CONT,

Dagget says >> “Paul and others apologists for the invasion want us to forget the culpability of other ... "

Dagget wants to believe on the strength of a handshake at some time in far past, that the US is responsible for all of Saddam’s actions. I wonder do you indite Chirac for his responsibility for Saddams actions? Putting aside the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam’s reign of terror over the Iraqi people WAS entirely Saddams responsibility. And he would have passed on this dynasty do his murderous sons, Uday and Qusay. Their behaviour truly makes Abu Ghraib’s unpleasantness look like childish horseplay.

Some facts

>> “1978, he had his government issue a memorandum decreeing that anyone whose ideas came into conflict with those of the Baath Party leadership would be subject to summary execution.” http://civilliberty.about.com/od/internationalhumanrights/p/saddam_hussein.htm

>> Saddams torture techniques. Eye Gouging ( as in complete removal ), Drilling through the hands with power drills, rape including the use of broken bottles, acid baths etc. http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/pdf1/fco_hrdossieriraq

>> Saddams war crimes, include the attempt to wipe out the Kurds (as in ethnically cleansing), attempt to wipe out the Shia (again by ethnic cleansing), wiping out the marsh arabs, the poison gas attacks etc http://civilliberty.about.com/od/internationalhumanrights/p/saddam_hussein.htm

Dagget says >> “ if Hussein was personally responsible ... why was he charged only with "the murder of 148 people…"

Are you, by chance, suggesting he is NOT personally responsible for a large number of deaths because he was not charged with them? Because that would be really STUPID.

Yabby,

You say >> “if you had read the links that I posted and had done a bit of homework, you would start to realise that family planning ... ”

Mate reading the green left weekly and the Alternet on a regular basis doesn’t constitute homework. And I never MENTIONED family planning.

So how could I have written it off as a minor issue?

Keith,

The problem is, they don’t know when they’ve lost. It’s like that scene from Monty Python where the knight without arms and legs calls the hero a coward for leaving the fight.

*And I never MENTIONED family planning.*

Paul, quite correct, my mistake, for I typed Paul instead of
Keith and only noticed it, after I read the post. I was not going
to waste another post to rectify it. I thought that the mistake
would be obvious to other, I have yet to see a flaw free poster.

None of this of course changes the fact that George is a dummy
and that his policies are responsible for killing many women in
the third world. All very sad really.

As to Iraq, the problem is not that George killed Saddam but
how he killed Saddam and his two boys. Do you really need to
flatten a country, kill 100'000+ of its people, 4000 of your
own, plus another 20'000 war wounded, to kill 3 people?

Only an idiot would agree, IMHO. A single laser bomb, with
some good inteligence, which the US claims to have, could have
achieved the same thing. Instead, the Iraq war has nearly
bankrupted America and proven Osama bin Laden correct all along.

He did say that America could be beaten by bankrupting its
economy. They are not far off it these days, as the American
$ turns into the American peso, as they print more money to
keep their heads above water.

Paul wrote, "I’m not an apologist for the invasion. It was poorly thought out, poorly executed and based upon flawed intelligence."

The incompetence theory again.

The U.S. Government or April Glaspie (take you pick where the buck ends) were 'incompetent' to have told Hussein that the US would remain neutral in any 'border dispute' between Iraq and Kuwait in 1990 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Glaspie#Meetings_with_Saddam_Hussein)thereby losing an opportunity to nip the first Gulf War in the bud and avoid hundreds of thousands of deaths over the following 13 years.

The US Government was 'incompetent' when it led Shiites and Kurds in 1991 to believe that they would support uprisings against Saddam Hussein when they had no intention of doing so. NORAD was 'incompetent' when it failed to launch a single fighter in time to shoot down the hijacked aircraft before they were able to reach the twin towers and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 (but managed to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93 after the passengers had overpowered the hijackers (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Xoxaf1Al0)). Bush was 'incompetent' when he impersonated an intellectually retarded child whilst knowing his country was under attack on the same day (http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/bush-911.htm http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5WztB6HzXxI).

And they were supposedly 'incompetent' in their invasion of Iraq.

I don't buy that argument and I don't believe Paul does either.

They knew exactly what they were doing on each occasion.

The invasion was a massive scam to allow Bush's crony capitalists to ransack both Iraq and the US treasury.

If the US really cared about human rights they would have invaded Iraq at the end of the Gulf War or in the 1980's.

If they wanted democracy, Paul Bremer would not have cancelled the elections that were spontaneously held shortly after Hussein's regime was overthrown in 2003. That would have pre-empted years of bloodshed, but it would have also got in the way of the crony capitalists plans to loot Iraq's economy, sack hundreds of thousands employed in the public service and formerly state-owned enterprises and receive hundreds of millions from US tax-payers in no-bid contracts for shoddy 'reconstruction' work. (See "The Shock Doctrine" (2007) Klein pp309-359)

I note that Paul has included in his last post gruesome details of humans human rights abuses that were alleged to have happened under Hussein in order, as I wrote before, to "morally bludgeon opponents of the invasion into silence."

Two facts need to be noted:

1. The first document coming from the British Government (http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/pdf1/fco_hrdossieriraq) which had secretly and illegally conspired with Bush to invade Iraq regardless of the outcome of the UN weapons inspections should be considered propaganda and just as suspect as claims made in 1990 of babies in Kuwait having been thrown out of incubators by Iraqi occupiers.

2. The gruesome crimes described in that document, if they occurred, seem no more gruesome than those committed by other US-sponsored regimes around the world in the 1980's, particularly by the genocidal death squad regimes of El Salvador and Guatemala.

---

As far as I am concerned, if Hussein murdered even one opponent during his reign that is one to many and he should have been tried and jailed for such a crime.

The fact that Hussein was tried for the murder of 148 people and not for thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions that the British and Americans claim he is responsible for remains suspicious.

Paul explains that away saying that it would have taken far too long for the trial to be held.

In fact the impression that many have gained was the Hussein's trial was rushed and made so limited in scope precisely to prevent embarassment to the US (and. perhaps other foreign powers) who would have been implicated in the crimes.

And as I wrote earlier, I suspect it would have been difficult given the overall levels of conflict and strife in the region throughout those years to have found Hussein personally responsible for anywhere near the number of deaths that the US and British would have blamed him for.

The human rights abuses of Hussein, mostly committed years before 2003 were nothing more than a (retrospective) excuse, but not the real reasons for the invasion.

Dagget

Says >> “ The incompetence theory again.”

Yes we all know you have major problems with ANY event which isn’t a conspiracy. Would you like to explain how the ALL POWERFUL and ALL KNOWING US Gov’t couldn’t find weapons of mass destruction in IRAQ? After all, you clearly believe that the US gov’t can do ANYTHING, including murdering 3000 of its own people. Please tell me why they couldn’t organise a few stray WMD’s to completely legitimize their actions?

I notice you were unable to answer most of my questions from my previous post. This is typical Dagget evasion when things get difficult to explain. So no retraction for your false accusation? Not even a defence.

You couldn’t answer my point regarding the level of responsibility of Iraqis for their own suffering. Nor my point about the wisdom of leaving Iraq in 2006, when calls to do so were at their strongest, vs. the surge and staying on.

Dagget says >> “facts need to be noted: 1. The first document coming from the British Government”

>NO Dagget, the first document is an "about.com.civil-liberties" page. The second document is from the British gov’t. Actually all the torture claims come directly from complaints made to Amnesty International and Human Rights watch. Are you denying these things took place?

Dagget says >> “In fact the impression that many have gained was the Hussein's trial was rushed ... to prevent embarrassment to the US”

For starters, your impressions are irrelevant, coming from such a uniquely biased starting point. Secondly, the trial didn’t NEED to be any longer to convict Hussein. Thirdly, a shorter trial limited the scope for Saddam to use the witness stand, with all the world’s cameras watching, to rally Baathists and destabilise Iraq as much as he could.

Dagget says >> “And as I wrote earlier, I suspect it would have been difficult … to have found Hussein personally responsible”

You suspect? Again, it’s irrelevant. I notice you dodged this question from my last post as well. So, what crimes DO YOU hold Saddam responsible for?

Yabby

Your behaviour is that of a cowardly little grub.

You have completely quoted me out of context to support your disgraceful aspersion,

You said,

'Ah of course Keith. Why should a minor issue like a few hundred
thousand women dying in the third world, be a major issue to you
or to George?'

I said the following, in relation to the overall topic of whether Geroge Bush was a successful president:

'*The have cherry picked a few minor related issues and tried to debunk the overall assertion by attempting amateurishly to debunk those.*

But you claim that I said the above in relation to the 'few hundred thousand women dying in the third world'. "That was your follow up to Paul. Clearly in that case, you think its a "minor related issue"."

What a load of stupid deceiptfulness.

You drunken little mongrel.

I challenge you to show me where I have ever said

'... a few hundred thousand women dying in the third world, is a minor issue'

You know you shouldn't post when your lonely and pissed. With your behaviour you'll never have respect as a man.