[typoon]

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/art...ing%20Standard

A mass grave containing the bodies of children, babies and their mothers has been unearthed in Iraq.

Shocked investigators reported finding "thighbones the size of matchsticks" at what they believe is the site of one of Saddam Hussein's atrocities. Among the findings-were the skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys.

A baby had been shot in the back of its head and was found still being clutched by its mother, who had been shot in the face. The discovery was reported as Tony Blair came under mounting pressure to apologise to Parliament for the misleading intelligence claiming Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

It will strengthen the Prime Minister's case that despite the intelligencefailures the war to topple the Iraqi dictator was justified by his record as a mass killer of his own people. Mr Blair is facing MPs for the first time since the Iraq Survey Group report last week admitted there were no illegal chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles

Kennedy demanded he make a full Commons statement on the findings but Mr Blair was hoping to escape by merely answering questions at his regular weekly appearance.

The mass grave was being excavated near Hatra, a village in northern Iraq with a large Kurdish population. US-led investigators have located nine trenches so far containing hundreds of bodies, believed to be Kurds killed during the repression of the Eighties. The bodies had been bulldozed into the ground.

Evidence from the graves will be used at the Iraqi Special Tribunal where Saddam will face trial for war crimes. "It is my personal opinion that this is a killing field," said Greg Kehoe, a US official. "Someone used this field on significant occasions over time to take people up there and execute them."

One trench contains only women and children while another contains only men. "The youngest foetus we have was 18 to 20 foetal weeks," said a US investigating anthropologist. "Tiny bones, femurs - thighbones the size of a matchstick."

Some 300,000 people are thought to have been killed during Saddam's regime. Iraq's human rights ministry has reportedly identified 40 possible mass graves across the country.

Meanwhile, Saddam underwent an operation to repair a hernia about 10 days ago and has made a full recovery, Iraqi sources said today.

He has been in US custody since 13 December and appeared in court in July for a preliminary hearing.

[TETENAL]

To convict Saddam Hussein is not enough. All those people who committed these atrocities must be held responsible. Otherwise not much is going to change.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
To convict Saddam Hussein is not enough. All those people who committed these atrocities must be held responsible. Otherwise not much is going to change.

Not necessarily. It would be good for Iraq to hold trials but whole communities of men, women, and children aren't being rounded up, murdered, and thrown into mass graves any more. So something apprarently has changed.

[RAILhead]

Beginning count to "Blaming Bush" --

1... 2... 3...

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by RAILhead:
Beginning coutdown to "Blaming Bush" --

1... 2... 3...

Technically, that's a countup. But anyway...

This discovery is some sad sh1t. Skeletons of mothers who had been shot in the face were found with their babies, who had been shot in the back of the head.

[djohnson]

I am glad that Saddam is gone now.

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by djohnson:
I am glad that Saddam is gone now.

Ya, but is death by car bombs/high calibre bullets much of an improvement?

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Not necessarily.

So you think whoever did this should just get away with it? With a "Sorry, Saddam commanded it. Not my fault. I'll be nice from now on when my government tells me."?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
So you think whoever did this should just get away with it? With a "Sorry, Saddam commanded it. Not my fault. I'll be nice from now on when my government tells me."?

No, that's not what I said. I was challenging your statement that nothing could improve unless all the perpetrators are brought to justice. You are confusing retrospecive justice (punishing the guilty) with prospective prevention of future injustice.

Basically, the Iraqi government is going to have to make a choice -- how far to persue de-Ba'athification. Other countries making similar transitions away from brutal and repressive regimes have had to make the same choice. You have to decide at what point the persuit of justice for the victims becomes counterproductive. Justice for the victims is an obvious good, but taken too far it can prevent a country from making the transitions it needs in the future.

Other countries have all given bigger or smaller amnesties to people involved with the previous regime. I wouldn't presume to tell Iraqis at what level they should decide to amnesty people. I would hope it won't include mass murderers, torturers, or those who instigated mass murder or torture. But exactly where they draw the line is something they will have to decide. I certainly wouldn't tell them that they couldn't amnesty people. Ultimately, the most important thing is that Iraq make a successful transition to a stable future where this kind of barbarism isn't repeated.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
No, that's not what I said. I was challenging your statement that nothing could improve unless all the perpetrators are brought to justice. You are confusing retrospecive justice (punishing the guilty) with prospective prevention of future injustice.

I'm not confusing them. In the long run not much is going to change principally if people know they can get away with murdering children. Crimes against humanity can and must not be excused with the duty of obedience.

I wouldn't presume to tell Iraqis at what level they should decide to amnesty people.

I'm not telling Iraqis what to do. As far as I know none are on this board. My post was directed at the "glad we have Saddam" crowd here.

[swrate]

Saddam committed genocide against the Kurds, and all the people involved should be convicted.

Idem in Rwanda and wherever these sorts of horrors and violences are happening, the list of victims using their past and phobias to become executioners, thus creating new victims, would be long.

The fear of losing control, and the need to keep control leads these "mythomanes" to exterminate, eliminate,and murder in a society becoming schizophrenic .
Beware! it can be contagious.
When arrested and found out, expose their mistakes, and ban them out of the system.
I am sure many Iraqis cannot wait for him to be judged, why so long to find the waha bee in him?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I'm not confusing them. In the long run not much is going to change principally if people know they can get away with murdering children. Crimes against humanity can and must not be excused with the duty of obedience.I'm not telling Iraqis what to do. As far as I know none are on this board. My post was directed at the "glad we have Saddam" crowd here.

Regime change is a rather special circumstance that can justify a certain amount of slate-wiping. Just because the state decides to amnesty a person (or group of people) for some past acts under the previous regime doesn't necessarily mean that similar future acts would go unpunished. Hopefully, the climate of law enforcement and the adherence to human rights norms would be quite different in the new regime from the old one.

In an extreme case, the new regime could do a blanket amnesty for all crimes under the previous regime (Russia has come close to this). If that were done, all the previous criminals would eventually die. As long as the new regime enforced the law in all future crimes, you could still have a complete transition with no repetition of the human rights violations even without a single trial.

More usually, there are trials for ringleaders and people who committed the worst crimes, coupled with amnesties for lower-level people. I'm tempted to give examples, but really there are too many. I don't know of any country that has made this kind of transition that has not (explicitly or implicitly) passed some kind of amnesty.

[MATTRESS]

Like it or not, often time, those in the prior government are the only ones around with the experience and know-how in running government. The key is to find those who can be salvaged, give them amnesty, and offer them a second chance. Justice is more than simply locking someone up or executing them when in the long term justice could be served by allowing the semi-guilty a chance to redeem themselves and contribute positively instead of destructively.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Just because the state decides to amnesty a person (or group of people) for some past acts under the previous regime doesn't necessarily mean that similar future acts would go unpunished. Hopefully, the climate of law enforcement and the adherence to human rights norms would be quite different in the new regime from the old one.

Hardly.

When the first thing the state does is amnesty human rights violators that doesn't really set the climate for adhering to human rights.

I disagree with you. Not sure whether I should be surprised that you jump to the defense of those who murdered defenseless women and children or not.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I disagree with you. Not sure whether I should be surprised that you jump to the defense of those who murdered defenseless women and children or not.

I'm doing no such thing and it is offensive that you would mischaracterize what I said so grotesquely.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I'm doing no such thing and it is offensive that you would mischaracterize what I said so grotesquely.

TETENAL:
All those people who committed these atrocities must be held responsible.

SimeyTheLimey:
Not necessarily.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
TETENAL:
All those people who committed these atrocities must be held responsible.

SimeyTheLimey:
Not necessarily.

I already explained that is not what I said. "Not necessarily" was my response to your statement "[o]therwise not much is going to change."

Sh1t, read what I write.

[TETENAL]

I read and understood well that you and MATTRESS condone an amnesty for those who committed these atrocities.

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I read and understood well that you and MATTRESS condone an amnesty for those who committed these atrocities.

I don't think you understood Simey's post.

[Joshua]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I read and understood well that you and MATTRESS condone an amnesty for those who committed these atrocities.

Does Germany have substantial human rights issues today?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
I don't think you understood Simey's post.

Thanks!

I have to go now. If you have the time, could you try to explain it to him? Much appreciated!

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Thanks!

I have to go now. If you have the time, could you try to explain it to him? Much appreciated!

I'll try....

[MATTRESS]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I read and understood well that you and MATTRESS condone an amnesty for those who committed these atrocities.

I didn't condone amnesty for those who killed people or executed them. I merely stated that sometimes it's necessary not to exclude all who were part of a prior government in the attempt to develop a new one. I doubt seriously that we prevented every single member of the German, Italian, or Japanese governments during World War II from participating in any post-war government mainly because there has to be some sense of continuity and some legitimacy to using those who were in a prior government to ensure the stability of the one you are trying to form. You can't just throw a whole group of people together who have no experience in government and expect to have fully functioning and smoothly running agencies and ministries.

People who took part in these mass killings need to be held accountable but not every Ba'ath pary member took a rifle and stood a the edge of a pit and gunned down these women and children (no more than every Nazi or every Japanese soldier took part in horrific crimes either).

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by MATTRESS:
I merely stated that sometimes it's necessary not to exclude all who were part of a prior government in the attempt to develop a new one.

We were not talking about some lower officials in the garbage collection department or something like that in this thread. We are talking about people who mass-murdered defenseless children, women and men. To quote myself:

Originally posted by TETENAL:
All those people who committed these atrocities must be held responsible.

It was to this statement that you and Simey replied that it is "not necessary" to prosecute these people to make a change and you were talking about amnesty.

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I read and understood well that you and MATTRESS condone an amnesty for those who committed these atrocities.

No body in this forum is suggesting that and it's quite amusing that you're accusing Simey, given his posting history of being in favour of the war and generally in favour of Bush's policy in Iraq, of wanting to see those Iraqis responsible for murder remain free.

There would be tremendous logistical difficulties in trying to apprehend everyone involved in those atrocities meaning that any such operation would be of such a scale that it could take an extraordinarily long time to conclude, if such a thing is even possible. How long before such an exercise became counter-productive? I think many of the surviving relatives see Saddam as the main man responsible for these atrocities and would be quite content with a proper burial of their relatives whilst Saddam was tried for his crimes.

Simey's point is NOT that the others involved should get away with their crimes BUT that given the changes that are taking place in Iraq, the country can move on even if all those responsible for such atrocities are not prosecuted. That's not to say that should evidence emerge against someone who was involved, he should be granted amnesty. By all means he should be tried.

Ultimately I think such a decision should be up to the families involved. If they agree with you, TETENAL that all those involved should be pursued, then fine. If however they are content with Saddam being held responsible, then so be it. Let people move on.

[MATTRESS]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
We were not talking about some lower officials in the garbage collection department or something like that in this thread. We are talking about people who mass-murdered defenseless children, women and men. To quote myself:

To quote myself, with emphasis this time

Like it or not, often time, those in the prior government are the only ones around with the experience and know-how in running government. The key is to find those who can be salvaged, give them amnesty, and offer them a second chance. Justice is more than simply locking someone up or executing them when in the long term justice could be served by allowing the semi-guilty a chance to redeem themselves and contribute positively instead of destructively.

It was to this statement that you and Simey replied that it is "not necessary" to prosecute these people to make a change and you were talking about amnesty.

I wasn't responding to you moreso than I was merely adding to what Simey stated. You really ought to learn some reading comprehension.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
No body in this forum is suggesting that and it's quite amusing that you're accusing Simey, given his posting history of being in favour of the war and generally in favour of Bush's policy in Iraq, of wanting to see those Iraqis responsible for murder remain free.

There would be tremendous logistical difficulties in trying to apprehend everyone involved in those atrocities meaning that any such operation would be of such a scale that it could take an extraordinarily long time to conclude, if such a thing is even possible. How long before such an exercise became counter-productive? I think many of the surviving relatives see Saddam as the main man responsible for these atrocities and would be quite content with a proper burial of their relatives whilst Saddam was tried for his crimes.

Simey's point is NOT that the others involved should get away with their crimes BUT that given the changes that are taking place in Iraq, the country can move on even if all those responsible for such atrocities are not prosecuted. That's not to say that should evidence emerge against someone who was involved, he should be granted amnesty. By all means he should be tried.

Ultimately I think such a decision should be up to the families involved. If they agree with you, TETENAL that all those involved should be pursued, then fine. If however they are content with Saddam being held responsible, then so be it. Let people move on.

Exactly.

Thanks for the help.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
TETENAL:
All those people who committed these atrocities must be held responsible.

SimeyTheLimey:
Not necessarily.

FUZZY FILTER ALERT!

Inability to interpret accurately
Twisting opponents argument
Failure to read thoroughly

[aberdeenwriter]

Ladies and gentlemen, I came to this thread late and haven't yet read every response.

However, I think it's important to point out the need for the new Iraqi gummint to distance itself from the Americans if they are to be seen as their own men and not puppets of the US.

Even though I detest the idea of ANY of Saddam's men or ANY of the current insurgents being 'amnesticized,' it may be the best and perhaps ONLY way to quell the violent opposition to perceived American empire building.

There will HAVE to be some decisions by the Iraqi leadership that the American civilian and military leaders will vehemently oppose in order to gain the trust of the Iraqi people.

I think the very best of these decisions will be those which effectively bring some relatively heinous individuals and groups back into a NEW national 'fold' and build a sense of unity
among previously warring factions.

If the new Iraqi govt. begins to act like a sovereign state the US will have to treat them as such. This will NOT go unnoticed by the people.

An important step if the Iraqi people are to have confidence in their government.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Exactly.

Thanks for the help.

Dateline Oct 12, 2004:
LBK and STL team up in a striking display of bipartisan sanity !!

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Krusty:
Dateline Oct 12, 2004:
LBK and STL team up in a striking display of bipartisan sanity !!

LBK admires his mind, I noticed it the other day but said nothing.
I'm hoping they can find the same happiness I've found with my lover man, Cody Dawg.

Hey! Good for you two!

[Taliesin]

Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's henchmen and even chemical weapons used on them. That reminds me of the behaviour of british colonists in the last century, they also used chemical weapons on them. Churchill was very fond of the use of chemical weapons against "savages", like he put it.

But on topic, Saddam Hussein and his dictatorship was a bastard, but he was the US' bastard, installed, trained, supported, financed and even equipped with chemical weapons, when it was clear that he would use them against civilians, by the US. If you think about, chemical weapons are only really useful against civilians, armies often have gas-maskes.

The US obviously thought that such a cruel bastard was necessary to keep the Iraq together and espescially free from communists and later useful in containing Iran.

Saddam can and will rot in hell, together with the mastermind of global US-terrorism Henry Kissinger.

Taliesin

[andi*pandi]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
LBK admires his mind, I noticed it the other day but said nothing.
I'm hoping they can find the same happiness I've found with my lover man, Cody Dawg.

bwahaha! good to see senses of humor alive and well, despite being in a thread about such sad things.

[gerbnl]

Originally posted by Taliesin:
But on topic, Saddam Hussein and his dictatorship was a bastard, but he was the US' bastard, installed, trained, supported, financed and even equipped with chemical weapons, when it was clear that he would use them against civilians, by the US. If you think about, chemical weapons are only really useful against civilians, armies often have gas-maskes.

I love it when all that is needed is a

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by Taliesin:
Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's henchmen and even chemical weapons used on them. That reminds me of the behaviour of british colonists in the last century, they also used chemical weapons on them. Churchill was very fond of the use of chemical weapons against "savages", like he put it.

But on topic, Saddam Hussein and his dictatorship was a bastard, but he was the US' bastard, installed, trained, supported, financed and even equipped with chemical weapons, when it was clear that he would use them against civilians, by the US. If you think about, chemical weapons are only really useful against civilians, armies often have gas-maskes.

The US obviously thought that such a cruel bastard was necessary to keep the Iraq together and espescially free from communists and later useful in containing Iran.

Saddam can and will rot in hell, together with the mastermind of global US-terrorism Henry Kissinger.

Taliesin

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
LBK admires his mind, I noticed it the other day but said nothing.
I'm hoping they can find the same happiness I've found with my lover man, Cody Dawg.

Hey! Good for you two!

Can I have some of whatever it is that you are smoking?

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by andi*pandi:
bwahaha! good to see senses of humor alive and well, despite being in a thread about such sad things.

Yes.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
Can I have some of whatever it is that you are smoking?

Yes. Anytime.

[Troll]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
Can I have some of whatever it is that you are smoking?

You want some of what he's smoking? You realise that there's a high probability you'll start having apparitions of spies and terrorists crawling around inside your monitor?

[Troll]

The problem with amnesties is that there has to be a stick behind them. There is of course an intrinsic societal value in having the truth come out. People need closure on what happened. They need to know that society acknowledges the horrors and isn't pretending they never happened and they also need to know that society condemns those acts. That requires a public story-telling process. You can't just pass legislation and let everyone continue as if nothing happened.

Truth Commissions are an option that a few countries have used. I'm not entirely enamoured with the idea but I think that as long as you maintain a big stick then you can make them work. You have to give people a choice of either coming 100% at the Commission or facing justice. And then you have to actually sue those who didn't come clean. This is where a lot of other Amnesty deals have fallen flat IMHO. You don't resolve the tension if you let people get away.

The remaining question would be what to do with the regime members themselves. Fairness dictates that you let them benefit from the amnesty as well, although I think genocide is something that you can't exonerate.

It's a tough one. I think you inevitably tear a country apart with trials. Amnesties are more effective at rebuilding a nation after a traumatic experience such as that Iraq has had, but they only work if the Commission investigating has teeth. Otherwise people ignore it and that defeats the whole purpose of the process. People take the law into their own hands and you're back to square one.

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by Troll:
You want some of what he's smoking? You realise that there's a high probability you'll start having apparitions of spies and terrorists crawling around inside your monitor?

You make an excellent point.