[maxx9photo]

So much for WMD and democracy huh? oh yeah that's right oil is more important for US goverment

story link

[PacHead]

[Nicko]

It will be interesting to see how the fascists on this board twist this fact to their liking

[PacHead]

Those deaths are by who ? Crazy Muslim terrorists ?

Ain't our doing. . . .

If some wacked out, evil Muslim decides to detonate himself in downtown Baghdad, killing 50 other Muslims, it is fairly obvious that we (the USA) are not responsible.

[maxx9photo]

Offcourse USA responsible for all the mess you **** head! you're blind and so much blind so you can't see the truth!. Better you sleep and don't waste your small brain to think!.

[PacHead]

Originally posted by maxx9photo:
Offcourse USA responsible for all the mess you **** head! you're blind and so much blind so you can't see the truth!. Better you sleep and don't waste your small brain to think!.

Another pea-brained liberal response.

I don't need you telling me the truth.

[eklipse]

: yawn :

If these were American deaths it would be news......

[icruise]

Originally posted by eklipse:
: yawn :

If these were American deaths it would be news......

No sh!t.

[Nicko]

Originally posted by eklipse:
: yawn :

If these were American deaths it would be news......

Indeed. I guess the market rate for an amarican life is still 1000 foreingers:1

[shmerek]

That is ****ing horrible. War crimes anyone??

[Spliffdaddy]

15,000 - not 100,000

[Ω]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
15,000 - not 100,000

And this is acceptable?

[Spliffdaddy]

Originally posted by _?_:
And this is acceptable?

yes.

It was acceptable when Saddam did it.

[sideus]

Nobody whined when Saddam was doing it. Typical.

[Saad]

Originally posted by PacHead:
Those deaths are by who ? Crazy Muslim terrorists ?

Ain't our doing. . . .

If some wacked out, evil Muslim decides to detonate himself in downtown Baghdad, killing 50 other Muslims, it is fairly obvious that we (the USA) are not responsible.

Attacks of those size were not taking place in Hussein's Iraq. Security in Iraq seems to have suffered under the US appointed government.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by maxx9photo:
So much for WMD and democracy huh? oh yeah that's right oil is more important for US goverment

story link

The Law of War

http://www.cadetstuff.org/archives/p000209.html

1. War must be fought for a just cause. The definition of just cause has varied over the centuries. In Roman times, it included revenge; in the Middle Ages, the spread of religion. But it is not just any old thing a person might think is important. In fact, over the years just cause has been narrowed down until today it is pretty much limited to defense of one's own nation, or allies, after some act of aggression has been taken against them by another nation. The doing of this kind of justice through warfare might even be stretched, as we did in the recent Kosovo air war, to include defending the victims of genocide from aggression coming from within their own nation, though that was controversial at the time. It is possible that two warring peoples may both believe they have just causes, but they are seldom, if ever, of equal moral weight. In our own Civil War, the Confederacy fought for states' rights while the Union fought to end slavery. Both of these were good causes, but freedom for all citizens was far and away the greater of them. What a nation may not do in the name of just war is go to war for the unjust purpose of enriching itself or expanding its borders, or to annihilate a disliked minority ethnic group or force its majority religion on so-called "infidels." The fear that another nation is going to attack does not ordinarily qualify as just cause for pre-emptive strikes. But, when attacks of an unusually horrifying nature (such as terror attacks with weapons of mass destruction) are known with reasonable certainty to be imminent, a nation does have the right to defend its civilian population by pre-empting such attacks.

2. There must be some proportionality between the harm that will be done to the offending nation to get it to stop its aggression and the harm that it has already done and will do in the future if that aggression is allowed to continue. While many critics of war with Iraq are deeply concerned, as we should be, with the harm that may be done to Iraqi non-combatants, we must also consider what harm will come to innocent civilians around the world if radical Muslim terrorists are allowed to threaten us all with weapons of mass destruction provided by Iraq.

[Saad]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
yes.

It was acceptable when Saddam did it.

It wasn't OK then either, and perhaps even less OK now. The interim government is charged with the responsibility of protecting Iraqis, whereas Hussein's government's main interest was self preservation.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Saad:
It wasn't OK then either, and perhaps even less OK now. The interim government is charged with the responsibility of protecting Iraqis, whereas Hussein's government's main interest was self preservation.

That interim government has requested and is receiving US assistance in establishing their new democracy.

[Saad]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
That interim government has requested and is receiving US assistance in establishing their new democracy.

What good are increased civil liberties to dead Iraqis? I think that the primary service offered by a government (including the interim one) is protecting its populace.

They do have limitted resources, though. It would be unreasonable to expect no attacks at all, but it would be nice if such a thing materialized.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Saad:
What good are increased civil liberties to dead Iraqis? I think that the primary service offered by a government (including the interim one) is protecting its populace.

They do have limitted resources, though. It would be unreasonable to expect no attacks at all, but it would be nice if such a thing materialized.

If the insurgents simply STOPPED the fighting civilians could start getting back to living their lives. Here's an example of what CAN happen were they to do so.

After the citizens tired of all the fighting they insisted on peace. People got the courage to turn against the troublemakers and now reconstruction has begun.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4127537

Iraq
U.S. Initiates Reconstruction Program in Baghdad Slum

All Things Considered, October 26, 2004 � The vast slum of Sadr City in Baghdad was the scene of heavy fighting in August and September between U.S. troops and supporters of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The district is largely quiet now, and U.S. commanders are preparing to launch a major reconstruction program that will give jobs to thousands of slum-dwellers. NPR's Anne Garrels reports.

[Saad]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:


All Things Considered, October 26, 2004 � The vast slum of Sadr City in Baghdad was the scene of heavy fighting in August and September between U.S. troops and supporters of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The district is largely quiet now, and U.S. commanders are preparing to launch a major reconstruction program that will give jobs to thousands of slum-dwellers. NPR's Anne Garrels reports.

That should be taking place eerywhere in Iraq. Happy people don't kill eachother. The government's goal is to protect its populace, and it has not done as well as it should have.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Saad:
That should be taking place eerywhere in Iraq. Happy people don't kill eachother. The government's goal is to protect its populace, and it has not done as well as it should have.

In time it will be nationwide.

The interim government is still in it's infancy and as the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day.

As illustrated by our history of posted exchanges, Saad, I'll point out it takes TWO to tango. Maybe when the people see peace and progress in Sadr City they'll force their neighborhood insurgents to stop fighting so they, (like the residents in Sadr City) can enjoy peace.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Saad:
Attacks of those size were not taking place in Hussein's Iraq. Security in Iraq seems to have suffered under the US appointed government.

Here's a site which gives some details about the things Saddam did.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/926912/posts

_
* Unspeakable Acts: Mass Murder
* Unspeakable Acts: Torture
* Unspeakable Acts: Mutilation
* Pervasive Fear
* The Disappeared: Living with the Terror
* The Children: No Iraqi Too Small
* The Athletes: A High Price for Defeat
* Unimaginable Places

Just ONE example:

"The civilians were hanged. Sometimes a soldier would come through and they were all shot. I could distinguish them by their uniforms. This grave belongs to a woman. She was hanged. There are another five cemeteries in Baghdad with secret gravesites so in this city alone there are about 6,000 (political) corpses."
-- Gravedigger at a Baghdad cemetery, Agence France-Presse, April 21, 2003

EDIT: Saddam simply CRUSHED any dissent or protest. The father of Muslim cleric and insurgent leader, Muqtada al-Sadr was assassinated by Saddam and a protest against Saddam for the killing resulted in many more deaths.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...478F0B6DAD.htm

The people first turned to communism to address their social woes, then to the homegrown revolutionary ideology of Ayat Allah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, executed by the_government in 1980, and his cousin Ayat Allah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr assassinated in 1999._

Both men had studied for years under the leader of the Iranian Revolution_Ayat Allah Khomeini.__

According to Shaikh Abd al-Zahra, the Imam of al-Hikma mosque in Sadr City, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was revolutionary because he called for the formation of a just Islamic state. He won support from the impoverished because he called the clergy to a leading role against social injustice.

Most importantly, he dared to stand up for them to Saddam Hussein.

"Al-Sadr demanded the government release prisoners, because many of our youth and men of religion were just rotting in jail and no one knew their fate," says Abd al-Zahra.

"He called state ministers to ask for forgiveness. He used to chant: 'No, no to Satan, no, no to the unjust one!' And everyone knew that what he meant by Satan was Saddam."

Executions_

In 1999, Ayat Allah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was assassinated after Friday prayers in the city of Najaf.

As news reached al-Sadr's loyalist enclave in Baghdad, tens of thousands of poor Shia converged on al-Muhsin mosque in Sadr City in mourning. Security agencies fired into the air to break up the crowd, and mourners turned into an enraged mob, attacking them with rocks and their bare hands._

Before long, more than 1000 Baath party and security forces were on the scene with tanks and APCs, firing randomly on the mostly unarmed crowds.

Security forces closed al-Muhsin mosque, welded its doors shut and launched a massive campaign of arrests and executions.

No one knows how many died overall but residents say the events touched all families and left_victims in every street of the city. Similar scenes were repeated in Najaf and other cities of southern and central Iraq.

[Taliesin]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
15,000 - not 100,000

No, the new study says it are 100,000 killed civilians, and that Falluja was even excluded. They also said that if they had also included Fallujah into the study, that it could be up to 200,000 killed civilians. Most, more than 90%, of these killed civilians, the study said, were killed by US-forces during the war. No terrorists, just US-air-bombardment, oh wait, what do I tell, the US-airforce is full of terrorists.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996596

Taliesin

[kido]

Senator AIKEN: I think your 3,000 estimate might be a little low because we had to help 800,000 find sanctuary from North Vietnam after the French lost at Dienbienphu. But assuming that we resettle the members of the Saigon government, who would undoubtedly be in danger in some other area, what do you think would be the attitude, of the large, well-armed South Vietnamese army and the South Vietnamese people? Would they be happy to have us withdraw or what?


Mr. KERRY: Well, Senator, this obviously is the most difficult question of all, but I think that at this point the United States is not really in a position to consider the happiness of those people as pertains to the army in our withdrawal. We have to consider the happiness of the people as pertains to the life which they will be able to lead in the next few years.

If we don�t withdraw, if we maintain a Korean-type presence in South Vietnam, say 50,000 troops or something, with strategic bombing raids from Guam and from Japan and from Thailand dropping these 15,000 pound fragmentation bombs on them, et cetera, in the next few years, then what you will have is a people who are continually oppressed, who are continually at warfare, and whose problems will not at all be solved because they will not have any kind of representation. The war will continue. So what I�m saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America, and we can�t go around � President Kennedy said this, many times. He said that the United States simply can�t right every wrong, that we can�t solve the problems of the other 94 percent of mankind. We didn�t go into East Pakistan; we didn�t go into Czechoslovakia. Why then should we feel that we now have the power to solve the internal political struggles of this country?

We have to let them solve their problems while we solve ours and help other people in an altruistic fashion commensurate with our capacity. But we have extended that capacity; we have exhausted that capacity, Senator. So I think the question is really moot.

Senator AIKEN: Do you think we are under obligation to furnish them with extensive economic assistance?

Mr. KERRY: Yes, sir. I think we have a very definite obligation to make extensive reparations to the people of Indochina.

[SubGeniux]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/3964311.stm

Must feel great to be liberated. What's the tally now of Iraqi civilian deaths in the last 14 years due to Sanctions? 600,000? 1 million?

At this rate, The US will have murdered more Iraqis than Saddam ever did, as well as utterly destroying a sovereign nation, plus created a country rife with civil unrest and future terrorists.

Way to go Bush. That figure above is just not acceptable., not to any civilsed nation.

[Taliesin]

What has happened in Iraq to the civilians is just the logical consequence of the US-pentagon's decision to use less american troops and to make up for it with US-air-bombardments. The calculation is that it is better to kill many more civilians (airplane-bombs and rockets kill more people and and more indiscrimanately than US-soldiers on the ground firing machine-guns or tank-shells) than to risk the lifes of US-soldiers, which could lead to a changed public opinion back at home!

Sick.

Now this is for the neo-cons that are always saying that Saddam Hussein was worse than US-intervention: Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party were installed and supported for decades by the US, exactly because of his cruelty and ability to keep stability in Iraq with all means, and espescially his willingness to kill communists.
You could say, that well the previous US-administrations have made a strategic decision and that was the cold-war, now we are here to fix things by invading the country and toppling the dictatorship. Wrong again, the sanctions that were put on Iraq have indeed prolonged the life of the dictatorship, while torturing the civilian population. Without the sanctions Hussein would have lost his support even among the sunnis, and maybe a revolution of the masses would have led to some form of democracy.
A democracy in Iraq is only satisfactory when it has been fought for by the iraqis themselves. Mostly it is wide-spread education of the masses that leads to the wish to govern and control themselves. Iraq's population was indeed pretty educated before the sanctions and therefore it wouldn't have taken long till a democratic revolution would have broken out. The sanctions and the invasion have actually disturbed and countered that natural process.

Taliesin

[Taliesin]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:


EDIT: Saddam simply CRUSHED any dissent or protest. The father of Muslim cleric and insurgent leader, Muqtada al-Sadr was assassinated by Saddam and a protest against Saddam for the killing resulted in many more deaths.

Exactly for that job Saddam Hussein and the Baath-party were recruited, trained and installed by the US, to keep the country free from communism, to kill all communists, and to keep the country stable with all means. For several decades Saddam Hussein was supported by the US and even delivered with WMD's like chemical weapons to exactly make that possible.

Human rights were definetly no concern for the US and weren't a reason for the toppling of Saddam Hussein at all.

Taliesin

[badidea]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
That interim government has requested and is receiving US assistance in establishing their new democracy.

That's something Florida should also consider to request!
(or isn't it a shame that the OSZE has to send election supervisors to Florida - something they normally only do in 3rd world countries!?)

[Saad]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
In time it will be nationwide.

As illustrated by our history of posted exchanges, Saad, I'll point out it takes TWO to tango. Maybe when the people see peace and progress in Sadr City they'll force their neighborhood insurgents to stop fighting so they, (like the residents in Sadr City) can enjoy peace.

The Iraqi people are not willing terrorism on themselves. The government should be able to defend its people, and this one is not.

[Saad]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
Here's a site which gives some details about the things Saddam did.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/926912/posts

_
* Unspeakable Acts: Mass Murder
* Unspeakable Acts: Torture
* Unspeakable Acts: Mutilation
* Pervasive Fear
* The Disappeared: Living with the Terror
* The Children: No Iraqi Too Small
* The Athletes: A High Price for Defeat
* Unimaginable Places

Just ONE example:

"The civilians were hanged. Sometimes a soldier would come through and they were all shot. I could distinguish them by their uniforms. This grave belongs to a woman. She was hanged. There are another five cemeteries in Baghdad with secret gravesites so in this city alone there are about 6,000 (political) corpses."
-- Gravedigger at a Baghdad cemetery, Agence France-Presse, April 21, 2003

EDIT: Saddam simply CRUSHED any dissent or protest. The father of Muslim cleric and insurgent leader, Muqtada al-Sadr was assassinated by Saddam and a protest against Saddam for the killing resulted in many more deaths.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...478F0B6DAD.htm

The people first turned to communism to address their social woes, then to the homegrown revolutionary ideology of Ayat Allah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, executed by the_government in 1980, and his cousin Ayat Allah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr assassinated in 1999._

Both men had studied for years under the leader of the Iranian Revolution_Ayat Allah Khomeini.__

According to Shaikh Abd al-Zahra, the Imam of al-Hikma mosque in Sadr City, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was revolutionary because he called for the formation of a just Islamic state. He won support from the impoverished because he called the clergy to a leading role against social injustice.

Most importantly, he dared to stand up for them to Saddam Hussein.

"Al-Sadr demanded the government release prisoners, because many of our youth and men of religion were just rotting in jail and no one knew their fate," says Abd al-Zahra.

"He called state ministers to ask for forgiveness. He used to chant: 'No, no to Satan, no, no to the unjust one!' And everyone knew that what he meant by Satan was Saddam."

Executions_

In 1999, Ayat Allah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was assassinated after Friday prayers in the city of Najaf.

As news reached al-Sadr's loyalist enclave in Baghdad, tens of thousands of poor Shia converged on al-Muhsin mosque in Sadr City in mourning. Security agencies fired into the air to break up the crowd, and mourners turned into an enraged mob, attacking them with rocks and their bare hands._

Before long, more than 1000 Baath party and security forces were on the scene with tanks and APCs, firing randomly on the mostly unarmed crowds.

Security forces closed al-Muhsin mosque, welded its doors shut and launched a massive campaign of arrests and executions.

No one knows how many died overall but residents say the events touched all families and left_victims in every street of the city. Similar scenes were repeated in Najaf and other cities of southern and central Iraq.

Hussein's government did keep its people safe from Islamic extremists. How many did Hussein kill in 2001? Not 15,000. I am not defendding their service to the Iraqi people, only pointing out that Iraq was more secure under Hussein from Islamic extremists than it is under the interim government.

[Isaac]

Originally posted by Taliesin:
What has happened in Iraq to the civilians is just the logical consequence of the US-pentagon's decision to use less american troops and to make up for it with US-air-bombardments. The calculation is that it is better to kill many more civilians (airplane-bombs and rockets kill more people and and more indiscrimanately than US-soldiers on the ground firing machine-guns or tank-shells) than to risk the lifes of US-soldiers, which could lead to a changed public opinion back at home!

Sick.

Now this is for the neo-cons that are always saying that Saddam Hussein was worse than US-intervention: Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party were installed and supported for decades by the US, exactly because of his cruelty and ability to keep stability in Iraq with all means, and espescially his willingness to kill communists.
You could say, that well the previous US-administrations have made a strategic decision and that was the cold-war, now we are here to fix things by invading the country and toppling the dictatorship. Wrong again, the sanctions that were put on Iraq have indeed prolonged the life of the dictatorship, while torturing the civilian population. Without the sanctions Hussein would have lost his support even among the sunnis, and maybe a revolution of the masses would have led to some form of democracy.
A democracy in Iraq is only satisfactory when it has been fought for by the iraqis themselves. Mostly it is wide-spread education of the masses that leads to the wish to govern and control themselves. Iraq's population was indeed pretty educated before the sanctions and therefore it wouldn't have taken long till a democratic revolution would have broken out. The sanctions and the invasion have actually disturbed and countered that natural process.

Taliesin

actualy, with what I've read on Iraqie's politcal composition... I'd guess that a revolution would either be (state-)socialist/communist or anarchist... not democratic.....


I'm not sure how much effect Islamic extreamism has had on Iraq... I know there's alot of media and government sources that want to say that the current insurrection is the result of Islamic extreamism, but the government and media seems to want to taint alot of secular fights with a religious fanatical facade.... like Basra, the most secualar city in the middle east, being the the home of Shia insurrection...

and I must say, when the FBI confiscated Indimedia servers, there wasn't any armed protest, or guerilla resistance... hell it's happened several times now, and the response has been minimal... but in Iraq, the US military shuts down a newspaper and you get immeditate militant response.... seems that Iraqies value "free speech" and "free press" alot more then americans....