In Iraq Grave, Evidence Of Regime's Horrors

[MrsSpringsteen]

just a warning, this is quite graphic. The article continues for 3 pages

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/10/13/in_iraq_grave_evidence_of_regimes_horrors/

 

[A_Wanderer]

Never Forget

Here

 

[Klaus]

Yes - never forget that our regimes didn't stop Saddam when this hapened and some people (now members of the administration) even asked their government to lift sanctions so that they can make more business with them.

Fact is:
It's horrible what hapened in iraq and noone cared.
It's horrible what hapens in other places today and we don't care
It's sad when people start to use these evidences of tyrany of the 80ies for justifying their politics which lead to more WMD-Facilities on the black market:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/13/iraq.nuclear/index.html

On Wednesday, Iraq's interim science and technology minister, Rashad Omar, told The Associated Press that all sites under the interim government's control had been secured.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3738452.stm

Satellite imagery showed that entire buildings had been dismantled, said the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Scott Ritter:

"History will judge that Britain and the United States made the world a worse place with their war on Iraq."

and

"Saddam is gone and the world is far worse for it - not because his regime posed no threat, perceived or otherwise, but because the threat to international peace and security resulting from the decisions made by Bush and Blair to invade Iraq in violation of international law make any threat emanating from an Iraq ruled by Saddam pale in comparison"

 

[A_Wanderer]

Ritter opposed the war from the get-go. People were dying by the hundreds of thousands all through the 1990's and the situation was not getting any better. If inspections had completed and didnt yield anything sanctions would have been lifted and the regime would have reactivated its WMD program. That was the conclusion of the report and I suggest that people read it.

Right war, right place, right time.

 

[deep]

People were dying by the hundreds of thousands all through the 1990's

do you have a reliable source for this?

 

[A_Wanderer]

The UNICEF statistics on Iraq combined with an AI statement on the matter. As well as the blatant exploitation of the victims by the regime as they manipulated the sanctions to their ends should suffice when making that statement because a lot of people died at the hands of the regime and under the sanctions which were cruely abused by Saddam to supress the population. The estimate of those killed in Saddams reign directly by the regime are 300,000+, onto this add those killed by sanctions and the figures become devastating.

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/iraq_statistics.html

 

[Klaus]

A_Wanderer

Maybee you gave me the wrong link or i'm to blind to see...
...interesting statistics, even about Child labour and Aids (increddible low aids-rate btw) but i couldn't find anything on that linked page about the number of tortured people.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Here is a more concice listing
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Torture-and-murder-in-Iraq

 

[Klaus]

hmm you were talking about UN- and AI sources, i don't know about the credibility of nationmaster

The terror in the 80ies and after the rebellion that followed the 1991 Gulf War are no news - and they show how much we (the western world) care about human rights. many people who praise today that they stoped the torture of saddam watched the human rights abuse & torture in these days

 

[A_Wanderer]

Do you think that I like seeing Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam. The dirty deals made to prolong a war that claimed one million lives. The support from western governments (significantly US, France and Germany) and the truly massive support from the USSR. Just because they stood by then does not detract from it being the right thing to do now.

 

[Klaus]

No i think it was simply the wrong time the evildoer wasn't that evil anymore today there are more scary things going on (Pakistan and North Korea for example)

Hussein was allready old it would have bin better to help the oposition there (like the kurds in the last years). A democracy has to come from inside.

Now we invaded a country and helped terrorists and dangerous dictators to get saddams factories and plants to produce WMDs. More than that because we lost credibility we helped Al-Quaida & Co to recruit more members - "Mission Accomplished"?

 

[A_Wanderer]

Mission Accomplished was never stated by Bush and it was on the carrier because their mission in operation Iraqi Freedom was accomplished.

 

[BVS]

*Cough Cough* Bullshit!

 

[verte76]

Gosh, that's grisly. I opposed the invasion of Iraq, but I'll be damned if it was because I had any love for Saddam. No dice.

 

[diamond]

Great posts A_Wanderer

Like the poem too.

My love, I'm so sorry I could do nothing to save you.
I will miss you desperately until the moment I die.
Your touch, your smile, the sound of your laughter.
My heart is crushed. I have no tears left to cry.

But go home to God now. Go now, and rest.
Don't be afraid to leave us alone down here.
Help has arrived. The killer has been captured.
We can live our lives now with nothing to fear.

 

[Vorsprung]

So yeah, Saddam was a cruel dictator....what's new about that???? That's been know for the past twenty years..... But tell me when was cruelty by a dictator or other leader to his own people ever a real reason to start a war?
NEVER!! not by any nation!!! Now this may be regrettable, but I'm afraid it's the case.
So it may be nice propaganda to say afterwards: "Hey, look at the awful shit your leader did and thank us we got rid off him", but that doesn't make the war legitimate.

Too bad, but no one will ever start a war out of altruism...

 

[STING2]

So yeah, Saddam was a cruel dictator....what's new about that???? That's been know for the past twenty years..... But tell me when was cruelty by a dictator or other leader to his own people ever a real reason to start a war?
NEVER!! not by any nation!!! Now this may be regrettable, but I'm afraid it's the case.
So it may be nice propaganda to say afterwards: "Hey, look at the awful shit your leader did and thank us we got rid off him", but that doesn't make the war legitimate.

Too bad, but no one will ever start a war out of altruism...

Even U2 would disagree with you on this point. Case in point, Bosnia and Kosovo.

 

[Vorsprung]

First of all....I don't really care if U2 would or would not agree with me or not. They're a great band, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with them on everything.

Second. I'm glad NATO did intervene in former Yugoslavia.

Third, it wasn't just because of altruism..

don't forget:

- Yugoslavia is within europe, which means war there may threaten European stability, which is not good for european
economy.

- a war there creates a lot of refugees that will come to other nearby european nations (huge costs)

- there's a great trade potential there which will make the rest of Europe richer

And what's economically good for Europe usually also is good for the US (and vice versa)

What I mean there, a war there pays off. The economics of a war or have to be good. Altruism may play a roll, but if yugoslavia was in central africa, we wouldn't care...

It always has to pay off, nothing's done just out of altruism. Just look at the marshall Plan. An outstanding plan which really helped Europe a lot. But was it just true altruism?? Of course not, eventually also the USA got a lot richer and influential because of it and Marshall knew that.
That doesn't make it a less great plan - I think we need more marshall plans in this world -, just don't believe that it's just about altruism.

Okay, sometimes countries do send minor force to a country where there's nothing to get, but that's mainly good PR.

All I am saying that solely altruism towards other people will never be enough to fight a war for. It may be good propaganda and even the war itself may sometimes be the morally right thing to do, but there should always be more to it than just altruism.

 

[STING2]

First of all....I don't really care if U2 would or would not agree with me or not. They're a great band, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with them on everything.

Second. I'm glad NATO did intervene in former Yugoslavia.

Third, it wasn't just because of altruism..

don't forget:

- Yugoslavia is within europe, which means war there may threaten European stability, which is not good for european
economy.

- a war there creates a lot of refugees that will come to other nearby european nations (huge costs)

- there's a great trade potential there which will make the rest of Europe richer

And what's economically good for Europe usually also is good for the US (and vice versa)

What I mean there, a war there pays off. The economics of a war or have to be good. Altruism may play a roll, but if yugoslavia was in central africa, we wouldn't care...

It always has to pay off, nothing's done just out of altruism. Just look at the marshall Plan. An outstanding plan which really helped Europe a lot. But was it just true altruism?? Of course not, eventually also the USA got a lot richer and influential because of it and Marshall knew that.
That doesn't make it a less great plan - I think we need more marshall plans in this world -, just don't believe that it's just about altruism.

Okay, sometimes countries do send minor force to a country where there's nothing to get, but that's mainly good PR.

All I am saying that solely altruism towards other people will never be enough to fight a war for. It may be good propaganda and even the war itself may sometimes be the morally right thing to do, but there should always be more to it than just altruism.

Well, I agree that there were strong economic and security reasons to intervene in the former Yugoslavia and that was one of my arguements at the time. But, most people did not accept that. For four long years that saw the slaughter of 250,000 people, very little if any thing was done.

Serb Massacre's, in around Bosnian towns of thousands of unarmed men in the summer of 1995 though is what really bought strong pressure for military action as well as new evidence of attrocities from past years, as well as the death toll which was at over 250,000 and rising.

There were good economic and security arguements for intervention, but it was the clear and unmistakable evidence of the slaughter done by the Bosnia Serb military and the view with strong supporting evidence that Bosnian Serbs were responsible for 90% of the attrocities that finally tipped the scales in favor of military intervention. Had the economic and security arguements been the driving force, military intervention would have happened years earlier.

The US military did 90% of NATO's military involvement in forcing the Serbs to the peace table in 1995.