtime chat (Score:5, Insightful)
A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction.
Q: But the inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction.
A: That's because the Iraqis were hiding them.
Q: And that's why we invaded Iraq?
A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.
Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn't find any weapons Of mass destruction, did we?
A: That's because the weapons are so well hidden. Don't worry, we'll find something, probably right before the 2004 election.
Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?
A: To use them in a war, silly.
Q: I'm confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn't they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?
A: Well, obviously they didn't want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.
Q: That doesn't make sense. Why would they choose to die if They had all those big weapons with which they could have fought back?
A: It's a different culture. It's not supposed to make sense.
Q: I don't know about you, but I don't think they had any of those weapons our government said they did.
A: Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway.
Q: And what was that?
A: Even if Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.
Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to Invade his country?
A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.
Q: Kind of like what they do in China?
A: Don't go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer.
Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it's a good country, even if that country tortures people?
A: Right.
Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?
A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Isn't that exactly what happens in China?
A: I told you, China is different.
Q: What's the difference between China and Iraq?
A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath party, while China is Communist.
Q: Didn't you once tell me Communists were bad?
A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.
Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?
A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Like in Iraq?
A: Exactly.
Q: And like in China, too?
A: I told you, China's a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not.
Q: How come Cuba isn't a good economic competitor?
A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government Passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being
communists and started being capitalists like us.
Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn't that help the Cubans become capitalists?
A: Don't be a smart-ass.
Q: I didn't think I was being one.
A: Well, anyway, they also don't have freedom of religion in Cuba.
Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement?
A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he's not really a Legitimate leader anyway.
Q: What's a military coup?
A: That's when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.
Q: Didn't the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?
A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend.
Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?
A: I never said Pervez Musharraf
Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate (Score:1, Insightful)
The Constitution of the United States guarantees all citizens of this country access to what we call "due process." That means that everybody who's accused of a crime will get treated in the same way. The Rome treaty (that would have, if ratified, formed the ICC) includes no provisions for respecting the due process provisions of our Constitution. Since treaties signed by the president and ratified by the Senate carry the full weight of federal law, and since all federal laws must act only within the limits set out in the Constitution, the Rome treaty would, if ratified, be immediately struck down by the Supreme Court.
Todays unilateral foreign policy is a shame on America
Wrong. The rest of the world has shamed America, not the other way around.
Re:Allende? You're backing Allende over Pincochet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, I see now. It doesn't matter that the people of Chile elected Allende in free and fair elections. It only matters that his election wasn't desirable in Washington.
Do you even have a clue at what the word "socialist" means or even how many governments in Europe would be called socialist? Tony Blair's Labour Party may have reinvented itself, but it's essentially a socialist party. Do you see Blair ordering the murder of "comrades" and "peers"? Has the election of a Labour government ever been a justifiable reason for the US deciding to overthrow the British government?
Frankly, your post is full of lies and rubbish. "It was a bad choice between two terrible butchers", you say. Well, care to provide any evidence that Allende was a butcher?
Face facts: the CIA-led overthrow of a democratically-elected government and installation of a fascist dictator is not something in which the US should take pride. Even Colin Powell, when asked about it by a teenager on a MTV debate called it "unfortunate". If Mr Powell recognises it was wrong then why can't you?
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Strength and respect are not the same. (Score:4, Insightful)
And with regard to America it is not about respect now, it's about other countries not having the same clout and failing even after starting a huge public relations battle against the US. It's interesting to note that the countries leading the anti-American/anti-Bush crusade are the ones who are most threatened by a strong US presence in various parts of the world. France isn't exactly falling over itself to go against America because of high moral values, rather it has to appear nice to it's large muslim population as well as making sure that it's not completely powerless in the new century.
As for Russia well I think anyone can see the huge insult that ignoring the wishes of an ex-world power would be to them. Not to mention that the presence of large amounts of American troops in areas which they historically had a lot of influence in and which they had always supported and strategically valued is just something they have to control if they wish to keep any kind of status or power in the region.
There are very few countries opposing Bush for humanitarian reason, though they'd like the world to think so. They want to do the same exact thing America does, to have the military power to push their own interests and the economic power to control all the emerging countries. I mean everyone calls the US imperialistic and bent of waging illegal wars yet no one remembers French atrocities against Algerians who wanted their freedom. Or what exactly the French Foreign legion does in Africa or what the Russians do in Chechnya. In the end every government only thinks strategically, and anyone who thinks otherwise is either naive or a fool. While president's might spout great humanistic speaches or make up excuses about WMDs it's all about strategy. For the US is ideal strategy to be able to have a controlling circle of countries around Iran and to make sure potential terrorist bases are taken out where possible. It's strategically important to have a successfull non-Jewish democratic state in the region to act as an example, and it's strategically important to have army bases that are in well controlled countries instead of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The other countries want the same things but don't have the clout, either military or financial to achieve them and that's why they are so against American dominance in the most energetically important region in the world. If I were Putin I'd be pissing in my pants about Bush or a Free Iraq throwing cheap Iraqi oil on the market, in one fell swoop killing the nascent Russian economy. If I were Chirac I'd be deathly afraid of my huge Arab population making trouble or of loosing hundreds of lucrative deals with embargoed governments in that region, I mean who would they supply nuclear reactors to, other then unstable maniacal leaders.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is that while dictatorships are evil and we are all happy there is one less dictator, we shouldn't be blinded that Iraq invation was inspired for a complex mix of economical-geopolitical interests and not for the love of freedom or war againt terrorism. That being the driving force of the ocupation there are high probabilities that this issue ends bad for all the parties involved (coallition, Iraq, UN, etc).
Other dictactors/terrorists are happily supported until they become inconvenient or get out of hand. Doesn't that disturb you?
Re:Good. So? No, So good! (Score:3, Insightful)
Saddam was flaunting terms of armistice after Gulf War I, acting as if he believed he had WMDs. Looks like he didn't, and that he didn't is due to the deceit of his scientists, who lead him on to thinking they were carrying out his orders to pursue WMD development. A few years of continued indecision by the "United Nations" (ironic designation if there ever was one) lead by the complicit French and insidious Germans could have given enough time to expose the scientists' scheme and allow Saddam to replace them with willing scientists.
Remember, there was no doubt in the UN that Saddam did in fact HAVE WMD -- just that the French lead opposition to the ENFORCEMENT of UN resolutions was hearlded under the banner that Saddam was beginning to comply with their distruction after years of resistance! That we didn't find the WMDs which even the French assumed he had is truly immaterial -- he was willing to pursue them and proved time and time again he would use them.
Terrorism: he paid a bounty to Palestinian families of suicide bombers. He was a funding source of international terrorism. Maybe unrelated to 9/11 directly, but still an International Terror sponsor with an agenda to obtain WMDs.
America safer:
We are. The world recognizes that we are resolute in our determination to take the war to the terrorists. Also, we gave weight to the UN's heretofore meaningless resolutions.
War on Terrorism:
It wasn't just anti-NY or even just anti-US terrorism that Bush declared our enemy. (I'm sure you'd be yelling the other direction had he limited the battle to our enemies alone; am I not right?) It was terrorism. The Middle East is a hot-bed of terrorism with the leaders (politico-religious) inciting the common people to acts of terrorism teaching hate at every turn. Having a foothold in the Middle East in strategically positioned Iraq is a critical move to bring the war to the source of the terror.
Did you notice that we have control of two borders of Iran (Afghanistan and Iraq)? Did you notice how easily the Iranians caved in on the production of weapons grade uranium? Think that is a coincidence?
Think it is a coincidence that the third Saudi Cleric came out denouncing militaristic Islam?
Re:Classic misdirection (Score:3, Insightful)
This is plainly not true. I am a European and I know how the debates went here, when Bush was elected. The big problem was that he withdrew the US from the international arena; especially the Israeli-Palestine conflict. The gripe when Bush became interested in foreign affairs after 9/11 was not that US invaded Afganistan, most people in Europe agreed with this. The opposition is always the loudest though.
The real critique came when Bush decided to invade Iraq. The reason people generally opposed this in Europe is (I asume) that Saddam had made no real agressive moves, and thus the US/UK conducted an unprovoked aggression against Iraq.
Of course, while a lot of European voices were raised against the invasion, a lot of voices were raised for it as well.
If viewed from as a state to state matter, a lot of things in the decision to invade are discussable. However, when viewing the invasion from a moral and philosophical point of view, there really isn't much to discuss. Ayn Rand said: "The evil of the world is made possible by only the sanction that you give it"
Oh well, enough ranting!
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Saddam is one guy. He's about 3 cubic feet in volume and requires a supply of water and glucose (with trace elements) to be kept alive.
Weapons of Mass Destruction, at least in any useable form, are row after row after row of chemical/biological shells. Along with that comes storage and production facilities and other infrastructure. Volume of this material measures in the cubic kilometers (when taken as a whole).
Which one do -=you=- think is easier to hide. You assert that it's taken time X to find Saddam. I assert that time Y (the time it takes to find existing WMD and associated infrastructure) is at LEAST an order of magnitude less than X.
Seriously. One guys VS the chemical/biological/nuclear arsonal of one of the worlds most powerfull armies (I think Iraq ranked in the top 15 before 1991).
Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war... (Score:3, Insightful)
You ever hear of "innocent until proven guilty"?
I realize that in most of Europe, you don't have that standard, so you may not know what it means, but it means that all actions are legal unless outlawed.
Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.) (Score:3, Insightful)
You misunderstand the situation (as does almost everyone it seems). The deal was (and this was supported by the UN), as long as Iraq didn't interfere with the weapons inspectors, he would be fine. If not, he would be attacked. He interfered with the inspectors, so the USA said "hey UN, he broke his part of the bargain, it's time to bomb him". But France, Germany, and Russia had lent him a lot of money, and knew that if Saddam were deposed, they would be forced to forgive Iraq's debts. So they used the WWII/Cold War-relic positions on the security council to block the attack. Ironically, the USA attacked Iraq to enforce a UN resolution that the UN refused to enforce, in an attempt to protect the UN's own authority.
Finding weapons of mass destruction was (and still is) totally irrelevant. Saddam broke a deal that protected his regime, and the UN refused to enforce their own law. That is the reason for this war. That has always been the reason for this war.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it shows that they are picking apart the Ba'athist infrastructure. If most of the insurgents currently operating in Iraq are foreign Islamic fundamentalists, this says nothing about how well the special forces and intelligence agenices are doing against them. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they were responsible for this - most of them hate Saddam just as much as the USA does.
And remember, we've still found no sign of bin Laden, and have no clue how the fundamentalist terrorist networks get or use their money. The "intelligence capabilities of the American forces" have shown themselves to be utterly incompetent at infiltrating or even understanding these networks.
Don't expect peace anytime soon.
Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically, the 1991 war remained a cease-fire, a truce which Iraq violated by firing on US patrols during said cease-fire. This invoked the US's right to resume hotilities.
Furthermore, Iraq was in violation of about 2 dozen UN resolutions.
When you've been in possession of a country for months at a time and you've had thousands of people to search it with the co-operation of most of the people in that country, how hard should it be to find anything?
Absurd. We are still finding Egyptian mummies and artifacts that are several millenia-old buried in the desert. We could find Saddam's weapons 250 years from now buried somewhere.
I'll be interested to learn what Saddam has to say on the matter after intense interrogation.
That, and by all reports and estimates of Saddam's state of mind he'd have used those weapons if he'd had them when we marched on Baghdad.
So, if Saddam didn't have WMD, why would he throw out weapons inspectors and risk being thrown out of power? All Saddam had to do was comply with inspectors and he'd still be living in palaces built woth the Iraqi people's money, and still torturing and killing dissenters.
Speaking of Nazis (Score:3, Insightful)
It took the whole world decades to catch former Nazis like Eichmann, and Mengele lived free into the 1970's.
These things take time. No sense in stomping your feet like a spolied child on such a great day.
Re:Thread: place yer bets (Score:2, Insightful)
WOOO HOOOOOOO!!!! YEAH, BABY!!!!!
Actually, it's going to be funny to watch the response of the Democratic candidates. Just last week, Al Gore started speaking out against Iraq, and Howard Dean and Weslesy Clark have been outspoken opponents.
Granted, we still have out work cut out for us over there, but as far as the American public is concerned, this is a significant milestone.
Re:GWI wasn't a formally declared war... (Score:4, Insightful)
And where is the evidence saying Iraq threatened USA? Where is the evidence that they had WMD's? remember: "innocent untill proven guilty".
And here in Europe, we are innocent untill proven guilty. Law-enforcement official don't keep records on the books we borrow from the library, unlike in USA.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
rj
OK, now the real question (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
In my country we had a dictatorship that leave with what many estimate in 30000 missing and tortured people in the name of the fight against subversion, that's why I have a lot of sceptism about what's going on.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:4, Insightful)
And you forget to how the French bypassed the sanctions and had special deals with Saddam and how Saddam pocketed a bunch of the money from the UN food program while the French turned a blind eye!
Look - the facts are pretty simple. The UN sanctions were suppose to let food and medicine get to the people of Iraq - but instead that money lined Saddam's pocket instead of doing what it was designed to do - and the Russians and French helped! If you want to find someone to blame for the misery of the Iraqi people you'll find his picture on CNN/Foxnews/MSNBC as the guy we captured today!
Newsflash! Clueless Slashdot posters amusing . . . (Score:0, Insightful)
It's obvious that the liberals are just hating that Sadaam was captured. It's there worst nightmare, even worse than at Thanksgiving, when that mean President Bush upstaged the fair princess Hillary on her trip to publicly criticize our troops while they are serving their country.
I'm lovin' this - keep up the good work everyone!
(I'm posting anonymously because the exercise of free speech only extends to people with liberal opinions, so some moderator will surely consider this flamebait, while also marking the anti-Bush rantings as "informative")
Yehawww!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
And keep in mind, much of this ignoring was under Clinton... This isn't a GOP/Democrat issue, it is an issue of fucked up foriegn policy.
One needs only to look to Cuba for an example of what sanctions do.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh really, so we haven't been fighting Taliban and Afghani terrorists? My bad.
cost/benefit analysis? Were you doing a cost/benefit analysis when Clinton reduced our intelligence to peanuts? Did you do one when he bombed the aspirin factory?
I'm not saying Bush is perfect. I'm not saying the war is perfect either. But come on - we had a victory over an evil murderer. Put down the slide-rule and celebrate.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I laughed at your last presidential election because you call yourselves the "greatest democrasy" yet your voting process was full of scandle. Even Russia has a better voting system in place then the almighty freedom loving americans did. Until the regime of Bush is over, there is no freedom, and standing behind your typical slogan of "we're fighting for your freedom", doesn't make the world safer, but adds more hatred towards your country. This will lead to more killings world wide and eventually to another major attack against your country, when you least expect it. You'll then want the entire world to feel your "pain" for a minor loss compared to the atrocities that happen around the world due to your foreign policies and then you'll want revenge and target a third world country to invade in the name of something stupid to show your "military might". Your freedom is over, face it you've got a dictator who doesn't give a shit about your lives but only about the corporate dollers.
Re:Clinton and Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
And, as usually happens when I post this sort of rant, the response is to a completely different topic.
The point isn't that something good came of the attack on Iraq. I have NO qualms about blowing away nutjobs like Hussien. HOWEVER "freeing the Iraqi people" is not the reason that was originally given, it's just what the asshole is playing up now. The administration subtly drew connections between Saddam and Al Quaeda that DO NOT exist. It lied about a current WMD program. It lied about Iraq being a significant threat to the U.S. It put out garbage like "they could sell their weapons" or "the weapons could be stolen" as if Iraq was a serious threat for this happening. Newsflash people: N. Korea has threatened to nuke portions of the U.S. and has been selling shit to countries like Iran for years. No mention of them anywhere.
The POINT is not WHAT he did, but HOW he did it. He's a liar. He's a sniveling crybaby that can't play nice with anyone else, so he grabs his ball and heads home. Fuck it - I'm tired of him doing this sort of shit. I want to see the 9/11 evidence. I want to see these WMDs. I want to see credible reports that Iraq was a significant threat to the U.S. in early 2003. I want to see credible reports showing how terrorism has been affected since 9/11/01.
I will never see them while Bush is in office. Because they don't exist. They won't exist until another President requests them, because they will prove that GWB is a total... fucking... liar.
some counter-points (Score:2, Insightful)
4) The UN agreed that Saddam was a brutal dictator, and the UN has signed resolutions that state that they know that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the burden of proving this wasn't on the US.
5) We still are looking for Osama, he still is a top priority, and we still have people in Afghanistan looking for him, but chances are he has escaped to another terror supporting state. Just because the spotlight is on Iraq now doesn't mean anyone has forgotten about him. The US military has the ability to do more than one thing at a time.
6) Yes, I agree that Saddam must be treated humanely, but if, after a trial, he is proven guilty of everything the rest of the world thinks he has done, I also support execution.
7) I'm pretty sure no one at the CIA was involved in training Osama. He has always hated the US, and I don't think he would ever accept help from them. Besides that he has way more than enough money to train thousands of people without the help of anyone else.
8) Terrorists have already declared war on us, Bush has only just announced that we are now willing to push back, much harder than any terrorist could. If the world is eventually rid of countries that are willing to harbor terrorist, then planning attacks without a base of operations or a country willing to supply them with weapons will be a lot harder.
9) Just because no one on Slashdot has asked this doesn't mean no one is thinking about it. In the past I can't think of an instance where creation of a democracy following a regime change has failed (eg: Germany). Regarding precedents, well I hope that governments aren't just doing things today because they have done it in the past. The whole situation has to be looked at; I think the fact that the US wanted a regime change shows that they already have learned from the first gulf war.
And finally, I too am greatly saddened by laws like the patriot act. Sometimes I guess people in the government get a little overzealous (eg: John Ashcroft). Perhaps the government was just using the 9/11 attack as an excuse to take away some of our freedoms. I only hope that more people notice this and laws like this are challenged and repealed in the future.
10) Turn on the Radio then.
Re:Father and son, bedtime chat (Score:4, Insightful)
I like the CopyrightMoron moderation idea. I propose also that
This post should be at Insightful +5, if it isn't use your moderation points to correct the error.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, no reason except that Saddam has used them in the past and the U.N. has "found" that Iraq probably posessed them at some point which is why the world (not just the U.S.) insisted on the arms inspectors. They weren't there because the world thought Saddam was innocent.
The fact is, everyone believes he had them at some point. If he no longer has them he should have cooperated fully with U.N. arms inspectors, proven it to the world, and taken the wind out of Bush's arguments for war. Saddam did the exact opposite. He was not cooperative, did not give us (or the U.N.) any reason to believe him, and paid the consequences.
If Saddam didn't have WMDs then he will go down in history as the most inept poker player in the world. If he did have WMDs, they'll be found.
Anyway, only people like you believe that the only reason to believe WMDs exist is because of what you perceive as Bush lies and forged evidence. There is plenty of evidence and history behind why the U.N. believed he had WMDs--or had failed to properly account for missing WMDs. He has used them in the past. If you want to close your eyes to that, feel free, but don't be surprised when people ignore you as just another bitter, anti-Bush-hated without a clue and a very loose grip on reality.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
What sort of bad acid do you have to take to believe any of the guys you listed supported action against Iraq?
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, I'm not saying that Saddam Hussain wasn't a vile thug, he was. The fact that he is out of power is a good thing, no argument. But. Hating Saddam isn't the same as loving the US. Most Iraqis are doubtless overjoyed that Saddam's government has been toppled, that doesn't mean they like a US occupation of their country either.
On a broader note, I object to the "we're doing it for the poor downtroden people" chest-thumping coming from the Bush government because it is a horrible lie. The same Bush government that is now telling us the war was about human rights, not oil or WMD, has steadfastly ignored the abuses of other dictators, and continues to provide military support for several people at least as bad as Hussain. Look at Indonesia and Uzbekistan, both ruled with an iron fist by people who use mass murder and torture (just like Saddam). Yet neither nation is even being publicly rebuked by the Bush government. Uzbekistan is getting $100M in aid, and the Bush government is pushing to "normalize" military relations with the dictator of Indonesia.
As soon as the Bush government stops giving money and military support to torturing, mass murdering, dictatorships, I'll start believing the "we did it because Saddam was a bad man" line. But let's be honest, getting rid of the vile Saddam Hussain was a side issue. The real issue was letting Halliburton and other corporations that gave millions in "campaign contributons" access to Iraq's oil.
Re:Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Uhm... Didn't Sadam comply? The weapon inspectors were in Iraq, being compied fully with, when USA decided Saddam had to go.
Other than that, the weapons were supposed to be launchable within 45 minutes or so at any given moment, so they can't have been buried that deeply. Why didn't Sadam use all those dangerous weapons when they were finally invaded?
Re:Classic misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Father and son, bedtime chat (Score:4, Insightful)
Daddy, what is a strawman argument?
And blood will fill the streets of Mecca. (Score:3, Insightful)
The US needs to heal again... (Score:4, Insightful)
All of these disagreements aside, I really think that America has to heal soon. The issue with the "war" goes much deeper than just the "war" itself.
A lot of people simply hate Bush because of what happened in the 2000 elections. There was never a decisive victory (Bush had more electoral votes, Gore had the popular vote). And that simply was horrible to swallow... for myself included. There was absolutely no closure.
I have never seen the US more divided than it is right now. I will not vote for Bush in 2004 (nor would I vote for Gore if the situation presented itself). Simply for the reason that I think to vote for either person is bad for the country.
As long as Bush is in power, there will be a huge rift between people in the United States. We really need someone who is a uniter... someone who can help the nation get past what happened in 2000. It isn't Bush. It isn't Gore. It has to be someone who has nothing to do with any of those people.
I don't know who that person is... I wish I did. But Democrats and Republicans alike should be seeking to unite and heal this country again. I, for one, am tired of all the hate. This should be the number one priority of whatever leader we elect.
Re:Clinton and Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome evidence there, buddy. I'm sure inclined to believe incomplete conclusions drawn from indirect comparisons when stories include quotes like:
"Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?" - Newsmax
and
Another intriguing coincidence... - Newsmax
And of course, "proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist." obviously proves everything, right? Yes, of course. We're not drawing more irrelevant conclusions here, are we? Nooooo... not at all! A terrorist IN a country must mean that the country is responsible for what the terrorist does! Yes, of course! It makes sense now! Of course, that means we just implicated ourselves in 9/11 since they LEARNED TO FLY THE FUCKING PLANES IN THE U.S.
As for backing up my claims about the administrations bullshit WMD garbage, I think Dubya's boys and girls can do that for themselves, thank you:
In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons... - Cheney
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. - Cheney
We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. - Rice
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. - Bush
Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. - Bush
The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. - Bush
After eleven years .. Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. - Bush
Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists... - Cheney
And, here's a real kick in the nuts for you if you were going to try and tell me that this doesn't prove that's why he started the war:
If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us. - Powell
And I'll kick you in the nuts about the 2 "mobile factories" that were found before you get a chance to bring them up:
They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were -- facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons. - British Weapons Inspector
Come on then. The Telegraph link and the Newsmax link both draw baseless conclusions on current unknowns and TWP link doesn't really say much of anything the proves there's a connection. It just says that there's potentially new evidence that there was one. Once that new intel has been scrutinized and verified, THEN I'll look. Got any evidence for me NOW, or am I supposed to just infer things from your BS links and pretend that my guesses prove something?
There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.
Nice to know. Go pester THEM and leave ME the fuck alone until you have real evidence, not a bunch of opinionated bullshit on new developments. My point stands, as of 12/14/03 at 2:19 P.M. EST, the real reasons for the war in Iraq are as yet unproven claims about terrorist links and Weapons of Mass Destruction. And, I might point out before we get too deep into that, why the fuck is this idiot even TRYING to justify a war AFTER it's over!? I'd say that starting a war without evidence of its necessity is grounds for impeachment, wouldn't you?
Saddam Wins, Bush Loses (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush would have been better off if Saddam had been killed instead of captured. I'm shocked that he wasn't; the army didn't give his sons (and grandson) a chance to surrender. Bush's version of history would have been safer if Saddam had either been killed or been left in his rat hole.
Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.) (Score:2, Insightful)
Second, let me address one issue you brought up:
"7) Speaking of Osama, shouldn't we be going after the top brass at the CIA for training him? I mean, they basically started the largest terrorist movement in the world"
We in America fought a cold war for half a century against the Soviet Union; at times calling it the Korean War, the Vietnam war or a Cuban embargo among many other terms used for dozens of local situations. It was initially thought to be a war against communism, but it turned out it was really a war against a single government - the Soviet Union. We atarted the largest terrorist movement in the world (jihad in Afganistan against the Soviet Union (who had a very large Muslim population ready to be a fifth column (see Sain).)
We won that cold war. It was a real war that could have destroyed the world. My father flew nuclear bomb laden planes with orders to destoy vast swathe of USSR in retaliation should it come to that. I wrote ECCM code so their systems would mis-identify the locations of our aircraft. SUDDEBLY during Gorbachov the other side just gave up and STOPPED changing their ECM systems that we had to continually counter. Then the wall fell.
Then the USSR fell. And a terrible war was over , a burden lifted, and a jihad movement - intact. And we just walked away from Afganistan, leaving its citizens to the tender cares of those who had been our allies but had always considered us just a little less of an enemy (like what England thought of USSR in WWII).
So we had good reasons for creating the jihad in the first place. We learned too late just how big a mistake it was to just walk away when the USSR fell. Who knew hwat the cost would become? No one.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that we've captured Saddam, may I please have my rights back? I promise to use them responsibly and to never support terrorism (just like I did before 9/11).
Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, religious fanatics attacked us on 9/11. Therefore, your logic shows that we should go killing religious fanatics. Maybe starting with John Ashcroft...?
Bush always intended to go after Saddam. That much is clear. President Clinton told Bush on his exit interview that Osama Bin Laden was the most dangerous man to the U.S., and Bush replied that Saddam was. Two days after 9/11 - before we even knew who did it - his administration started telling our intelligence agencies to "build a case against Iraq". The war in Afghanistan was a war on terror. The war in Iraq was intended to intimidate Arabs, but will only serve to strengthen the power of al-Qaeda.
It will also serve to increase the number of deranged autocracies with nuclear weapons. Don't think for a moment that the lesson of North Korea is lost on the world. Kim Song Jong Ill, who has let eleven million of his countrymen starve to death, is able to directly threaten the U.S. with nary a peep from this administration. Why? Because, unlike Saddam, when he promised to get rid of nuclear weapons, he lied.
Bush has made it unsafe to be in America's bad graces without a nuclear weapon. Therefore, everyone will get one.
Re:A Great Day For America (Score:1, Insightful)
If anything, it is the Republicans who have benefitted most from Saddam being in power. The Regan administration sold Hussein conventional, chemical and biological weapons and sat idly by while he mass-murdered people.
I think everybody wants to see this tyrant punished. At least the liberals don't seem to have the terminally short, hypocritical attention span that conservative/republicans do.
Let the knee-jerk, left-wing responses begin! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not affiliated with either the "left" or the "right" (Bill Hicks described political parties as two puppets being held up by the same guy). But all the anti-Bush stuff really makes me laugh sometimes. We get people like Michael Moore who literally make up facts just to bash Bush, and it hurts the cause. The foaming, Bush-hating liberal becomes a stereotype, and I just know they'll have a field day trying to downplay the capture of Saddam come election time (I just have to ask...would you rather he still be in power, or in prison?)
I'm sure I'll get modded down for this, but if you're not a knee-jerk, radical, left-wing person, I'm not referring to you anyway!
sick joke or too true-u decide (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, but after they explained it as pacifying native peoples on their reservation Washington understood.
P.S. get & play the "Paul Revere And The Raiders" song "The Cherokee Reservation Indian"
Don't get me wrong, I'm damned proud to be Texan and American, but America did some EVIL shit back when.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlikely. Most attackers aren't opposing the occupation of Iraq by 'Coalition' forces with violent means because they like(d) Saddam, but because they (understandably) don't like being occupied, by 'freedom fighters' or not, and there's no way for them to express this except with direct action, at the moment.
If it takes the cessation of attacks on occupying forces to get the occupying forces to withdraw, then I fear we're in an infinite loop.
Re:Saddam-9/11 Link (Score:3, Insightful)
And now they find a memo which at the same time provides evidence for two stories that were already falsified before:
1) The Mohammed Atta-Bagdad link
2) The Niger-Iraq uranium shipment
Yeah, right!
For further 'evidence' see that same newspaper you like to cite:
- Iraq link to Sept 11 attack and anthrax is ruled out
- Bush under pressure over 'dodgy' Iraq weapons claim
Alternate news source (Score:3, Insightful)
If the news of the West and al-Jazeera coincide in their analysis, as is (mostly!) the case here, then it's fairly safe to say that the news are true. Most of the time, the stories diverge, and you're left to draw your own conclusions.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Classic misdirection (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.proles.net/archives/000385.html
As such, the correct statement (with proper tenses) is: "Have we been able to find Bin Laden? Nope, we've given up."
As Bob Graham says, he's become "Osama Bin Forgotten". Too bad Osama is a much more significant issue than Saddam, since we know he has multiple times masterminded attacks on the U.S., and could potentially still be doing so (while Saddam was likely doing little to nothing).
Re:who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
First photo: top right street is deserted of civilian vehicals and the statue is standing. Second photo: top right street is completely obstructed due to accumulated civilian vehicles and the statue is down. The first photo was taken very early, long before the statue came down. People had first gotten the news and had first started to gather.
Third photo: There are about 100 people in the close up swarmed BEHIND the vehicle that pulled down the statue. Second photo: Note that there is essentailly nobody standing behind that vehicle. The second photo was taken much later, after people started dispersing.
First photo / second photo : I can only identify a SINGLE military vehical stationary between - the tank at the bottom right. For the first photo someone grabbed a snapshot of when a CONVOY happened to drive past well before hand to paint an illusion! Yes, there were military vehicles stationed that circle. The circle was a central choke point, the city was still a WAR-ZONE, and of course there the military was keeping an eye on ANY crowd of people. Even if we assume every vehicle in the second photo is parked on-station, it strikes me as a very reasonable military presence under the circumstances. The first photo is pure trickery.
Now look at the sidewalk across the street behind the statue, the only thing visible in all 4 photos. The first wide view photo supposedly proving "the truth" shows a deserted sidewalk. The second wide view photo supposedly proving "the truth" shows a deserted side walk. The third photo mid-zoom photo shows a mob around the statue plus may a dozen people on a wide stretch of sidewalk. The fourth very close-up photo during the peak of events shows at least a dozen people on a tiny stretch of sidewalk. If that narrow angle is representitive of 360 degrees then I figure it represents maybe a two-hundred person increase in the time between the third and fourth pictures alone.
The close up photos are there so the viewer will mentally link all four photos as being during the event. Not only were the photos are presented out-of order, but the two wide angle photos were actually taken several hours apart.
If they want to claim the media overstated the situation the how about they try presenting a wide-angle photo from when they were actually pulling down the statue! Instead they are being intentionally deceptive!
-
More redundancy (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sorry that American soldiers are dying in Iraq but guess what, it is there job to follow the commands of the commander in chief. If he says go and fight, then go. Since 1991, it is the first time these people have been asked to do what they were hired to do. I have not been at my job for 10 years and only asked to do it once. We don't draft in America anymore and so everyone that is in the military chose to be there. I am not for those people getting a free paycheck. I pay my taxes and expect people in the military defend me both domesticaly and abroad. I thank them for doing there job and doing better than anyone else in the world. I am not some self-righteous person that beleives I can make better decisions that the person that was elected to do so.
Now time to seriously burn Karma.
I am tired of people in the miltary and in the reserves that cannot fight for some reason. I am sorry if you had childern and don't have anyone else to take care of then. Pay the government back for all the money you made defrauding the government when you said you would defend it and now cannot.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
You're saying that it's the French and Russians fault that this was allowed to happen?
Bullshit.
The sanctions themselves were the problem. Iraq couldn't import vital items like CHLORINE, a critical ingredient for the purification of water. THIS is a human rights violation (in a sense) worse than anything that Saddam did. Allowing innocent children die due to poor water is a GROSS violation of human rights. These childred were dieing by the THOUSANDS because THE UNITED STATES wouldn't let them import critical water/food treatment chemicals.
Granted, a lot of the problems wouldn't have existed if Saddam wouldn't have been in power, but the fact still remains that the US allowed these sanctions to destroy the people of Iraq.
And, we can't forget the fact that Bush OPENLY ADMITTED that there would be civillian casualties. This was in direct violation of the Geneva convention. Here's the proof [unhchr.ch]
Step off your high horse and realize that Bush was just as bad for openly killing thousands of innocent civillians, as Saddam was for killing his people.
In a certain light, Bush is even worse because he brought it upon himself (against nearly every other country in the world) to force democracy down the throats of Iraq.
Look at political philosophers that specialize in the middle east and you'll see that DEMOCRACY WON'T WORK IN THE MIDDLE EAST. There are so many opposing groups (and I'm not talking Democrats vs Republicans opposition... I'm talking about 'willing to suicide bomb' opposition) in Iraq, that there will NEVER be a clear majority in favor or in opposition of any proposition that a democratic government needs to work.
All democracy will succeed at doing is commiting cultural genocide in the region, and that is by far the worst kind of dehuminization imaginiable. If I were to die, it wouldn't be as large a deal, because people would still be able to carry on my heritage. If my culture is taken away, I might as well not even live because something was taken away from me that can NEVER be replaced. These people are being raped of their herritage to satisfy Big Oil (tm)!
That's the real war crime.
Re:Good. (Score:2, Insightful)
Both sides of this debate like to look at the situation through their very own rose coloured glasses. Accept the few facts that support their position, ignore all the rest. American forces in Iraq are helping the citizens, but they're also hurting them. It's all an unavoidable consequence of occupation.
I was personally opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, but now that US forces are there, they'd better make sure they do a damn good job of getting the Iraq people self-sufficient.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The "resistance" is just the remnants of Saddam's foul old regime, with some foreign help.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
no, its that theres a small portion of the population that resents the US and all they stand for and will continue to attack regardless of what the US does, if tomorrow the US decided to spend 100 billion dollers to rebult all of iraq. they would still hate it and still kill us forces.
Also the fact the iraq is not being rebuilt as fast as some would like, or that everything is back to normal yet is also causeing ppl to get angry.
I belive the ppl killing US forces are only a smally minority of the iraq population, witch will get smaller as time goes on (unless the US fuckes up bigtime witch could happen)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and we got Saddamn Fucking Hussein.
This is like being angry that we let a burglar go to catch a rapist. Osama is not anywhere nearly the problem Saddam is. Open a history book that goes back more than three years.
It was a pleasant surprise... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No, not an illegal war, just an immoral one. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:some counter-points (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to reply to all your responses but I need to leave for work in a few so I'll keep it down to the main points.
By all accounts I've heard of Saddam's missiles could go at most a few hundred miles. The worst he could do even if he had nukes is turn 5 miles of Israel into a crater. (And rain radioactive particles a few hundred miles downwind for a few days.) Saddam was by no means a threat to anyone other than his immediate neighbors.
This whole thing leaves a sour taste in my mouth. First off, Clinton tried to do what Bush has now done, and the Republicans cried foul saying that Clinton was trying to get America's minds off his dick. (Which is most likely the case.) Now, if Saddam is/was really such a huge threat then why wasn't Clinton getting bipartisan support back then while Bush gets it now?
Moreover, North Korea may have nuclear capabilities by now, and is actively firing off test missiles into the Sea of Japan. All things considered, their military technology makes Iraq look like the stone age. While not much is known publicly about their military capabilities, I personally believe it fair to say that they either currently have the ability or soon will have the ability to build a ICBM capable of striking somewhere in the North American continent. I doubt that many would argue with me when I say that N. Korea is a huge potential threat not only to all of Asia, but also possibly America.
Why the hell haven't we turned Korea into a crater by now if we're attacking potential threats?
The whole thing seems off. I'm not going to get into any of the usual accusations because lord knows we've all heard them by now. But for every reason given for the war on Iraq there is at least 5 nations that have it much worse, and a lot of oil companies with old ties to people in the Bush administration are getting some very sweet contracts...
Even beyond that, there were many reasons we waited until Pearl Harbor before we got involved. I'll leave it to the reader to crack open a few history books so I don't have to type a few novels out. (Lord knows I've already written a short story on this one reply alone.) ;)
"Osama Bin Laden is no longer a priority" - George W. Bush (paraphrased from memory)
Death is too good for that man. Let him rot in a cell for the rest of his natural life.
A poster below you [slashdot.org] actually said some very interesting things about this, and I think I'll let his experience speak for me.
(Real quick, running out of time) Timothy McVeigh is an American who was trained by the American army. America sure the hell doesn't support having its federal buildings bombed, and yet he got the tools to do it and made OKC go boom.Terrorism is not a country. Terrorism is not a static object. Terrorism is a metho
a lesson for everyone (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely not.
They are fighting for their own power.
Mod me down if you think that will make you feel better, because I am sure it will feel better than the truth does.
Now, let's celebrate that Saddam was arrested. Too bad you didn't do the same with Idi Amin.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, because in cities with millions of people, having one of tens of thousands of occupying soldiers attacked two or three times a day clearly shows that the whole populace is up in arms. I mean, if they all hated it, they probably would have attacked more than
See, this is the problem. It's a war torn nation. Formerly rich families are destitute, but still proud. There's starvation. Infrastructure is ruined. Therefore, tempers are high. This isn't even New York barfight level anger, if only one person is dying a day. Soccer mobs actually do more damage.
In the meantime, we've got well fed well paid well clothed well apointed white people, a few of whom are genuinely racist, a number of whom are going to be drunk or occasionally high, saying things they shouldn't, doing things they shouldn't. Many things which are normal to us are morally, religiously and legally abominable to them - such as being drunk.
Furthermore, there's the small branch of Iraqis which profited under Saddam. They're almost certainly mightily pissed.
Oh, and right, there's all the political mumbo jumbo going on in the area; a number of these are actually funded by (insert random dictator x) whose vested interest in making the foreign powers seem evil to maintain domestic control has a particularly fruitful avenue while tampering with one of the first major mations to revert to rule by the people in the area in decades.
I think it's a show of incredible control that in a ruined once prosperous city of millions which has been crippled first by dictatorship and next by sanction and resultant economic collapse a set of ill-behaved foreigners which have been propogandized to be about to do this very thing haven't been murdered in droves.
There hasn't been a single street mob. No lynchings. No organized revolt. No underground. We can't say that about any three adjacent states in our country's history. Doesn't it strike you as odd that these people seem about as riled up as a Saint Patrick's Day parade? Yeah, maybe Rumsfeld took everyone out of baghdad and made those human celebrations - WHICH YOU COULD SEE MOVING ON TERRASERVER - with a giant 1920s style dancing cast. Good thing they didn't fake it in Utah; FOX would have found it and done a special.
Jackass.
But. Hating Saddam isn't the same as loving the US. Most Iraqis are doubtless overjoyed that Saddam's government has been toppled, that doesn't mean they like a US occupation of their country either.
I'm sure a great many Germans were none too happy about the French occupation of Berlin, either. Nevertheless, when you escape Mumm-Ra only to fall into the hands of Ratar-O, you know you've traded up in the world.
Look, I'm not standing up for our coup government. But W isn't nearly as capably evil as Saddam is, and Cheniwell is basically a Hanna Barbera bumbling ne'er-do-well. Their kind of antics are things like charging double for gasoline and misplacing girders at the cost of the US taxpayer, not cutting off limbs for wayward glances. If I were king, cheney would indeed be against the wall, but there are a helluvalot of people that would go first.
Note to secret service: the above is literate exaggeration. Look up the dictionary entry for sarcasm, and proceed to investigate every facet of my life. Hint: it's a music reference.
On a broader note, I object to the "we're doing it for the poor downtroden people" chest-thumping coming from the Bush government because it is a horrible lie.
A villiage sits at the base of a valley. One year, the winter is bad, and damages the soil holding back a river; the surveyors suggest it will break through in a few years, and that though it can be shored up, a dam is needed.
The pr
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think I understand what you're trying to say. And sure, the capture of Saddam will not immediately end violence in the area. But your anology is incorrect.
Iraq is not the US. The US culture is very different than Iraqi culture. The people are different - and so are their experiences and history. The two governments are entirely different in attitude and structure. This includes how that government was formed, who was put in to what positions and why, and individual loyalties.
There are basic simularities between people. But that does not mean you can simply take one set of events, transplant them artificially in to a new environment, and then expect to gain any insight towards the culture and politics involved in the origional events.
Because what... the Middle East was the bastion of peace before the US showed up?
Re:bin laden.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it would be quite useful if there were some way to get real numbers out of Iraq, but it isn't. I suspect that quite a few more than 1% want the US out. Again, this doesn't mean that Saddam wasn't bad, and that they aren't happy that he's gone; they just want the US gone too. The reason I suspect that more than 1% are unhappy (to put it mildly) with the US is because of what happens *after* a US soldier gets killed: there's usually a cheering crowd gathered around, which can't be good for moral.
More to the point, 1% can't organize the kind of gurilla attacks that we've been seeing. It doesn't take many people to shoot a gun, or fire off an RPG, or what have you, but it does take a rather large support base in the general population to hide the combatants, keep them supplied, etc. Notice that the US soldiers have only caught a handful of Iraqi gurillas. This means that, at a minimum, the average Iraqi isn't helping the US find these gurillas, which implies a certain degree of sympathy with the gurillas.
I honestly don't know what the answer to the problem is, a complete US withdrawl from Iraq at this point would plunge the entire country into the kind of anarchistic chaos that grows dictators, and hurts lots of people. The US soldiers don't like being there, and they are (quite understandably) nervious every time they see an Iraqi. They're trained to respond to a threat of violence with overwealming force; which is great for winning wars, but not so good for keeping order after you win.
More international help would doubtless be tremendously helpful. Unfortunately, the Bush government managed to waste all the goodwill the US had worldwide by starting this war the way he did... The general attitude among other nations seems to be: "He started this war on his own, why should I help now?" I can't say I really blame them for having that attitude, it'd be nice if the other major powers would just forget about all the insults, etc, that the Bush government has smacked them with, but that isn't going to happen.
Of course, in the midst of all this Osama is still at large, Afghanistan is coming back under Taliban control (remember back in the old days when the US beat someone and they stayed beaten? Not under the Bush government), and international terrorism seems to have been completely unaffected by the Bush government's decision to invade Iraq. The entire thing has been a hundreds of billions dollar distraction from the *real* objective of ending kind of terrorism that resulted in 9/11.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Osama bin Laden killed 3000 people in the US.
Saddam Hussein killed none.
Osama has, and continues to kill people all over the world (and for a lot longer than the past 3 years, maybe you should open your history book).
Saddam has not been a threat to anyone outside of Iraq since the Gulf war over ten years ago.
It seems that we let the rapist get away to catch the burglar.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Bush never said that. He never implied it. What he said was Saddam Hussein supports terrorists, including Al Qaeda. That is a fact. He said Hussein refused to demonstrate he had destroyed WMD's. That is a fact even asserted by the U.N.
Go READ Bush's speeches again-- I have.
If people want to infer something that was never implied, that is an issue for them and their respective psychiatrists.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
A few points here that you seem to be either in error on, or putting words into my mouth on.
Nope, its mostly going to buy the dictator more weapons to oppress them with. That was kinda my point. I'm not in favor of the US assinating foreign heads of state, and I'm not in favor of the US trying to police the world. But the very fricking least our government could do would be to stop supporting dictators.
This is why I say that the Bush government's "we did it because Saddam was bad" line is nothing more than a disgusting lie. Nevermind the fact that the US isn't trying to overthrow other people just as bad, no, the Bush government is supporting people who are as bad as Saddam was. Read up on what the Indonesian dictator is doing to his people (and to American citizens, two were raped and tortured last year). Yet the Bush government is actually working to send aid to the Indonesian dictator. And they have succeeded in getting $100M sent to Uzbekistan, where the dictator engages in rape, murder, and torture, just like Saddam, yet the Bush government treats him like a friend. This is hypocracy, plain and simple, and its why I cannot stand hearing the Bush government claim that it took out Saddam because of his human rights violations.
No that it will get read (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Forgetting one or two things (Score:3, Insightful)
And now China has a space program. Manned capsules in orbit. Clear proof that if they want to have ICBMs, they'll have them. You want to give the cause to WANT a bunch of ICBMs? And China has nuclear weapons, and a highly rated biological and genetics facilities. Basically, they can do anything we can do. They just can't afford to do it in as flashy a way. They're tight on money & food, not on technology. But China & India are creating gentically modified plants..thongh not the kind Monsanto makes. What is holding them back is trade regulations. (The European Commonwealth is quite sticky about that kind of thing!)
So you don't give China causes to get nervous. That's probably more than half of what's protecting North Korea. North Korea could devastate Japan. China could devastate the US...and probably the rest of the world, so they don't push too hard against us either. But also we don't back them into a corner.
Saddam at the Vet's (Score:2, Insightful)
1. First of all Saddam looks like he's being examined by a vet! His shaggy hair and beard being checked for lice and bald spots...
2. The shaving of the beard is not something incidental. In Arabic culture a man's beard has a huge importance and to shave Saddam's beard and display his pictures before and after the shave is one of the biggest forms of humiliation possible in arabic culture.
3. The first shot of Saddam in that clip shows him pointing to something on the left side of his head. The point is it looks as if he's cowaring and covering his head in fear during the first couple of seconds. The psychological effects this has on the average Iraqi viewer are profound. It even gave me a slight tingling, to see the man who attacked my country with rockets during the first Gulf war displayed so patheticaly.
I say it again, whoever edited that video sequence knew what he was doing. Damn fine entertainment.
Re:The USA PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bin laden.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:money (Score:2, Insightful)
Now look at the Washington regime. Do they have connections to oil industry? Who put them into position of power? Follow the money.
Bush is just a puppet. The country is run by the almighty buck. Yes the war is expensive. You, as a tax payer, are not going to get that money back. But someone else will. They made an investment and now they expect a return for that investment. Opening the gates to Iraq oil wells is that ROI.
I suggest you browse through Executive Order 13303 [akamaitech.net]. Bush has now exempted oil companies operating in IRAQ from liability for health and safety violations, child labour, minimum wage and other employment rights such as equal opportunity, consumer fraud, clean environment duties, etc. This under the pretext of "national security".
Oil companies rejoice. The investment paid off.
Re:Not bad. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Iraqi, U.S., or international trial appropriate (Score:3, Insightful)
That was not the issue. The issue is whenether the treaty does supplant the constitution or is complementary to it.
I find it difficult to believe that a treaty ratified without constitutional problems in every other western democracy, is somehow incompatible with the US constition.
I find it even harder to believe that this is such a certainty that it shouldn't even be tried by the Supreme Court.
I don't have much faith in the members of an international tribunal, picked not by people by by governments, which do not share my ideals.
Said governments have all ratified the UN declaration of human rights. Whenether they truly share your ideals or not, they have voluntarily signed a treaty to that extent.
Unless you mean that states aren't bound to the treaties they sign (in which case there can be no law whatsoever), it's not much of an argument.
Besides that, out of the 18 Judges in the ICC, not a single one of them originates from a non-democratic country.
Re:who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
He drove your people to space travel, and indeed reach the Moon (although sadly he didn't see that) which united the world in awe.
Kennedy died because it was not good business for the warmongers to have him in power, and there was no other way to remove him.
I'm not saying Kennedy was a great, or good man, only that had he not been cut down that the world would likely be a very different place. It would be hard to do worse than we are now.
Re:who cares? yeah, doom... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think anyone forgets that because that's not the reason Iraq was invaded. You may think I'm splitting hairs, here, but there is a big difference between what you state and what the justifications were.
First, nobody - not the U.S., U.K., or even France, Russia or Germany, thought that Iraq was free from WMD, so I love it when liberals point to the "weasals" and say "see, they were right!" Everybody agreed on the problem - what we disagreed on was the solution.
The justification for the war was Iraqs defiance of the U.N. resolutions which required U.N. weapons inspectors to view the evidence that Iraq had destroyed the WMD that everybody knew they had.
Do you see the difference? The weapons inspectors job was not to seek out weapons of mass destruction, their job was to verify Iraqs evidence that they had been destroyed. Iraq failed to provide that evidence. It doesn't matter if they did actually destroy the weapons, they did not provide the evidence, required by the U.N. Case closed. But, if that's not enough for you, when they were claiming they had no weapons, they still wouldn't let the inspectors verify that. For crying out loud, it was only under threat of actual action that they even let the inspectors back in the country, and they STILL didn't give them full access. "We have no weapons, but no you can't look in that warehouse... it's... uh... a soveriegn palace of Saddam Hussein."
The inspectors only started playing "hide and go seek where Saddam will let you" when they couldn't complete their job. The whole concept of "give inspectors more time" was bogus - because that would require them to have more time to verify the evidence that Iraq failed to provide.
It would be nice to find a few smoking guns, but the war was justified 12 years ago when Saddam's representatives signed a cease-fire agreeing to U.N. terms - that they then failed to follow.
Frankly, it's funny how no one was complaining when Clinton periodically lobbed a few cruise missiles into Iraq, or complained about our "taking out" radar installations in the no-fly zone. IMO, the first gulf war never ended - there was agression every year since, all we're doing now is ending it once and for all.
Re:Random ramblings. (Ignore this post.) (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they didn't. The attack was never put to a vote, because the US/UK knew that even without a French or Russian veto (and both countries had indicated that they might refrain from vetoing) they would lose the vote. If you want examples of using Cold War-relic positions to block resolutions, look at the US's record of veto, and think about what conflicts have been going on for ovre 50 years without UN intervention.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)