h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Not at all, anhaga... I am very unhappy at the prospect. Regarding Saddam's atrocities - this is one view...

From Yellow Times Updates.
''Cold War redux''
Printed on Tuesday, May 25, 2004 @ 00:05:22 CDT
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1946

An extract...
"What do we have here? Apparently a campaign highly reminiscent of the
many anti-communist horror stories -- torture and otherwise -- that
during the Cold War were passed around the anti-communist circuit, each
person quoting from the same initial source, sometimes adding or
subtracting a bit. At some point a member of congress would read the horror
story on the floor of congress and his remarks would thus appear in the
Congressional Record; thereafter, those passing the story around could
then quote the Congressional Record as the source, as Senator Inhofe's
statement can now be quoted citing a Senate hearing.

I wrote to the non-admirer asking her what evidence she could offer to
substantiate her claims. We then exchanged a few more emails but she
had nothing at all to offer, quoting at one point something from a report
of Amnesty International which made no mention of the subject at hand."
I offer it as an opinion, but find it very interesting!

According to this press briefing, Korea's move to developing nucUlur weapons was a "regional problem".... and yet, Iraq's "wmds" was threat enbough to warrant marching in. Funny, that.... http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/rele...ges/20030306-8_d030603-1-515h.html#

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020925-3.html#4

"Q We can go back to that in a minute. I have another question. Yesterday in the briefing, you said that the information you have has said al Qaeda is operating in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked about linkages between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein this morning. He said very definitively that, yes, he believes there are. And then the President said, talking about al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, the danger is that they work in concert. Is the President saying that they are working in concert, that there is a relationship? Do you have evidence that supports that?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, the President is saying that's the danger. The President has repeatedly said that the worst thing that could happen is for people -- the world's worst dictators with the world's worst weapons of mass destruction to work in concert with terrorists such as al Qaeda, who have shown an ability to attack the United States. And that's what the President has said.

Q So why -- when Rumsfeld was saying, yes, there is a linkage between the two, what is he talking about?

MR. FLEISCHER: Clearly, al Qaeda is operating inside Iraq. And the point is, in the shadowy world of terrorism, sometimes there is no precise way to have definitive information until it is too late. And we've seen that in the past. And so the risk is that al Qaeda operating in Iraq does present a security threat, and it's cause for concern. And I think it's very understandably so.

If you're searching, Campbell, again, for the smoking gun, again I say what Secretary Rumsfeld said -- the problem with smoking guns is they only smoke after they're fired.

Q I'm not looking for a smoking gun. I'm just trying to figure out how you make that conclusion, because the British, the Russians, people on the Hill that you all have briefed about all this stuff say that there isn't a linkage, that they don't believe that al Qaeda is there working in conjunction in any way with Saddam Hussein. And there is a mountain of comments, both public and private statements that Osama bin Laden has made about Saddam, calling him a bad Muslim, suggesting that there would be no way that the two would ever connect. So I just -- if there's something, if you have some evidence that supports this, I'm just wondering why --

MR. FLEISCHER: What supports what I just said is that the President fears that the two can get together. That's what the President has said, and that's one of the reasons that he feels so strongly about the importance of fighting the war on terror."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020926-12.html
"Q What about all this talk last night that Condi engaged in on PBS about connections between Iraq and al Qaeda? That's new. I mean, she went further than you folks have ever gone before. Can you clarify some of what she was saying? I mean, how do we know this? Why do we suspect this?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, we know it because some of the information we have comes from detainees, and in particular some very high-ranking detainees. And --....

...MR. FLEISCHER: Here's what we know, and here's -- let me try to elaborate on what Condi said, or help you understand what Condi said.

Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members, including some members who have been in Baghdad. And the relationship between Iraqi officials to those al Qaeda members remains unclear, but we know it's there. We have solid reporting of senior-level contacts between al Qaeda and Iraqi officials going back a decade, and, as Condi said, of chemical and biological agent training.

Reports of such cooperation have increased since 1998. We know that al Qaeda have found refuge in Iraq. There is credible reporting that al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq to acquire chemical and other weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

Q But today, the President stopped just short of saying that they were linked. Is there a reason he did that? I mean, are they linked, in his mind? I mean, are they -- there are --

MR. FLEISCHER: I'd have to take a look at the verbatim of how the President said it. But we're all saying the same thing: al Qaeda and Iraq are too close for comfort, in terms of some of these activities that we've talked about.

But I want to underscore, the case the President is making about the need for regime change is not directly tied to anything involving al Qaeda. It's tied to Saddam Hussein's history of developing weapons on his own. The President continues to have fears about what Iraq's activities with al Qaeda could lead to. But his case is much broader than that.

Q Well, what are these links that go back a decade? I mean, who are we talking about?

MR. FLEISCHER: These are links between al Qaeda and Baghdad.

Q But what are the links? I mean --

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, Condi --

Q -- has Baghdad supplied al Qaeda with training, munitions, supplies, whatever, that has allowed them to carry out attacks against the United States?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, as Condi said last night -- I cite her words -- "Iraq has provided some training to al Qaeda in chemical weapons development."

Q But do we know that that expertise has ever been used in a terrorist attack against -- not only the U.S., but anybody?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, the point is to make certain that it's not. Why is Iraq providing training to terrorists that could put anybody at risk?...

.....Q Let me come back to the al Qaeda --

MR. FLEISCHER: Anything else?

Q Yes, let me come back to the al Qaeda connection. So, Condi is saying that these contacts go back more than a decade; that they are continual, they are ongoing; they're involved in Baghdad, they're involved in chemical and biological weapons training. But still no evidence of a connection between Iraq and 9/11?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030208.html
Radio speech by GWB, February 8, 2003

"One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases.

We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad."

I'm not sure what that article from the Yellow Times was supposed to be saying. If the author was trying to intimate that Saddam Hussein was not involved in torture, or involved in the scope of torture described in the article, that is nothing more than revisionism. I would say that the author is the left-wing equivalent of Bill O'Reilly.

There is ample evidence of the crimes against humanity of Saddam Hussein. He and his delightful little monster sons made a habit of videotaping their sessions. People on all sides in Iraq have recounted all sorts of horrors, Amnesty International has documented the abuses. For decades, the systematic torture and murder of Iraqis, either for "intelligence gathering", as a show of force, or "just for fun" by Saddam, his sons, and his flunkies.

Does this excuse or deminish the torture of Iraqis by the American soldiers? No. But revisionism serves no one.

Sounds like a nother case of "known unknowns that we think we know but we can't be sure we know, y'know?"

Its a very difficult moral area Anhaga, but if killing Saddam meant that hundreds of lives were saved from his torture regime, I think that is worthwhile. Afterall only recently were the mass graves of hundreds of people discovered outside Basra. The war was done very badly, but a sniper could have taken out Saddam, his sons and prevented the torture and death of thousands.

But then I read this site regularly and knew what was going on over there.
http://www.hrw.org

For instance getting rid of Kim Jong II in North Korea would hopefully stop children being forced to watch executions and women from being mutilated during forced abortions and often dying afterwards. Thats worth one sniper.

So you could decide not to encourage countries to behave, and not do anything about mass killings etc. The government in Sudan is committing genocide against the Darfur muslims, another occasion to stand back and watch is it?

I could make the obvious link to a certain country where they deciding to get rid of many people in gas ovens, for quite some time Britain and other countries ignored the evidence as they didn't want to get involved. Thank the Goddess they decided to eventually.

You may not approve of vigilantes running around, I agree it would be difficult to find a country good enough to be given that right. But get rid of a leader and often regimes topple, and thousands are saved. It maybe be ethically a grey area but one morally corrupt leader against hundreds or thousands of innocent people, I know what I would rather see.

So there is no evidence of atrocity in Iraq?

How about the several hundred thousand detainees who have &#8220;disappeared,&#8221; died under torture or been summarily executed
http://hrw.org/press/2002/10/iraq1024.htm

4 Jordanians executed in Iraq, no-oine even knows what they were charged with
http://www.hrw.org/press97/dec/saddam1.htm

punishments include amputation and death
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1995/IRAQ955.htm

Iraq&#8217;s 1988 Anfal campaign of extermination against the Kurdish people living within its borders resulted in the death of at least 50,000 and as many as 100,000 people, many of them women and children.

This details torture, detainment for no reason and executions in Iraq
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraq/

A lot of detail on how Sadam tortures dissenters
http://hrw.org/reports/1992/Iraq926.htm

More detail of the 5000 Kurds killed by Saddamds regime
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1991/IRAQ913.htm

And thats just the tip of the ice-berg

"But then I read this site regularly and knew what was going on over there."

I knew what was going on over there, too.

"So you could decide not to encourage countries to behave, and not do anything about mass killings etc."

I never said that, either. (Funny how I've apparently gone from advocating assassination to advocating standing back and watching.)

" It maybe be ethically a grey area but one morally corrupt leader against hundreds or thousands of innocent people, I know what I would rather see."

We're back where I started: One morally corrupt leader (George W.); hundreds or thousands of innocent people (clarification unnecessary). If you're going to start into that "grey area" you're going to be sending snipers down Pennsylvania Avenue and the streets of every capital city in the world (with all the resultant civil war, interstate war, instability and chaos that one would expect in a world without a standard of international law).

Here's what I would argue is the alternative to "do nothing" (which I have never advocated) and the chaos that follows the ignoring of international law (which you seem to be recommending):

http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/iciss-ciise/report-en.asp

Again, I never said "do nothing": rather, in response to the suggestion of using targetted assassinations as a solution to the problem of state-sponsored human rights abuses I said "no, don't do that. It'll probably make things worse."

Sorry Kaz, simulpost.

"So there is no evidence of atrocity in Iraq?"

Just for the record, I've never argued there were no atrocities in Iraq. I'm pretty sure I've never made any attempts to minimise atrocities in Iraq. As I mentioned above, I knew what was going on their (as did a large number of world leaders for decades).

For what it's worth, I've been reading Amnesty International's annual reports for decades. That's part of what tells me that vigilantes just aggrevate the problem.

"I knew what was going on their" -> "I knew what was going on there"

Anhaga, is wasn't you who made the comment that Saddam had done nothing wrong.

I don't think vigilantes is the best idea, at least it would be a UN style group, but they are corrupt as well. It seems to be better than doing nothing. BUt I never thought any old vigilante should do it, it should be soldiers who are responsible and answerable for what they do.

As an aside I am a Buddhist Pagan and against any killing at all, but again, I think killing one leader is better than letting the damage continue. Until a better idea comes up anyway, I'll go look at your link now.

I read the first page and that is exactly what I think and what should happen. It is difficult to decide what nations deserve that right, but its better than nothing. I never said vigilante snipers I said snipers, as they damage a nation a lot less than a full scale war.

I am unsure what your problem with me is, as I never advoctaed vigilante snipers doing what they feel to whom they feel. I did advocate though that sometimes countries have to take some interest and responsibility in other countries. That means setting themselves up as being better, so I don't think the US should have that role, but it is a role their government has already given themselves. We can see from guantanamo though that they are the wrong people for this role.

Kaz.

I think that very few people, if anybody, will claim that Hussein wasn't a thug and a murderer. The world is a better place now that his regime has been destroyed. The more important issues are the reasons why this was done, and how. There was a clear breach of international war, and whilst the US and UK governments prop up regimes like Uzbekistan, where torture and execution of political dissidents is rife, there can be no clear moral hih ground about ousting dictators.

The simple truth is that the American Government trained, funded and supported Saddam Hussein throughout the 70s and 80s, and then when he stopped cooperating concocted spurious and half baked justifications to invade and secure Iraqi oilfields.

"The world is a better place now that his regime has been destroyed."

Well, I agree that Saddam was a thug and a murderer, but I'm not sure that the world is a better place yet. It's generally acknowledged that terrorism is now a bigger problem in the world than before the war. I'm not even sure that Iraq is a better place: innocent Iraqis are still being killed an maimed in quite large numbers every day by car-bombs, etc. It will be a long time before a judgement can be made that there is an improvement over the old days (there will be a long period of grumbling statements of the "at least Saddam made the trains run on time" sort.) The only really good news I've seen recently for the "world is a better place" file is the bit about there being fewer refugees than there have been for some time, and that news is mainly the result of Afghans going home (as a result of military action undertaken by a multinational force acting under NATO treaty obligations [i. e. according to international law] rather than an ad hoc "coalition" of convenience.)

Valid point. Can't even say that Iraq is a better place, but I'm glad he's gone.

Personally I think that there should be a debate about what would justify the deposition of a country's leader by external forces. The idea that states should be free to do what they want to their own people without fear of external overthrow is morally ambiguous. But equally the notion of any nation invading another because it is run in a despotic fashion would lead to total chaos, and another world war.

I think there is some discussion going on internationally at the moment aimed at clarifying what situations of internal oppression justify intervention in the affairs of another state. And by the time I post this Anhaga will probably have simulposted with an informative link.

Noggin

Sorry I'm late, Noggin.

Here's the link again: http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/iciss-ciise/report-en.asp

This page gives a brief introduction and provides links to pdf versions of the commission's report and supporting documents. Simply put, as the title of their report indicates, the commission concluded that each state has a "Responsibility to Protect" its citizens. When the state is unable or unwilling to accept that responsibility, then the international community has a responsibility to step in in a unified way. The commission argues that the UN is the obvious choice of an arbitrating body and recommends certain modifications that need to be made to the UN to make it as effective as possible in that function.

First, I think that the point of the Yellow Times article, was not that SH had not committed atrocities, just that he had (probably) not committed the particular ones we kept hearing about (in NZ for one) - people put into machines for mincing plastic etc.
anhaga, I agree very much that there is a distinct difference between the 'interventions' in Afghanistan and Iraq!

In fact, the various torture methods used by Saddam Hussein and his sons are well documented, not the least by themselves.

Uday liked to videotape victims as they were tortures. Qusay was well known for his various sexual assaults on girls as young as 7, who were procured for him by the principals of Iraqi schools.

In fact, a couple of months ago, The History Channel presented several documentaries about Saddam Hussein and his sons. In that, they showed scenes from several of the videos of torture, interviewed several athletes, former employees, and surviving victims of torture whose stories support the methods of torture which are pooh-poohed by the article posted earlier.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140082001?open&of=ENG-IRQ
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140051997?open&of=ENG-IRQ

"beating with cables, falaqa (beating on the soles of the feet), cigarette burns on various parts of the body, and piercing of hands with an electric drill." http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140101999?open&of=ENG-IRQ

See Section 2 "Flight of Refugees" and Section 3 http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE010011997?open&of=ENG-IRQ

"He had been arrested with 19 others; the lucky ones were executed right away. The rest were tortured with electric cattle prods and forced to watch the prison guards gang-rape their wives and sisters. Some were fed into a machine that looked like a giant meat cutter. "People’s bodies were cut into tiny pieces and thrown into the Tigris River," said Ulga.
: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3068571/

British Government report 2002: http://www.streamload.com/jmstein77/TortureDossier.pdf

http://www.aiipowmia.com/inter24/in040320odaitorture.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/92179.html

Uday's torture of athletes who didn't meet his expectations: http://sport.guardian.co.uk/athletics/theobserver/story/0,10541,887103,00.html

Wikipedia article on Uday: http://wikipedia.lotsofinformation.com/wikipedia/index.php?title=Uday_Hussein

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/oly02/dec02/ap-oly-saddam's-so120602.asp

http://espn.go.com/oly/s/2002/1220/1480103.html

Video made by Uday: http://www.streamload.com/jmstein77/Uday1.mpeg

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_online/news/2003/03/24/son_of_saddam/
http://cgi.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9810/08/iraq.defector/

Qusay Hussein: http://wikipedia.lotsofinformation.com/wikipedia/index.php?title=Qusay_Hussein

In fact, Amnesty International, and various other groups, such as Human Rights Watch, and various governments had, for years been trying to bring an end to these attrocities. However, because of US reluctance to lose the madman as an ally in the covert actions against Iran, they managed to subvert these attempts.

Now, of course, the US would have us believe that this war was to rid the world of a torturer and that the US is alone in their disgust of Saddam Hussein's tortures. To top it off, they try to excuse the actions of their soldiers as "not that bad" as Hussein's and reacts to the rest of the world's outrage with "why was the rest of the world not upset at the dictator's crimes".

Surprise, folks! We were. Why was the US not upset when these atrocities were actually going on? Why was the US supporting this monster while the rest of the world was crying out against him?

Who armed Iraq?: http://web.amnesty.org/pages/ttt4-article_7-eng

<<. Why was the US not upset when these atrocities were actually going on? Why was the US supporting this monster while the rest of the world was crying out against him?>>
Which is the crux of the matter...
In NZ, as an opponent of the war on Iraq, I was *always* accused of being a Saddam supporter. No way!