We Should Free Saddam

[Ali Algebra]

this isn`t a Finger Pointing excersize about the "worlds Worst.. super vilian" etc...

if you`de care to read the OP' date=' it`s about SADDAM so we need not bring anymore anti-semitic comments into this (as has been rife in most of your threads thus far).

 

YT passes Ali a Beer and packet of Pork rinds, chill dude [/quote']

 

 

 

Well technically I can't be anti-Semitic my father is an Arab and I'm part Semitic myself. However I am a anti-Zionist. I wouldn't drink or eat pork not because I'm a Muslim its because its unhealthy.

 

You're pretty shallow for calling me an anti-Semitic. Pointing historical facts out makes you intelligent not an anti-Semitic.

[doG]

Your quote and your misleading vividness both come from the Kurdish Democratic Party website....

Maybe you'll like this one better, it carries the same info....

Immediate Medical Effects in Halabja

 

* Death by asphyxiation

* Skin burns and blisters

* Impaired vision' date=' blindness

* Breathing difficulty, respiratory shutdown

* Vomiting, diarrhea, digestive shutdown

* Neurological disorder

* Convulsions, coma

 

[b']Chemical Weapons Used[/b]

 

Saddam's regime purposefully mixed mustard gas and nerve agents to magnify their initial and long-term effects.

 

* Mustard gas, a blistering agent, affects membranes of the nose, throat, and lungs.

* Nerve agents such as sarin, tabun, and VX attack eyes and respiratory tracts.

* Chemical weapons contaminate the food and water supplies, soil, and animal populations.

 

Halabja: A Testing Ground

 

Iraqi soldiers in protective gear returned to Halabja to study the effectiveness of their weapons and attacks. They divided the city into grids, determining the number and location of the dead and extent of injury. Halabja helped Saddam Hussein gauge the ability of his chemical agents to kill, maim, and terrorize population centers.

 

More at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/18714.htm.....

 

Are you still saying he was only trying to clear the area?

[Phi for All]

Are you still saying he was only trying to clear the area?

What is their definition of immediate? If it includes times of up to an hour, then my earlier assertion stands. I'm not really arguing about what the gasses were used for, only that they are not normally used as killing agents, and they are not something that drops you in your tracks instantly.

 

Please read the report by a military expert from YT's homepage. It's by someone with no agenda, someone who has experience with field operations, and is not from a State Department trying to justify a war. Here's the link again: http://www.yt2095.net/news/terror.htm

[doG]

Please read the report by a military expert from YT's homepage. It's by someone with no agenda, someone who has experience with field operations....

Lol. What you've really said here is, "Read my link that mentions no source what-so-ever and provides absolutely nothing to support it." Can you provide any proof at all that the State Department is lying in their report? You could work on disproving this one as well:

Only after the first wave of air and artillery bombardments had driven the inhabitants to underground shelters did the Iraqi helicopters and planes return to unleash their lethal brew of mustard gas and nerve agents.

 

It was March 16' date=' 1988, and the Kurdish village of Halabja, which lies near Iraq's border with Iran, had the misfortune of being on the front lines of the Iran-Iraq War, then in its eighth year. The inhabitants, who numbered 50,000 or more at the time, knew the hard realities of conventional war firsthand, but they had no preparation for the nightmare that descended upon them that day — and continues to wreak havoc upon the survivors and their offspring today.

 

Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who has written extensively about Halabja, said in a radio interview:

 

[b']You have to understand something here that's so diabolically clever. The Iraqis knew that gas is heavier than air and would penetrate cellars and basements more effectively by launching a conventional artillery attack on the town for several hours. In other words, they knew that people would do what they always did during an artillery barrage and run to their basements. They were stuck in their basements, and then [the Iraqis] launched the chemical weapons attack�turning them, really, into gas chambers.[/b]

 

As the gas spread and animals died and birds dropped out of trees, the panicked families, many blinded by the chemical agents, gathered up hysterical, gasping children, and tried to escape downwind....

USINFO > Publications

Still say he was just clearing the area?

[Phi for All]

Lol. What you've really said here is, "Read my link that mentions no source what-so-ever and provides absolutely nothing to support it."

Excuse me? What part of, "I am a retired military weapons, munitions, and training expert" don't you understand? The man is an expert and thus the source.

Can you provide any proof at all that the State Department is lying in their report?

I didn't say they were lying. I said they used terms like "immediate" which can imply many things to the suggestible reader. I said they were trying to justify invading Iraq.

Still say he was just clearing the area?

Once again, the Iraqis intent is not something I'm aware of. I notice the State Department excerpts you quoted make no mention of the Iranian army soldiers who were also present at the time.

 

I had this debate with others at the time of the invasion when it was being argued that these chemical agents were considered WMDs. Since nuclear weapons weren't found, the Bush administration concentrated heavily on making chemical agents sound like instant killers, which they are not. "Gassing the Kurds" was a carefully constructed sound byte, and I hate being led by the nose to conclusions others want me to make.

 

So to clarify, I'm not arguing what the Iraqis intent was for the citizens of Halabja. Gasses are too easily dispersed, too difficult to handle and too costly in many ways to make them effective as the mass killers many would like us to believe they are.

[Dave]

Aside from being completely and utterly off-topic, I can't really see the purpose of this thread apart from flame-bait. Please get the thread back on-topic, and avoid personal insults, otherwise I'll be forced to close the thread.

[Desert_Fox]

I believe they must hang Saddam for his crimes against humanity. He has kill so many people during his Dictatorship 1979-2003. He deserves death penalty, this will be a very clear message for other Dictators too...

[abskebabs]

None of you know how many people he ordered to kill' date=' none of you know what he really did and what he is really responsible for. This is what the trial is for...

 

Taking a look at my own government, and I can see many parallels, just on a smaller scale...

 

Treason is punishable by execution in the US,

1,000 criminals have been executed since 1977, Under Saddam, however many that were killed were considered criminals...

Saddam invaded Kuwait, we just invaded Iraq… whats the difference really?

The US government most likley uses tortue in places like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Grab (look at that scandal too)

The US government oppresses many of its people too, we just do systemically and hide it well.

... And thats just what we know about...

 

 

Now of course the degree doesn’t match up anywhere near what he is accused of, but in principle there are similarities with every government...

 

Sure he was a tyrant, sure he did a lot bad things, but every government does bad things, he deserves a fair trial.[/quote']

I agree, the key difference however in countries like the US is that support for these activities has to be gathered from the masses, and a consensus supporting the actions produced. In the case of the war on Iraq this was done by a series of blatant lies to the entire world and the American ppl, and the use of doctored ntelligence and accused links to terrorist organisations. Overall I think the Bush administration's propaganda machine did a pretty good job at the time.

 

It's a shame most politicians are so short sighted.....

[padren]

I guess your right' date=' didn't think of the animals.

 

/me is sorry. [/quote']

 

 

For the record, we could probably round up a monkey, a snake, and a rat that have run ruthless regimes in their own little niches. There is this one rat at the city dump that is really over the edge and has been accused of crimes against rat..inity for a long time now.

 

 

As for Saddam, I think there is a lot of evidence and its not like the guy claimed to be a misunderstood sweaty-pie during his reign. Isn't his stance that no one has the right to indict him because he's a soverign leader, as opposed to claiming he didn't deserve the brutal reputation he built up and exploited to control the Iraqi people through fear?

 

I say life in prisonment, personally. Its not possible to send a stronger message than that.

[silkworm]

How could we do anything with him? He's a prisoner of Iraq right?

[Hades]

my father is an Arab

 

knew it.

[Guest kro]

I have absolutely no arab in me and I agree with Ali Algebra, to an extent.

 

The evidence against Saddam does not show him to be the genocidal manic so many western agencies purported him to be. The number of deaths attributed to him is much, much lower than the number of deaths attirbuted to the current invasion/occupation.

 

The people humiliated, tortured, crippled, degraded and abused under Saddam is obvioulsy terrible, although he wasn't so stupid as to have photos of his actions published around the globe after claiming his actions were to protect human rights.

 

Saddam is a bad man, there's little doubt of that, but he's regarded in that way because he indescrimantly killed people, attacking whole towns after the first Gulf War, had show trails in which the verdict was known before the trial began, denied people legal rights, used military force to control the valuable assets of the country, and used threats and terror to make people follow his orders. Which of these actions HASN'T the current occupying forces commited?

 

So Saddam should face a FAIR trial, and if found guilty he should spend the rest of life in prison, being treated fairly and decently. Then Bush and Blair should stand trial for all the lives their lies have ruined.

 

As to why the American posters on this thread seem to have such strong opinions on the matter I'm a little mystifed, especially when one considers that abuses of human rights going on in Camp X-ray, but then I'm assuming they know that the "evidence" that linked Saddam to 9/11 were lies.

[Callipygous]

" but then I'm assuming they know that the "evidence" that linked Saddam to 9/11 were lies."

 

ive never seen any convincing argument that that statement, or any other like it, is any less propaganda than the evidence it talks about.

[Guest kro]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html

 

Does your own government's report count?

 

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/no-saddam-qaeda.htm

 

or your President?

 

And there are hundreds of other reports.

 

I'm surprised that when you say no evidence you didn't try putting "saddam hussein al-qaeda" into Google.

[Pangloss]

Saddam isn't being tried for his connections to 9/11.

[Callipygous]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html

 

Does your own government's report count?

 

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/no-saddam-qaeda.htm

 

or your President?

 

yes' date=' to both.

 

I'm surprised that when you say no evidence you didn't try putting "saddam hussein al-qaeda" into Google.

 

i think it would serve you well to read my post again.

 

 

a few points:

 

1. you have no facts. you have information from the media, which is biased practically by definition. they practice making things look differently than they are on a regular basis. this is something people do a lot, and im not sure why. you dont KNOW anything. all you have to go by on things like this are biased reports from third parties. its not reasonable to not decide anything for yourself because of this, but to act high and mighty like someone else is stupid for not agreeing is retarded.

 

2. no where in that report does it mention anything that is necesarily a lie. a lie is intentional deciept. given the fact that the president is a moron its entirely possible that he was fully confident in his information. hearing that osama had requested aid from iraq would probably be more than enough to convince him.

 

3. whether the presidents stated reasons for invading Iraq were true or not, i still have trouble finding a reason why removing a man like saddam from power could be a bad thing. or even be something that doesnt make the world a much better place.

[Guest kro]

Pangloss - that isn't the point I'm trying to make. 9/11 and a supposed Iraqi connection with Al-Qeda was stated frequently and repeatedly in the run up to the invasion of Iraq to sway public opinion, and judging from some of the posts on this thread it was done very effectively. The only connection between Al-qeda and Iraq has occured since the invasion.

 

Callipygous - If think you miss the point, and should reread the links. The report I refer isn't a newspaper report, but the offical US report into 9/11 that is refered to in the article. Bush has then publicly conceded there is no connection between Saddam and Al-qeda, where as both he and other memebers of his administration had claimed there was link before this. It is utterly impossible to belive that the whole invasion of Iraq was based upon a misunderstanding, therefore, the Bush adminsitration were deliberatly relaying information it knew to be untrue with the intention of producing a desired response. What is that if it isn't a lie? Or are you suggesting that the most powerful intelligence gathering tools in the world really thought there was a connection then changed their minds? Imagine how embarrassed they must be.

 

It isn't the removal of Saddam that bothers so many people so much, but the complete disaster that has now been inflicted upon thousands and thousands and thousands of people whose only crime was to have a bastard in charge of their country. Can you explain how a ten-year-old boy with no arms is a making Iraq or the world a better place? Why a little girl should have her face burnt off because America is still angry from the terrible events of 9/11? Because for the life of me I can't figure out how killing what is estiamted to be one hundred thousand people is going to change that. In addition to that as there were no WMD, no Al-qeda connection and, as it's difficult to believe that any country that runs Camp X-ray and Abu Grab really cares about human rights, the rights of the Iraqi people wasn't the reason, so just what was? With the exception of what seems to half of America and Tony Blair everyone else already knew before the tanks even rolled.

[Guest kro]

Joseph Paul Goebbels:

 

During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information.

 

 

Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country

[Pangloss]

I still don't see what we're going to accomplish by "freeing Saddam". Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because our purpose in going to Iraq was flawed doesn't mean we should exonerate him for his crimes. And I don't particularly care whether he gets a free trial -- it's simply not my problem.

 

Heck, he's not even our prisoner. He's Iraq's.

[Pangloss]

Then Bush and Blair should stand trial for all the lives their lies have ruined.

 

As to why the American posters on this thread seem to have such strong opinions on the matter I'm a little mystifed' date=' especially when one considers that abuses of human rights going on in Camp X-ray, but then I'm assuming they know that the "evidence" that linked Saddam to 9/11 were lies.[/quote']

 

That's what this is really about, I think. You have no interest in justice, you're simply opposed to anything proposed by people you disagree with.

 

That's not debate or fairness. That's partisanship. You're so busy making two wrongs a right that you've forgotten that wrong is still wrong. Camp X-Ray has nothing to do with Saddam, so why bring it up? You're just giving examples of Bush and Blair being wrong, not proving that Saddam deserves a trial outside of Iraq. You haven't even tried to address whether that trial is fair, you are 100% focused on Bush and Blair.

 

I think if Al Gore had won the election in 2000 you'd be insisting that we invade Iraq right this very second.

[Callipygous]

Callipygous - If think you miss the point, and should reread the links. The report I refer isn't a newspaper report, but the offical US report into 9/11 that is refered to in the article. Bush has then publicly conceded there is no connection between Saddam and Al-qeda, where as both he and other memebers of his administration had claimed there was link before this. It is utterly impossible to belive that the whole invasion of Iraq was based upon a misunderstanding, therefore, the Bush adminsitration were deliberatly relaying information it knew to be untrue with the intention of producing a desired response. What is that if it isn't a lie?

 

it wasnt a dog, therefore it was a fish.

 

everything every administration does is with the intention of producing a desired response. if they knew that there was no connection between Iraq and al qeda, and they had to know it would be thoroughly investigated if they chose to invade, why would they tell the public that this was their reason to invade? they were trying to lose face with the entire planet? they wanted their approval rating in the toilet? they wanted to be seen as a bunch of criminals who bombed a country for oil?

 

my belief on what happened (generally) is that the bush administration saw Iraq as a threat, whether it was originally for links to 9/11 or just because it was being run by a psychotic, murderous tyrant. i dont know if links to al qeda were the original reason, or just convienient things to tell the public to create support, but i believe they found some minor ties, which obviously didnt pan out, and then they exagerated their confidence in these ties (you cant tell your country your sending their sons to war because you think they might be linked to terrorism maybe), and then went about performing the overly good act of removing a horrible person from power.

 

no lies, just an attempt at good PR gone wrong.

 

 

ok, very very wrong.

 

 

 

It isn't the removal of Saddam that bothers so many people so much, but the complete disaster that has now been inflicted upon thousands and thousands and thousands of people whose only crime was to have a bastard in charge of their country. Can you explain how a ten-year-old boy with no arms is a making Iraq or the world a better place? Why a little girl should have her face burnt off because America is still angry from the terrible events of 9/11? Because for the life of me I can't figure out how killing what is estiamted to be one hundred thousand people is going to change that.

 

i can tell you that war has casualties on the side, and i can tell you that there isnt a single US soldier that is twisted enough in the head to shoot, or attempt to blow up a 10 year old boy that he believes is unarmed. there are some bad people in the military, but there are also some good ones, to the point where i think someone that messed up might get put down by his comrades in a heartbeat.

 

so... when fighting against a bunch of militia holed up in a city, its sort of expected that there would be some innocent casualties. theres nothing anyone can do about it, short of pulling out of Iraq right now. leaving now would probably result in a lot of violence for control of the country and would probably end up with another saddam in place. so they are going to continue fighting this war until the place is cleaned up enough to get along on its own without tearing itself apart, and some innocent people are going to die along the way. **it happens.

 

In addition to that as there were no WMD, no Al-qeda connection and, as it's difficult to believe that any country that runs Camp X-ray and Abu Grab really cares about human rights, the rights of the Iraqi people wasn't the reason, so just what was?

 

i dont appreciate that generalization. just because i few stupid army brats tied up and abused some naked iraqis doesnt mean the country as a whole doesnt care about human rights. everyone who was found to be involved was punished according to the extent of their involvement.

[SmallIsPower]

Oh' date=' you mean testing the effects of the acceleration due to gravity and then the sunden removal of that speed on impact?

 

Not likley to happen though he does deserve it - fitted with a slow motion camera and aimed at a target on the floor...

 

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones[/quote']

 

Sounds good to me. To the best of my knowlegde, no one has ever verified Newton's Laws apply to a falling tyrant.

 

And do the same thing to his buddy.

 

[GutZ]

I have no particular hate or like for the man, but he isn't a saint, so if he doesn't get a fair trail, well maybe that's because of his history. I don't understand that mind frame people have, You do bad things, the probablity of it biting you in the ass is higher later on, than when you do good things. There should be no suprise or anger towards "injustice" or unfair trials. Don't kick the ball if you don't want to have to go get it...Ha that's a horrible saying, but it's all mine.

 

That should have unverisial acceptance....then again I pretty much consider 75% of people in this world bad, maybe more.

 

I have high standards

 

...oh yeah which means that they wouldn't understand that concept because no one believe or want to think they are bad.

 

/me randomly dances

 

Ok, I am out.

[Guest kro]

That's what this is really about, I think. You have no interest in justice, you're simply opposed to anything proposed by people you disagree with..

 

You know nothing about me and you don't seem to have considered anything I've posted. I answered your post, which was in response to one by me, about the link betwenn Al-qeda and Saddam. You now choose to insult me. This doesn't suggest a strong argument on your part.

 

Callipygous - so what is this "My country right or wrong". So far you've said there is no evidence to refute a connection between Saddam and Al-qeda, and then that this is purely a media story. Now the lies are PR - Public relations - are you joking? A public realtions exercise in invasion? That's called propaganda.

 

"innocent people are going to die along the way. **it happens."

 

One hundred thousand cases of sh!t! Would it have to be your family or your beloved country before you changed your point of view?

 

"the point where i think someone that messed up might get put down by his

comrades in a heartbeat"

 

My God, you're an adult, this Hollywood crap doesn't happen in real life. What happens in real life is a marine gets killed by a booby-trap so his friends go and kill everyone nearby.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4827424.stm

 

What information are Americans being fed? I could keep going on refuting every claim you make, point by point, but what is the purpose, you're not going to belive anything without proof, and even then you still claim it says something different. So have it your way. America is the best and most popular country in the world. Everyone loves it. There aren't millions of people that hate it and it has made a wonderful job of rebuilding Iraq. Happy now?

[Pangloss]

On the contrary, I know that you're willing to justify something that by your own admission you know is morally wrong simply (and admittedly!) because of another, completely unrelated moral wrong.

 

I can't even imagine what else there might be that I would need to know about you.