Saddam Gets Death Penalty

[La_Dolce_Vita]

If anything P.K. I would think your views sound somewhat naive. I do not see how the war in Iraq is at all justifiable. I can even appreciate the argument that Iraq and the world would have been a better place if Saddam was still in power.

 

At least with Saddam in power you had governance and control. This meant control over the Muslim fundamentalists. If there were any Muslim Fundamentalists causing a stir in Iraq then 'BANG'; Saddam put a stop to it. It isn't moral, it isn't humane but it meants there was control in Iraq. Now you have no control and the insertion of democratic government which would appear to be completely at odds with the culture. I mean, talk about stupid, the thought of thinking you can just transplant another cultures political system into another area and immediately expect it work. Also that Iraqi government is under a great deal of American influence, even control, which isn't such a good thing. It is not that I think Saddam should be put back in power but that Iraq is a worse place since he has been removed.

Setting aside the current battles fought in vain by 'glorious' British and American troops the only victory there will be will be the victory of the ignorant.

 

Saddam is a monster but I think don't think that gives America and certainly not Britain the right to step in and remove him. Besides the whole purpose behind military intervention was to eliminate WMD which Iraw never had. Certainly there were some stocks of chemical warfare material but other than that there was nothing there. I think it exceptionally stupid for you P.K. to make no apparent distinction between the Iraqi regime and those who have actually instigated terrorist acts across the world. I can't see how the secular authorities in Iraq would be so willing to furnish Al-Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons.

 

Bad guys and Good guys? The British and Americans can most often not be called good guys where our foreign policy is concerned and we certainly were not good guys for going into Iraq. Yeah, Saddam is a bad guy but since he has gone, in the wake, there are quite a lot of 'bad guys' running around Iraq. Especially of the deluded, fanatic Muslim sort. Does this mean we shoot them too?

[LoneWolf]

As stated before - Iraq was absolutely no threat when Saddam was in power - it had no WMD's, and no terrorism.

 

Remember this ?

[matty]

As stated before - Iraq was absolutely no threat when Saddam was in power - it had no WMD's, and no terrorism.

 

Remember this ?

 

I sure do LW, maybe I should have re-phrased that one to say, Saddam hasn't been any sort of a viable threat since his military & WMD programmes had been destroyed in the 90's Gulf War, and there wasn't any terrorists, or Al Quaeda in Iraq until the recent invasion.

[LoneWolf]

As stated before - Iraq was absolutely no threat when Saddam was in power - it had no WMD's, and no terrorism.

 

Remember this ?

 

I sure do LW, maybe I should have re-phrased that one to say, Saddam hasn't been any sort of a viable threat since his military & WMD programmes had been destroyed in the 90's Gulf War, and there wasn't any terrorists, or Al Quaeda in Iraq until the recent invasion.

 

I think with the considerable benefit of hindsight I would tend to agree. However, the UK and the US both had reason to believe he had some very nasty weaponry. Both countries had supplied him with some very potent kit. Its still a mystery as to where that stuff ended up.

[matty]

Hindsight indeed!

 

clicky!!!!

[Lonan3]

That's an excellent link, Matty, and it leads on to THIS ONE:

 

On the April 23 edition of CBS' 60 Minutes, former high-ranking CIA official Tyler Drumheller offered first-hand evidence that, months before the United States invaded Iraq, the Bush administration dismissed clear-cut evidence undermining President Bush's central case for war -- that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Drumheller recently retired after 26 years in the CIA, most recently as the chief of the agency's European operations. Drumheller disclosed that, more than six months before the Iraq invasion, Naji Sabri Ahmad Al-Hadithi, Saddam's foreign affairs minister, agreed to provide the CIA with Iraqi military secrets. According to Drumheller, when then-CIA director George Tenet personally shared the news with Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and then-National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice, "they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis." Sabri subsequently informed intelligence officials that Saddam "had no active weapons of mass destruction program." But when the White House learned of Sabri's disclosure in September 2002, "[t]hey stopped being interested in the intelligence." Drumheller further recounted the administration's reaction: "The group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they're no longer interested. And we said, 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said, 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.' "

 

Saddam may have been a monster who killed his own people - but Bush & Blair were prepared to send their own people to war on false premises which makes them equally culpable IMO.

Let's just give thanks that it won't be too long before they're both consigned to history and their joint reigns can be recalled as the 'Midden Ages.'

[The Agitator]

No great shock in this piece of news.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6117910.stm

 

Wonder if they'll sell passes to a webcast.

 

Does it not strike anyone as weird that, this comes two days before the US elections?

Would you at least agree that we have a puppet goverment in iraq?

 

no

[Amadeus]

Iraq court says Saddam should hang within 30 days

 

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld Saddam Hussein's death sentence for crimes against humanity and said he should hang within 30 days.

 

Human rights groups condemned his trial as seriously flawed and called on the government not to carry out the sentence, which comes amid raging violence between Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs and majority Shi'ites.

 

The White House called the court's decision a "milestone" in replacing tyranny with rule of law.

[Juan Kerr]

Face facts - this is all George W Bush wanted and all the billions pumped into this ludicrous Iraq campaign have been for this moment.

 

He wants to see the guy who humiliated his daddy killed, he wants to see him shot or hung for the shame and embarrassment he heaped on the Bush family in 1992.

 

He wants this more than catching Bin Laden, and any of the other bullshit things he promised at the time of the Iraq war.

 

You can bet on a US withrawal plan soon after this as its "mission accomplished" as far as the "knobhead in chief" is concerned.

 

(Don't get me wrong Saddam is a total bastard who desaerves to die, but I'm sick of the international pretence on this one point)

[VinnieK]

Face facts - this is all George W Bush wanted and all the billions pumped into this ludicrous Iraq campaign have been for this moment.

 

He wants to see the guy who humiliated his daddy killed, he wants to see him shot or hung for the shame and embarrassment he heaped on the Bush family in 1992.

 

How was George Bush senior humiliated by Saddam Hussein, was there some little reported incident at a cocktail party at which both were present?

 

The first gulf war proceded remarkably well from a strategic point of view, and was largely popular (or at least condoned) by both the American public and the international community. There was mild criticism that Saddam was allowed to remain in power after being so decisively beaten, but this is hardly "humiliation and shame", and even if it were it could hardly be said that Saddam is the one who humiliated George Bush senior.

 

Also, George W. Bush was not the only person involved in the decision to go to war. Was congress also embarrased by Saddam (possibly at the same party)? Were evil hypnotists involved? Subliminal suggestions implanted in hot dog advertisements?

[sarahc]

How was George Bush senior humiliated by Saddam Hussein, was there some little reported incident at a cocktail party at which both were present?

 

I heard that they had a thing, Saddam didn't call. GB Sr didn't like that and vowed revenge. Simple really.

[ans]

http://nosoup.net/nosoup4u/b3ta/saddamsbouncingrecord.html

 

Tasteless perhaps.

[Lonan3]

http://nosoup.net/nosoup4u/b3ta/saddamsbouncingrecord.html

 

Tasteless perhaps.

TBH, I'd prefer the word 'offensive.'

[Chinahand]

For once I feel in agreement with John Prescott. The execution of Hussein was badly done. A state executing a person should ensure the proceedings aren't like a public lynching and have a proper formality. To have people cursing, shouting and engaging in a slanging match with Hussein showed the lack of authority the state has in Iraq.

 

Bodes badly for the country.

[keyboarder]

This shoddy affair now seems to make our complicity absolute. If we could only deal with our enormous appetite for cheap oil, then maybe we could leave the ridiculous region that is the middle east to their medieval tribal politics.