Iraq

Ibrahim
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Ibrahim »

There are plenty of sick dictatorships in the world, Doc, and the US supported half of them because they were torturing the kids of communists instead of capitalists. Why so horny to invade Iraq specifically if you didn't buy into the WMD hype?

I think a lot of people are "ret-conning" their own memories. None of us knew the WMD claims were bullshit until none were found, and it took the hawks a few iterations before they got to "it was still a good idea!" You forget the brief 2002-2003 windom of "we'll find them eventually" and "we found some stuff that could have made some stuff that could have made WMDs," etc.



For the record I think "getting rid of Saddam" would be a great thing if it could have been done without all the collateral damage and abuses, but I don't think that's very realistic. Best case scenario is Libya, and we still saw abuses and ugly blowback from that one.
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Doc
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Doc »

Ibrahim wrote:There are plenty of sick dictatorships in the world, Doc, and the US supported half of them because they were torturing the kids of communists instead of capitalists. Why so horny to invade Iraq specifically if you didn't buy into the WMD hype?

I think a lot of people are "ret-conning" their own memories. None of us knew the WMD claims were bullshit until none were found, and it took the hawks a few iterations before they got to "it was still a good idea!" You forget the brief 2002-2003 windom of "we'll find them eventually" and "we found some stuff that could have made some stuff that could have made WMDs," etc.



For the record I think "getting rid of Saddam" would be a great thing if it could have been done without all the collateral damage and abuses, but I don't think that's very realistic. Best case scenario is Libya, and we still saw abuses and ugly blowback from that one.

Ok lots of sick dictatorships... So do you do something about them or do you just hold up your hands and say "See they are clean" IMHO You can't do nothing and claim your hands are clean.

The failure in Iraq was lack of planning for an Occupation.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
Ibrahim
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Ibrahim »

Doc wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:There are plenty of sick dictatorships in the world, Doc, and the US supported half of them because they were torturing the kids of communists instead of capitalists. Why so horny to invade Iraq specifically if you didn't buy into the WMD hype?

I think a lot of people are "ret-conning" their own memories. None of us knew the WMD claims were bullshit until none were found, and it took the hawks a few iterations before they got to "it was still a good idea!" You forget the brief 2002-2003 windom of "we'll find them eventually" and "we found some stuff that could have made some stuff that could have made WMDs," etc.



For the record I think "getting rid of Saddam" would be a great thing if it could have been done without all the collateral damage and abuses, but I don't think that's very realistic. Best case scenario is Libya, and we still saw abuses and ugly blowback from that one.

Ok lots of sick dictatorships... So do you do something about them or do you just hold up your hands and say "See they are clean" IMHO You can't do nothing and claim your hands are clean.
Ok, so who do you want to invade next?


The failure in Iraq was lack of planning for an Occupation.
The initial "shock and awe" air campaign was conducted with casual disregard, the occupation was indeed wrong-headed to even attempt but woefully incompetent when it was attempted, and the conduct of US soldiers and PMCs was abhorrent, the latter being immune to any prosecution or oversight, and the detention abuses are another matter entirely. Not to mention that the war was begin under false pretenses.

So the whole thing is awful from beginning to end, but as I say IF it had been possible to remove Saddam Hussein without all of these additional tragedies that would have been great. I'm just not sure how that's possible, even if you get a popular revolt to tack it on to.
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Hans Bulvai
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Hans Bulvai »

Doc wrote:
Hans Bulvai wrote:
Doc wrote:
Hans Bulvai wrote:
SNIPPED MANY STRAW MEN
Saddam's regime for sure tortured people deemed to be a threat or agents and in cases innocent. No argument there. Torturing children is bullshit. That is reserved for the regions only democracy. During the 90's when poverty was rampant, a few Madame’s popped up that were selling Iraqi girls to the liberal sheikhs in Kuwait. Saddam's regime got a hold of them, had them decapitated and placed them in black trash bags in front of their homes as a lesson to those who would dare dishonor or cheapen Iraq's women. What you think of the tactic is open for discussion but it was effective.
Was bullshit because you think it was wrong or was bullshit because Saddam was such a good guy that would never do that?

"Daddy please please please make them stop burning me Pleaaasee daddy PLEEEEASE !!!

So what would you do if someone kid(s) were being tortured in a room you were standing in? Would you do something to stop it or would you hold up your hands and say "Sorry my hands are clean and I wouldn't want to get the dirty but attacking those torturing you" "After all if I hurt them, they have children as well, and those children might suffer so there is nothing I can do"
Not sure what you are mumbling about. Take a look in the Israel thread for child torturers. And they for sure have WMD's. Go invade them. But with all of this talk of torture that you only read about from probably the same people who told of babies being pulled from incubators, where was this moral high ground when Saddam was killing Iranians and Kurds? When did Saddam become a brutal dictator?

But speaking of torture, I am sure you have spoken out loudly against this.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/2/headlines
British Forces Recount Abuses at Secret U.S. Prison in Iraq

British forces who helped operate a secret U.S. prison in Baghdad have spoken out for the first time about abuses they witnessed there. The Guardian reports former British soldiers and air force personnel say prisoners at the secretive Camp Nama were held for prolonged periods in cells the size of large dog kennels, subjected to electric shocks, routinely hooded, and taken to soundproofed shipping containers for interrogations, after which they emerged in a state of physical distress. One British servicemember recalled seeing a man’s prosthetic leg pulled off and used to beat him about the head before he was thrown onto a truck. Many said they complained about the abuse to no avail. The latest report follows revelations years ago about torture and abuse at the secret facility at Baghdad International Airport following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Human Rights Watch has said prisoners there were subjected to beatings, extreme cold and death threats, while The New York Times recounted how prisoners were beaten with rifle butts and used as paintball targets
And you might find this interesting.
Go ahead, read the whole thing.

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-02-280313.html
...
Humanitarian concerns
In January 2003, the UN prepared a working plan anticipating the impact of a possible war. Even with only "medium impact" from the invasion, the UN expected that humanitarian conditions would be severely compromised.

Because the Iraqi population was so heavily reliant on the government's food distribution system (a consequence of international sanctions), the UN anticipated that overthrowing the Iraqi regime would also undermine food security. And because the population already suffered from extensive malnutrition, this disruption would be quite lethal, putting 30 percent of Iraqi children under five at risk of death. The UN noted that if water and sewage treatment plants were damaged in the war, or if the electrical system could not operate, Iraqis would lose access to potable water, which would likely precipitate epidemics of water-borne diseases. And if electricity, transportation, and medical equipment were compromised, then the medical system would be unable to respond effectively to these epidemics.

During the occupation, much of this came to pass. A June 2003 UN report noted that the postwar water and sewage systems for Baghdad and other central and southern governorates were "in crisis''. In Baghdad alone, the report estimated that 40% of the city's water distribution network was damaged, leading to a loss of up to half of the city's potable water through leaks and breaks in the system. And direr still, the UN reported that neither of Baghdad's two sewage treatment plants was functional, leading to a massive discharge of raw sewage into the Tigris River.

The food situation was similar. The UN found that farming had collapsed due to "widespread insecurity and looting, the complete collapse of ministries and state agencies-the sole providers of essential farming inputs and services-together with significant damages to power supplies".


...
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Hans Bulvai
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Hans Bulvai »

Heracleum Persicum wrote:
Hans ,

it is a puzzle to me, after reading what happened to 1 million Iraqi children and American official being proud of it, after seeing so many children being born deformed because of America using depleted Uranium munitions in Iraq, how, after so many atrocities, Arab people still side with America & Brits & French and their CIA cronies (Qatar, Saudi, Emirate etc etc) to attack one of their owns ASSAD .. how come Saddam is a hero for you guys and not Assad fighting west ? ?
Like Saddam, Asad becomes a good guy after one sees what is coming next. I would ask you the same thing, how come Asad is a hero and not Saddam? Saddam was supporting Palestinians when father Asad was fighting them in Beirut. Actually, his last words before the shahadeh were "Palestine remains Arabia". One thing no one can deny is that he went to the gallows like a man. And remember, what got Saddam into trouble was him attacking the shithead emirs. He should be a hero to you. He was on his way to cleanse the gulf.
argument could be made, you guys deserve what's happening to you
Yes, it could be made. But not because of Asad.
Even you, Hans, instead of siding with Iran who is fighting the new age Resource-Colonialism, you side with Neo-Ottoman and Western colonialists
C'mon Azari. You know that is bs. Hans takes no sides because they are all serving their own interests. All meddlers need to get out of Arabia. Iran is not part of the solution. Asad is not popular at all and Iran could have played a positive role. Instead, you guys are sending weapons and money so Asad could level whole neighborhoods on the heads of innocent people. Not any different than the Qataris serving their own interests by contributing to a tragic situation.
You say Arab mass not not with Iran, or with Lebanese Shia .. real mind boggling .. consider this, the only Arab country & force who beat Israel were the Lebanese Shia, who brought HONOR to Arabs, when at the same time "Arab League" was belittling them

Who are these Arab League sh*itheads or that CIA crony Qatari calling himself Amir to side with Arab enemies against the new Arab "Saladin" fighting the new crusaders, Assad

Shame on you Arabs mass, shame

.
Azari, the Palestinians were fighting Israel before there was even a Hezbollah. And I don't need to remind you that it was the Lebanese Shia that welcomed the Israelis with rice into Southern Lebanon to rid them of the PLO. Who fought the Israelis to a stand still in Beirut during Israel's invasioninto Lebanon? PLO, Morabetoon, the Socialists, etc... Where was Amal?

Qatari shithead. Agree.
Arab League shithead. Agree.
Shame on Arab mass. Agree.... But not for the same reasons you mention.
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Hans Bulvai
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Hans Bulvai »

Ibrahim wrote:... None of us knew the WMD claims were bullshit until none were found,...
Many did know.
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

Hans Bulvai wrote:
Heracleum Persicum wrote:
Hans ,

it is a puzzle to me, after reading what happened to 1 million Iraqi children and American official being proud of it, after seeing so many children being born deformed because of America using depleted Uranium munitions in Iraq, how, after so many atrocities, Arab people still side with America & Brits & French and their CIA cronies (Qatar, Saudi, Emirate etc etc) to attack one of their owns ASSAD .. how come Saddam is a hero for you guys and not Assad fighting west ? ?
Like Saddam, Asad becomes a good guy after one sees what is coming next. I would ask you the same thing, how come Asad is a hero and not Saddam? Saddam was supporting Palestinians when father Asad was fighting them in Beirut. Actually, his last words before the shahadeh were "Palestine remains Arabia". One thing no one can deny is that he went to the gallows like a man. And remember, what got Saddam into trouble was him attacking the shithead emirs. He should be a hero to you. He was on his way to cleanse the gulf.
argument could be made, you guys deserve what's happening to you
Yes, it could be made. But not because of Asad.
Even you, Hans, instead of siding with Iran who is fighting the new age Resource-Colonialism, you side with Neo-Ottoman and Western colonialists
C'mon Azari. You know that is bs. Hans takes no sides because they are all serving their own interests. All meddlers need to get out of Arabia. Iran is not part of the solution. Asad is not popular at all and Iran could have played a positive role. Instead, you guys are sending weapons and money so Asad could level whole neighborhoods on the heads of innocent people. Not any different than the Qataris serving their own interests by contributing to a tragic situation.
You say Arab mass not not with Iran, or with Lebanese Shia .. real mind boggling .. consider this, the only Arab country & force who beat Israel were the Lebanese Shia, who brought HONOR to Arabs, when at the same time "Arab League" was belittling them

Who are these Arab League sh*itheads or that CIA crony Qatari calling himself Amir to side with Arab enemies against the new Arab "Saladin" fighting the new crusaders, Assad

Shame on you Arabs mass, shame

.
Azari, the Palestinians were fighting Israel before there was even a Hezbollah. And I don't need to remind you that it was the Lebanese Shia that welcomed the Israelis with rice into Southern Lebanon to rid them of the PLO. Who fought the Israelis to a stand still in Beirut during Israel's invasioninto Lebanon? PLO, Morabetoon, the Socialists, etc... Where was Amal?

Qatari shithead. Agree.
Arab League shithead. Agree.
Shame on Arab mass. Agree.... But not for the same reasons you mention.


.


Don't want to go into other issues with Saddam .. but .. the central issue with Saddam (and Saddamism) is he was an idi*ot .. an illiterate durian .. he still was @ Omar time, thinking ARABISM .. he did not realize things have changed last 1320 yrs .. not anymore Pomegranates were the enemy but Western colonial beast were .. he went to his death still beating the Arab Persian drum

Look @ Europe .. the historical (ridiculous) French rivalry with German, causing so many wars last 500 yrs, is now settled once for all .. Germans lead Europe not because they have bigger guns, but because they (in any sense) are the leaders in Europe, in economy, in industry, in literature, in music, in philosophy and and and .. and .. French (and Italian and Spanish and Brits) have accepted this .. that is why Germans now paying & paying & paying all the bills in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain and England and Ireland and and and, leadership comes with responsibility (to pay the bills when things go wrong)

In NEW middle east, coming soon, the Nations with superior economy, scientist, literature, philosophy and and and, same as in Europe, will lead the development of all that Space, and not those with bigger guns .. yes, Iran will lead, but this does not mean Arabs and Turks and Tajik or Uzback and Armenians and and will play the 2nd violin, rather it means it will be a team work like in Europe .. European central bank president is French and European capital is Brussels but Germans lead and pay the bills and that is why they call the shots

No, Palestine is not Arab .. Neither Palestine nor Syria nor Egypt are Arab .. speaking Arab does not make you Arab, otherwise Pakistani would be British


In that sense, Saddam was an idi*ot not to recognize times have change and so has the issues .. he did not recognize that Omar destroying other cultures and civilization was a mistake, Omar ordering to burn down libraries in Persia and the great library of Alexandria was a big mistake that lead to demise of REAL Islam .. as Islam should be spirituality and not a culture or civilization

And

Arabs now must let go of that Arabism and embarrass the NEW middle east coming .. if Arabs want to be somebody in the NEW middle east, they must compete in science and philosophy and economy and humanity .. for sure Wahhabism not part of it




.
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Doc
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Doc »

Hans Bulvai wrote:
Doc wrote:
Hans Bulvai wrote:
Doc wrote:
Hans Bulvai wrote:
SNIPPED MANY STRAW MEN
Saddam's regime for sure tortured people deemed to be a threat or agents and in cases innocent. No argument there. Torturing children is bullshit. That is reserved for the regions only democracy. During the 90's when poverty was rampant, a few Madame’s popped up that were selling Iraqi girls to the liberal sheikhs in Kuwait. Saddam's regime got a hold of them, had them decapitated and placed them in black trash bags in front of their homes as a lesson to those who would dare dishonor or cheapen Iraq's women. What you think of the tactic is open for discussion but it was effective.
Was bullshit because you think it was wrong or was bullshit because Saddam was such a good guy that would never do that?

"Daddy please please please make them stop burning me Pleaaasee daddy PLEEEEASE !!!

So what would you do if someone kid(s) were being tortured in a room you were standing in? Would you do something to stop it or would you hold up your hands and say "Sorry my hands are clean and I wouldn't want to get the dirty but attacking those torturing you" "After all if I hurt them, they have children as well, and those children might suffer so there is nothing I can do"
Hans Bulvai wrote:Not sure what you are mumbling about.


This Which you have yet to answer or even comment on other than you saying: "Torturing Children is bullshit"

You don't say whether it is bullshit because children were actually tortured or Bullshit because you won't even acknowledge that it would happen.

Now that is true mumbling on your part.

Do you have example of massive US torture of children? What is your logic in insisting that two wrong make a right Hans? Do you figure if you mumble on enough about it people will get confused from it? That they will loose sight of exactly what we are talking about when we talk about torturing children?

"Daddy please please please make them stop burning me Pleaaasee daddy PLEEEEASE !!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/f ... 058253.stm

Saturday, 22 June, 2002, 11:26 GMT 12:26 UK
Iraq's tortured children
Saddam Hussein and his advisers
Some witnesses had direct experience of child torture


By John Sweeney
BBC correspondent in Iraq

The star witness against the government of Iraq hobbled into the room, her legs braced with clumsy metal callipers. "Anna" had been tortured two years ago. She is now four years old.
Her father, Ali, is a thick-set Iraqi who used to work for Saddam's psychopathic son, Uday. Some time after the bungled assassination of Uday, Ali fell under suspicion.
Saddam Hussein
Saddam's secret police have been accused of torturing children

He fled north, to the Kurdish safe haven policed by Western fighter planes, but leaving his wife and daughter behind in Baghdad.

So the secret police came for his wife. Where is he? They tortured her. And when she didn't break, they tortured his daughter.

"When did you last see your father? Has he phoned? Has he been in contact?" They half-crushed the toddler's feet.

Now, she doesn't walk, she hobbles, and Ali fears that Saddam's men have crippled his daughter for life. So Ali talked to us.

I have been to Baghdad a number of times. Being in Iraq is like creeping around inside someone else's migraine. The fear is so omnipresent you could almost eat it. No one talks.

So listening to Ali speak freely was a revelation. He is not exactly a contender to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

He has the heft of an enforcer. He told me that he had tortured for the regime. But I don't think he was lying to us.

'Faked funerals'

Ali talked about the paranoid frenzy that rules Baghdad - the tortures, the killings, the corruption, the crazy gangster violence of Saddam and his two sons.

And the faking of the mass baby funerals.

You may have seen them on TV. Small white coffins parading through the streets of Baghdad on the roofs of taxis, an angry crowd of mourners, condemning Western sanctions for killing the children of Iraq.


They used to collect children's bodies and put them in freezers for two, three or even six or seven months

Usefully, the ages of the dead babies - "three days old", "four days old" - are written in English on the coffins. I wonder who did that.

Ali gave us the inside track on the racket. There aren't enough dead babies around. So the regime stores them for a mass funeral.

He said that he was friends with a taxi driver - he gave his name - whose son had a position in the regime.

Ali continued, he told me that he had to go to Najaf - a town 160km (100 miles) from Baghdad - in order to bring children's bodies from various freezers there, and that the smell was unbearable.

They used to collect children's bodies and put them in freezers for two, three or even six or seven months - God knows - until the smell got unbearable.

Then, they arrange the mass funerals. The logic being, the more dead babies, the better for Saddam. That way, he can weaken public support in the West for sanctions.

That means that parents who have lost a baby can't bury it until the regime says so.

So how could it be that people would put up with this sickening exploitation of grief?

A murder story

Ali told another story. He had seen Uday kill with his own eyes. This was some years ago, before the assassination attempt left Saddam's oldest son half-paralysed and impotent.

Uday's lust is famous in Baghdad. He wanted a woman who played tennis at Baghdad's Sports Club and he and Ali went round to the club.

Uday Hussein
A witness saw Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, murder another man
As Uday was turning into the car park, a tennis ball came over the fence and bounced against the car of the woman he desired.

The tennis player came into the car park to retrieve the ball, apologised to the woman. Maybe there was a bit of flirting - that does happen at tennis courts, even in England.

From his car Uday watched the two of them. Enraged, he took out a wooden cosh and beat the tennis player's brains out.

And then - get this - a few days later, the dead man's relatives apologised to Uday for the distress their son had caused him.

Incredible? I don't think so.

In northern Iraq - the only part of the country where people can speak freely - we met six other witnesses who had direct experience of child torture, including another of Saddam's enforcers - now in a Kurdish prison - who told us that an interrogator could do anything:

"We could make a kebab out of the child if we wanted to." And then he chuckled.

Iraqi women protest against UN sanctions
Angry crowds of mourners condemn the West's sanctions
In that environment, with that background noise of fear, it is not impossible to imagine that the government of Iraq could have conned the world, inventing numbers of dead babies that the gullible - and that includes the United Nations - accept as reliable.

While we were in the north of Iraq, the chairman of the Great Britain Iraq Society, Labour MP George Galloway, was in Baghdad.

He popped up on Iraqi TV and bared his soul. "When I hear the word Iraq," he said, "I hear someone calling my name."

I don't. When I hear the word Iraq, I hear a tortured child, screaming.
What do you hear Hans? Mumbling children?
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Ibrahim
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Ibrahim »

If only occupation soldiers (US and otherwise) hadn't also tortured and murdered children. If only the US wasn't still murdering, maiming, and orphaning children in several countries. Then there might be some kind of moral superiority argument to make.
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Doc »

Ibrahim wrote:If only occupation soldiers (US and otherwise) hadn't also tortured and murdered children. If only the US wasn't still murdering, maiming, and orphaning children in several countries. Then there might be some kind of moral superiority argument to make.
Which countries would those be Ibrahim?
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Ibrahim »

Doc wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:If only occupation soldiers (US and otherwise) hadn't also tortured and murdered children. If only the US wasn't still murdering, maiming, and orphaning children in several countries. Then there might be some kind of moral superiority argument to make.
Which countries would those be Ibrahim?
Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan for sure. Wherever the drones are flying.

More direct abuse like rapes, murders, killing parents in front of their children, is necessarily confined to wherever troops are on the ground, so Iraq/Afghanistan.
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Doc »

Ibrahim wrote:
Doc wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:If only occupation soldiers (US and otherwise) hadn't also tortured and murdered children. If only the US wasn't still murdering, maiming, and orphaning children in several countries. Then there might be some kind of moral superiority argument to make.
Which countries would those be Ibrahim?
Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan for sure. Wherever the drones are flying.

More direct abuse like rapes, murders, killing parents in front of their children, is necessarily confined to wherever troops are on the ground, so Iraq/Afghanistan.
Oh I thought we were talking torturing children.

But death does go on, on the ground

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/worl ... d/2049133/

liban attacks Afghan courthouse, leaving 53 dead
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
Ibrahim
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Ibrahim »

Doc wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:
Doc wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:If only occupation soldiers (US and otherwise) hadn't also tortured and murdered children. If only the US wasn't still murdering, maiming, and orphaning children in several countries. Then there might be some kind of moral superiority argument to make.
Which countries would those be Ibrahim?
Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan for sure. Wherever the drones are flying.

More direct abuse like rapes, murders, killing parents in front of their children, is necessarily confined to wherever troops are on the ground, so Iraq/Afghanistan.
Oh I thought we were talking torturing children.
Yes. I would argue that raping children or murdering their families in front of them (as happened in Iraq) constitutes torture. But if you're being a real stickler then yes, the US government only tortures adults.


Taliban attacks Afghan courthouse, leaving 53 dead
Indeed, the ability of the Taliban to kill civilians is noted. It would have been so easy for the US to appear better than the Taliban (or Saddam Hussein) but it failed miserably.
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Doc »

Ibrahim wrote:
Doc wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:
Doc wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:If only occupation soldiers (US and otherwise) hadn't also tortured and murdered children. If only the US wasn't still murdering, maiming, and orphaning children in several countries. Then there might be some kind of moral superiority argument to make.
Which countries would those be Ibrahim?
Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan for sure. Wherever the drones are flying.

More direct abuse like rapes, murders, killing parents in front of their children, is necessarily confined to wherever troops are on the ground, so Iraq/Afghanistan.
Oh I thought we were talking torturing children.
Yes. I would argue that raping children or murdering their families in front of them (as happened in Iraq) constitutes torture. But if you're being a real stickler then yes, the US government only tortures adults.


Taliban attacks Afghan courthouse, leaving 53 dead
Indeed, the ability of the Taliban to kill civilians is noted. It would have been so easy for the US to appear better than the Taliban (or Saddam Hussein) but it failed miserably.
IYHO. If you stretch the definition of Torture then sure. I say it is apple and oranges. IE Would you rather be tortured or would you rather watch your children being tortured in front of you?
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Ibrahim »

I would hope for better options than that, but alas the US military didn't give better options to Iraqis. Instead US soldiers proved themselves to be murderous and evil as Saddam's minions.
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Azrael »

Doc,

Were you so concerned about the children Saddam tortured while Reagan was supporting him?

Were you so concerned about the children Pinochet tortured? Or Ríos Montt tortured? Or Jorge Rafael Videla tortured? Or the Contras tortured?

Of course not.

You only pretend to care about Iraqi children because your messiah wanted war.
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Doc »

Azrael wrote:Doc,

Were you so concerned about the children Saddam tortured while Reagan was supporting him?

Were you so concerned about the children Pinochet tortured? Or Ríos Montt tortured? Or Jorge Rafael Videla tortured? Or the Contras tortured?

Of course not.

You only pretend to care about Iraqi children because your messiah wanted war.
Reagan's support was real politic and much less than has been claimed. Real politic is something I do not support. Either you do the right thing or you do nothing. The number one and two supporters of Saddam were The Soviet Union and China in that order. The US was a distant third and arguably gave more support of substance to Iran.

And Again two wrongs do not make a right. Such claims are just diversion from the facts I have show to be true. Would you have supported an invasion of Chile to stop torture of Children? I personally know quite a few people that had to flee Chile or die. Would you have supported an invasion of Nicaragua to stop both the Contras and the Sandinista from waging war? Both committed war crimes.


The Scale of what Saddam did
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Doc »

Ibrahim wrote:I would hope for better options than that, but alas the US military didn't give better options to Iraqis. Instead US soldiers proved themselves to be murderous and evil as Saddam's minions.
A few US soldiers proved themselves to be murderous and evil. Saddam and his minions were magnitudes worse. Mostly US troops went there as they were ordered to do. Mostly if they had a reason, other than standing with their comrades, they were there to set other men free. As that is an old American custom.

Calling them en mass murderous and evil is outright libel against them
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Azrael
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Azrael »

Doc,

I probably wouldn't have supported invading Chile. It probably wouldn't have been necessary. Pinochet came to power with U.S. support and stayed in power with U.S. support. Take away that support and impose sanctions, as we finally did with South Africa, and the regime probably would have fallen.

As for the lurid tales of Saddam torturing children, all you have is the word of one of Saddam's former thugs, looking for his next paycheck; not exactly the most trustworthy source.

A lot of lurid stories have been told about Saddam, some of which turned out to be lies.

Before the Gulf War, a young woman testified before Congress that she had seen Iraqi troops throw babies out of incubators. It later came out that she hadn't seen anything like that, that the story was being pushed by an AstroTurf group created by a PR firm and that she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S.

So forgive me if I'm not as credulous as you are when it comes to lurid stories about Saddam.
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Doc »

Azrael wrote:Doc,

I probably wouldn't have supported invading Chile. It probably wouldn't have been necessary. Pinochet came to power with U.S. support and stayed in power with U.S. support. Take away that support and impose sanctions, as we finally did with South Africa, and the regime probably would have fallen.
That is reasonable
As for the lurid tales of Saddam torturing children, all you have is the word of one of Saddam's former thugs, looking for his next paycheck; not exactly the most trustworthy source.
WRONG ANSWER #^$^@!!! We have the word of a crippled 4 year old as I posted previously ***TWICE***. :twisted:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/f ... 058253.stm

Saturday, 22 June, 2002, 11:26 GMT 12:26 UK
Iraq's tortured children
Saddam Hussein and his advisers
Some witnesses had direct experience of child torture


By John Sweeney
BBC correspondent in Iraq

The star witness against the government of Iraq hobbled into the room, her legs braced with clumsy metal callipers. "Anna" had been tortured two years ago. She is now four years old.
Her father, Ali, is a thick-set Iraqi who used to work for Saddam's psychopathic son, Uday. Some time after the bungled assassination of Uday, Ali fell under suspicion.

Saddam Hussein
Saddam's secret police have been accused of torturing children

He fled north, to the Kurdish safe haven policed by Western fighter planes, but leaving his wife and daughter behind in Baghdad.

So the secret police came for his wife. Where is he? They tortured her. And when she didn't break, they tortured his daughter.

"When did you last see your father? Has he phoned? Has he been in contact?" They half-crushed the toddler's feet.

Now, she doesn't walk, she hobbles, and Ali fears that Saddam's men have crippled his daughter for life. So Ali talked to us.

I have been to Baghdad a number of times. Being in Iraq is like creeping around inside someone else's migraine. The fear is so omnipresent you could almost eat it. No one talks.

So listening to Ali speak freely was a revelation. He is not exactly a contender to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

He has the heft of an enforcer. He told me that he had tortured for the regime. But I don't think he was lying to us.

'Faked funerals'

Ali talked about the paranoid frenzy that rules Baghdad - the tortures, the killings, the corruption, the crazy gangster violence of Saddam and his two sons.

And the faking of the mass baby funerals.

You may have seen them on TV. Small white coffins parading through the streets of Baghdad on the roofs of taxis, an angry crowd of mourners, condemning Western sanctions for killing the children of Iraq.


They used to collect children's bodies and put them in freezers for two, three or even six or seven months

Usefully, the ages of the dead babies - "three days old", "four days old" - are written in English on the coffins. I wonder who did that.

Ali gave us the inside track on the racket. There aren't enough dead babies around. So the regime stores them for a mass funeral.

He said that he was friends with a taxi driver - he gave his name - whose son had a position in the regime.

Ali continued, he told me that he had to go to Najaf - a town 160km (100 miles) from Baghdad - in order to bring children's bodies from various freezers there, and that the smell was unbearable.

They used to collect children's bodies and put them in freezers for two, three or even six or seven months - God knows - until the smell got unbearable.

Then, they arrange the mass funerals. The logic being, the more dead babies, the better for Saddam. That way, he can weaken public support in the West for sanctions.

That means that parents who have lost a baby can't bury it until the regime says so.

So how could it be that people would put up with this sickening exploitation of grief?

A murder story

Ali told another story. He had seen Uday kill with his own eyes. This was some years ago, before the assassination attempt left Saddam's oldest son half-paralysed and impotent.

Uday's lust is famous in Baghdad. He wanted a woman who played tennis at Baghdad's Sports Club and he and Ali went round to the club.

Uday Hussein
A witness saw Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, murder another man
As Uday was turning into the car park, a tennis ball came over the fence and bounced against the car of the woman he desired.

The tennis player came into the car park to retrieve the ball, apologised to the woman. Maybe there was a bit of flirting - that does happen at tennis courts, even in England.

From his car Uday watched the two of them. Enraged, he took out a wooden cosh and beat the tennis player's brains out.

And then - get this - a few days later, the dead man's relatives apologised to Uday for the distress their son had caused him.

Incredible? I don't think so.

In northern Iraq - the only part of the country where people can speak freely - we met six other witnesses who had direct experience of child torture, including another of Saddam's enforcers - now in a Kurdish prison - who told us that an interrogator could do anything:

"We could make a kebab out of the child if we wanted to." And then he chuckled.

Iraqi women protest against UN sanctions
Angry crowds of mourners condemn the West's sanctions
In that environment, with that background noise of fear, it is not impossible to imagine that the government of Iraq could have conned the world, inventing numbers of dead babies that the gullible - and that includes the United Nations - accept as reliable.

While we were in the north of Iraq, the chairman of the Great Britain Iraq Society, Labour MP George Galloway, was in Baghdad.

He popped up on Iraqi TV and bared his soul. "When I hear the word Iraq," he said, "I hear someone calling my name."

I don't. When I hear the word Iraq, I hear a tortured child, screaming
.

A lot of lurid stories have been told about Saddam, some of which turned out to be lies.

Before the Gulf War, a young woman testified before Congress that she had seen Iraqi troops throw babies out of incubators. It later came out that she hadn't seen anything like that, that the story was being pushed by an AstroTurf group created by a PR firm and that she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S.

So forgive me if I'm not as credulous as you are when it comes to lurid stories about Saddam.[/quote]

You are wearing blinders.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
Ibrahim
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Ibrahim »

Doc wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:I would hope for better options than that, but alas the US military didn't give better options to Iraqis. Instead US soldiers proved themselves to be murderous and evil as Saddam's minions.
A few US soldiers proved themselves to be murderous and evil. Saddam and his minions were magnitudes worse. Mostly US troops went there as they were ordered to do. Mostly if they had a reason, other than standing with their comrades, they were there to set other men free. As that is an old American custom.

Calling them en mass murderous and evil is outright libel against them
Absurd. The crimes reported by Iraqis far outweigh those even investigated by the US military, and PMCs had no oversight at all. Obviously abuses were widespread, unless you actually believe that the most reliable and unbiased judge of US military conduct was the US military itself. The occupation was so incompetent and brutal that people in Iraq today are actually nostalgic for Saddam Hussein. That is the summary of US failure in Iraq.
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Azrael »

Doc wrote:
Azrael wrote:Doc,

I probably wouldn't have supported invading Chile. It probably wouldn't have been necessary. Pinochet came to power with U.S. support and stayed in power with U.S. support. Take away that support and impose sanctions, as we finally did with South Africa, and the regime probably would have fallen.
That is reasonable
As for the lurid tales of Saddam torturing children, all you have is the word of one of Saddam's former thugs, looking for his next paycheck; not exactly the most trustworthy source.
WRONG ANSWER #^$^@!!! We have the word of a crippled 4 year old as I posted previously ***TWICE***. :twisted:
Whose father is one of Saddam's former thugs who is looking for his next paycheck.

She's saying what her father wants her to say. Considering that she's only four (at the time of the article) and this happened years earlier, she probably doesn't even remember what happened. Kids that age tend to believe their parents.
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Azrael
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Azrael »

Doc wrote:
Azrael wrote:A lot of lurid stories have been told about Saddam, some of which turned out to be lies.

Before the Gulf War, a young woman testified before Congress that she had seen Iraqi troops throw babies out of incubators. It later came out that she hadn't seen anything like that, that the story was being pushed by an AstroTurf group created by a PR firm and that she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S.

So forgive me if I'm not as credulous as you are when it comes to lurid stories about Saddam.
You are wearing blinders.
Are you saying that what I said isn't true? You are the one wearing blinders.

You have the word of one of Saddam's former thugs and what he coached his daughter to say, I have proven fact.
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Doc »

Azrael wrote:
Doc wrote:
Azrael wrote:A lot of lurid stories have been told about Saddam, some of which turned out to be lies.

Before the Gulf War, a young woman testified before Congress that she had seen Iraqi troops throw babies out of incubators. It later came out that she hadn't seen anything like that, that the story was being pushed by an AstroTurf group created by a PR firm and that she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S.

So forgive me if I'm not as credulous as you are when it comes to lurid stories about Saddam.
You are wearing blinders.
Are you saying that what I said isn't true? You are the one wearing blinders.

You have the word of one of Saddam's former thugs and what he coached his daughter to say, I have proven fact.
You have in no way refuted what I posted NOT IN THE LEAST LITTLE BIT. You are claiming that somehow what was done before the 1991 war refutes what happened in 2002.


Again for the fourth time what you clearly have not bothered to read
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/f ... 058253.stm

Saturday, 22 June, 2002, 11:26 GMT 12:26 UK
Iraq's tortured children
Saddam Hussein and his advisers
Some witnesses had direct experience of child torture


By John Sweeney
BBC correspondent in Iraq

The star witness against the government of Iraq hobbled into the room, her legs braced with clumsy metal callipers. "Anna" had been tortured two years ago. She is now four years old.
Her father, Ali, is a thick-set Iraqi who used to work for Saddam's psychopathic son, Uday. Some time after the bungled assassination of Uday, Ali fell under suspicion.

Saddam's secret police have been accused of torturing children

He fled north, to the Kurdish safe haven policed by Western fighter planes, but leaving his wife and daughter behind in Baghdad.

So the secret police came for his wife. Where is he? They tortured her. And when she didn't break, they tortured his daughter.

"When did you last see your father? Has he phoned? Has he been in contact?" They half-crushed the toddler's feet.

Now, she doesn't walk, she hobbles, and Ali fears that Saddam's men have crippled his daughter for life. So Ali talked to us.

I have been to Baghdad a number of times. Being in Iraq is like creeping around inside someone else's migraine. The fear is so omnipresent you could almost eat it. No one talks.

So listening to Ali speak freely was a revelation. He is not exactly a contender to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

He has the heft of an enforcer. He told me that he had tortured for the regime. But I don't think he was lying to us.

'Faked funerals'

Ali talked about the paranoid frenzy that rules Baghdad - the tortures, the killings, the corruption, the crazy gangster violence of Saddam and his two sons.

And the faking of the mass baby funerals.

You may have seen them on TV. Small white coffins parading through the streets of Baghdad on the roofs of taxis, an angry crowd of mourners, condemning Western sanctions for killing the children of Iraq.


They used to collect children's bodies and put them in freezers for two, three or even six or seven months

Usefully, the ages of the dead babies - "three days old", "four days old" - are written in English on the coffins. I wonder who did that.

Ali gave us the inside track on the racket. There aren't enough dead babies around. So the regime stores them for a mass funeral.

He said that he was friends with a taxi driver - he gave his name - whose son had a position in the regime.

Ali continued, he told me that he had to go to Najaf - a town 160km (100 miles) from Baghdad - in order to bring children's bodies from various freezers there, and that the smell was unbearable.

They used to collect children's bodies and put them in freezers for two, three or even six or seven months - God knows - until the smell got unbearable.

Then, they arrange the mass funerals. The logic being, the more dead babies, the better for Saddam. That way, he can weaken public support in the West for sanctions.

That means that parents who have lost a baby can't bury it until the regime says so.

So how could it be that people would put up with this sickening exploitation of grief?

A murder story

Ali told another story. He had seen Uday kill with his own eyes. This was some years ago, before the assassination attempt left Saddam's oldest son half-paralysed and impotent.

Uday's lust is famous in Baghdad. He wanted a woman who played tennis at Baghdad's Sports Club and he and Ali went round to the club.

Uday Hussein
A witness saw Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, murder another man
As Uday was turning into the car park, a tennis ball came over the fence and bounced against the car of the woman he desired.

The tennis player came into the car park to retrieve the ball, apologised to the woman. Maybe there was a bit of flirting - that does happen at tennis courts, even in England.

From his car Uday watched the two of them. Enraged, he took out a wooden cosh and beat the tennis player's brains out.

And then - get this - a few days later, the dead man's relatives apologised to Uday for the distress their son had caused him.

Incredible? I don't think so.

In northern Iraq - the only part of the country where people can speak freely - we met six other witnesses who had direct experience of child torture, including another of Saddam's enforcers - now in a Kurdish prison - who told us that an interrogator could do anything:

"We could make a kebab out of the child if we wanted to." And then he chuckled.

In that environment, with that background noise of fear, it is not impossible to imagine that the government of Iraq could have conned the world, inventing numbers of dead babies that the gullible - and that includes the United Nations - accept as reliable.

While we were in the north of Iraq, the chairman of the Great Britain Iraq Society, Labour MP George Galloway, was in Baghdad.

He popped up on Iraqi TV and bared his soul. "When I hear the word Iraq," he said, "I hear someone calling my name."

I don't. When I hear the word Iraq, I hear a tortured child, screaming
.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Azrael
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Re: The Iraq Thread

Post by Azrael »

Doc wrote:
Azrael wrote:
Doc wrote:
Azrael wrote:A lot of lurid stories have been told about Saddam, some of which turned out to be lies.

Before the Gulf War, a young woman testified before Congress that she had seen Iraqi troops throw babies out of incubators. It later came out that she hadn't seen anything like that, that the story was being pushed by an AstroTurf group created by a PR firm and that she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S.

So forgive me if I'm not as credulous as you are when it comes to lurid stories about Saddam.
You are wearing blinders.
Are you saying that what I said isn't true? You are the one wearing blinders.

You have the word of one of Saddam's former thugs and what he coached his daughter to say, I have proven fact.
You have in no way refuted what I posted NOT IN THE LEAST LITTLE BIT. You are claiming that somehow what was done before the 1991 war refutes what happened in 2002.
No, that's not what I claimed. I claimed that lurid stories about Saddam have been refuted in the past, and the word of one of Saddam's former thugs and what he coached his daughter to say shouldn't be considered reliable to begin with. I didn't refute your story, just gave reasonable justification for doubting it.

Unless you have more solid evidence, one would have to be pretty credulous to put so much faith in the word of one of Saddam's former thugs (who is trying to make a living in the post-Saddam world) and whatever he coached his daughter (who is unlikely to have clearly remembered, or remembered at all, an incident that supposedly happened when she was two) to say.

It's people like you, and people who were smart enough to know better but were afraid to speak up due to the ignorance and hysteria of the voting public, who are at fault for the Iraq War. I'm sure you're very proud of yourself. You're the big hero for cheering on the war.

And I read the last bit you posted -- more of Saddam's former "enforcers", trying to make a buck, or get out of prison, or whatever. Not particularly reliable.

And, no, I'm not claiming that Saddam never used violence against his people. Most rulers throughout history have done the same. Your outrage is pretty selective, and convenient, considering how the other rationales for invading Iraq have panned out.

If they actually found WMDs, or convinced the world that Saddam was behind 9-11, there wouldn't be this spectacle of Republicans pretending to care about Iraqi children.
Last edited by Azrael on Sat Apr 06, 2013 12:40 am, edited 2 times in total.
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