There were no terrorists in Iraq... Saddam would not have
Posted By: read some history books on 2006-09-27
In Reply to: That might have worked, if all the terrorists were in Afghanistan. nm - Brunson
allowed anyone other than himself to be the terror! He would have had their heads if they were amassing there as he had TOTAL control of who and what was in his country. He also kept his peoples: the Sunis, the Shiites, and the Kurds on track. He would have never let a civil war happen. As stated, he had total control, now we have unleashed, and helped to create more, infidels.
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Saddam insisted on euros for Iraq's oil. sm
About six months to a year before 911 happened, Saddam started insisting on payments for their oil in Euros instead of dollars. This did damage to the dollar. The US was furious. I remember Bush Sr. making the comment the American way of life is non-negotiable or something like that.
I disagree...I do not think Saddam Hussein left to do what he would in Iraq....
would have helped this country's security. I still believe there was WMD and I believe it is in Syria. He obviously had WMD in form of chemicals, he used them on his own people. That all had to go somewhere. But people totally discount that. What if Hussein had given AL Qaeda a container of Ricin that they released in New York City in the subway system?
I want a man in the white house that AL Qaeda is afraid would retaliate and will keep their feet to the fire. I don't think that man is Obama.
I respect your take on it...I just have a different take on it.
Al Qaeda is in Iraq.. full of terrorists.We learn more
nm
Fight terrorists where they live. Iraq=Shia OBL=Sunni
OBL last sighted in a cave in Afghanistan. Taliban power concentrated in Afghanistan...never Iraq. Iraq had secular govt. Afghanistan govt based on Sharia law.
O is not about a phoney war. He is about disarming the real terrorists who waged war on our country. He has not wavered on this message and has always been candid about his intent. He knows what he is doing. You are being disingenuous with your little veiled innuendo. Ineffective and uninformed.
BTW, SP gave us a 7th grade social studies definition of what NATO membership means. What she did not seem to be aware of is the controversy that has surrounded Georgia's aspirations to become a NATO nation. Its's really tricky business and not a foregone conclusion that it will actually happen, especially in view of its own recent aggression in South Ossetia. NATO has been cautious at best and is not terribly enthusistic about extending membership to Georgia, given the fact that it could very well touch off a litany of cold war scenarios in the region relative to those countries' relationships to Russia, both past and present. Bush has his own agendas to serve by pushing in favor of Georgia's NATO membership. Three guesses what that might be. Think pipeline. Think Oil, oil or oil. There has been a lot going on there behind the scenes in that respect with US troops in the region.
Therefore, a leader of the US versed in foreign policy might have been more forthcoming in response to Gibson's question than a simplistic 7th grade definition of a NATO's function. For example, ask Biden the same question and he could talk for hours on the subject.
And that statement is ridiculous, Iran and Iraq enemies, remember the Iran-Iraq war? Iraq would jus
nm
Bush didn't destroy Iraq. He helped to liberate Iraq.
m
Saddam US friend
Six months after the gassing of Kurds in 1988, the White House lent Saddam a billion dollars. In 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, US troops stood idly by while Saddam's presidential guards ruthlessly suppressed the uprising by the Kurds that Poppy Bush encouraged and had called for. In 1980, Saddam was made an honorary citizen of Detroit, Michigan. He was our friend back then, even though we knew his blood thirsty ways. We even supplied him with WMD, which we then destroyed with fly over bombing through the 1990's with sanctions placed on the country to weaken it even more. We also were friends with Osama in the 1970's when we had him and Afghan freedom fighters fight against Russia as we did not want Russia to have control of Afghanistan. In essence, Osama was trained by our CIA for war.
Saddam v. Bush
I agree 100%, especially after watching those videos you so kindly supplied.
We all know how terrible Saddam is. It almost hurts to write that an American president could be worse. He obviously doesn't personally care how many Americans and Iraqis he's killing over there. He doesn't care that he's created a huge deficit that didn't exist before he showed up. I thought Republicans were supposed to be in favor of no deficits and less government. He cares more about stem cells that are about to be thrown in the garbage than he does about living, breathing human Americans who are already here.
He's abrasive and arrogant, and I actually feel sorry for Tony Blair, who I think has stayed with Bush out of a sense of intense loyalty to America. Bush has put Blair's career on shaky ground.
As far as war crimes, it isn't over yet. This whole war might be deemed to be illegal. Wouldn't surprise me one bit. That is, if we all live long enough to see it and aren't killed first by terrorists as a result of his neglect in securing his own country.
Seems to me if there's a WMD anywhere, it's in Crawford, and it's George W. Bush.
Hitler vs Saddam
I remember the stories as a young girl about Saddam throwing babies up in the air and shoting them as they fall. This was during Bush Sr.'s term. There is no doubt in my mind that he was tyrannical and murderous, but from what I understand the mass murderings, chemical genocide in Iraq happened in the 80's and early 90's. The threat of the Gulf War and UN sanctioning (and I know if it's failures)had pretty much tight gripped the dictator. There was no immediate humanitarian need for action in 2003 I'm aware of.
Hitler had a well publicized plan and factory like set up to eliminate the Jews. There was an immediate need to stop him.
Saddam Hussein set the example
of how the UN's ''stern warnings'' are to be regarded. One simply ignores them and does as one wishes. In time, a ''sterner warning'' is issued, which one pays no attention to, etc. This can go on for years, the warnings becoming more and more urgent, the UN doing nothing about the situation, except hold meetings, blather and warn and sanction. The difference? Oh, NK now has nuclear weapons. Give them several years' worth of warnings and their nuclear program should progress very nicely. They may actually be able to hit something with a missile eventually.
Yeah, Saddam was such a little angel then
not causing a lick of problem for his people and the world. The 1990's was when he was testing chemical weapons on his OWN PEOPLE. Yep, things were just hunky dorey. Clinton was having oral sex in the oval office, and life was just one big orgy.
You mean, Bush's patience ran out with Saddam after 9/11.
Like I said, I can live in a post-Saddam world just fine, but I don't think it was America's place to invade that country and impose democracy on those people.
Basically, only the Kurds had the courage to stand up to Saddam. What are they going to do when we leave? We shouldn't be the protectors of the Iraqi people. It's not fair to Africa and all of the others who are living under brutal dictators.
Should we start sending America's troops to protect and save everyone who is living under a brutal dictator? I don't think we can.
Arabs Split Over Saddam
Arabs Split Over Saddam |
Wednesday, October 19, 2005 
CAIRO, Egypt Across the Arab world, some watched intently as Saddam Hussein (search) went on trial Wednesday for crimes against Iraqis but others seemed not to care a sign the former Iraqi leader still divides this region two years after his fall.
The region's influential satellite television networks, Al-Jazeera (search) and Al-Arabiya (search), carried nonstop coverage starting hours before the trial began. Pan-Arab dailies like al-Hayat also splashed the opening day on their front pages.
But Saudi Arabia's Arabic language-daily Al-Watan used the headline: Saddam's Trial: No one cares and added: The curtains have opened, the cast is ready and the audience is busy with other issues ... Even if we concede that the majority of Iraqis hate Saddam, they also hate how things have developed.
Yet in Kuwait, which Saddam invaded in 1990, feelings in support of the trial ran strong.
We have been waiting for this trial for a long time not only us, but the Iraqi people and Iranian people as well. We say this is the end of every oppressor, said Omar Al-Murad, a 43-year-old architect.
Many Palestinians also watched closely, but with the opposite view.
Weal Naser, a 42-year-old Palestinian owner of a Gaza vegetable shop, said Palestinians can never forget Saddam's past support for their cause. At the start of the Palestinian uprising against Israel, Saddam paid $15,000 to families of Palestinian suicide bombers, later raising it to $25,000.
He supported the martyrs' families and he helped many students in Palestine or during their studies in Iraq, he said.
Saddam is paying now the price for being a hero, for saying 'No' to America and to (President) Bush, Naser said.
If the world wants justice, as they claim, they should bring Bush and (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon to trial before Saddam.
Palestinian taxi driver Saed Souror, 32, was more ambivalent about Saddam but equally critical of the trial.
I am not a Saddam supporter, but I am against this trial because it came upon American orders, Souror said. If Saddam was a murderer, what can we call the American acts there?
Egypt's state-owned press chose to mostly ignore the trial, with a few carrying small stories inside but none putting it on the front page.
Jordan's media reported on Saddam's trial but provided no independent commentary or analysis, apparently to avoid stirring public anger already high because of opposition to the U.S. invasion.
A columnist in respected pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat said the trial has lost much of its meaning because of the bloody insurgency that now attacks Iraqis daily. Some of the worst terror attacks are blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
It should have been held when Iraqis' memory was full of images of humiliation and that of tens of thousands of the victims and handicapped of the wars, Lebanese columnist Samir Attallah wrote.
Instead, he added: Al-Zarqawi has erased from the minds and hearts all the past horrors. Innocent Iraqis used to die in prison and in their homes, now the occupation resistance is killing the Iraqi innocents and their children in the streets.
In Dubai, the Gulf News paper said in an editorial that not just Saddam, but Iraq itself is on trial, to see whether its new government can rise to the occasion and give Saddam a fair hearing.
Anything less will be a permanent scar upon Iraq and its future, the paper said. |
So you think the genocidal Saddam changed
That's the real question here. Have you listened to his tirades during his circus of a trial? Anyone who believed Saddam changed from being mentally unstable genocidal megalomanic while still the dictator of Iraq has to be the most naive person on Earth. Because he is demonstrating in court that he's still a megalomanic. The U.N. gave them adequate time to straighten up and fly right, and as you know the U.N. is having major corruption problems, so any agreements we have with them are shaky at best. You are right on one statement. The war in Iraq was wayyyy overdue.
Saddam's in his final hours....sm
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The official witnesses to Saddam Hussein's impending execution gathered Friday in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging, as state television broadcast footage of his regime's atrocities.
With U.S. forces on high alert for a surge in violence, the Iraqi government readied all the necessary documents, including a red card - an execution order introduced during Saddam's dictatorship. As the hour of his death approached, Saddam received two of his half brothers in his cell on Thursday and was said to have given them his personal belongings and a copy of his will.
Najeeb al-Nueimi, a member of Saddam's legal team in Doha, Qatar, said he too requested a final meeting with the deposed Iraqi leader. His daughter in Amman was crying, she said 'Take me with you,' al-Nueimi said late Friday. But he said their request was rejected.
An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saddam would be executed before 6 a.m. Saturday, or 10 p.m. Friday EST. Also to be hanged at that time were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, the adviser said.
The time was agreed upon during a meeting Friday between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said the adviser, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Saddam will be handed over shortly before the execution, the official said. The physical transfer of Saddam from U.S. to Iraqi authorities was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged. Saddam has been in U.S. custody since he was captured in December 2003.
Al-Nueimi said U.S. authorities were maintaining physical custody of Saddam to prevent him from being humiliated before his execution. He said the Americans also want to prevent the mutilation of his corpse, as has happened to other deposed Iraqi leaders.
The Americans want him to be hanged respectfully, al-Nueimi said. If Saddam is humiliated publicly or his corpse ill-treated that could cause an uprising and the Americans would be blamed, he said.
Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence, said he was ready to attend the hanging and that all the paperwork was in order, including the red card.
All the measures have been done, Haddad said. There is no reason for delays.
As American and Iraqi officials met in Baghdad to set the hour of his death, Saddam's lawyers asked a U.S. judge for a stay of execution.
Saddam's lawyers issued a statement Friday calling on everybody to do everything to stop this unfair execution. The statement also said the former president had been transferred from U.S. custody, though American and Iraqi officials later denied that.
Al-Maliki said opposing Saddam's execution was an insult to his victims. His office said he made the remarks in a meeting with families of people who died during Saddam's rule.
Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence, al-Maliki said.
State television ran footage of the Saddam era's atrocities, including images of uniformed men placing a bomb next to a youth's chest and blowing him up in what looked like a desert, and handcuffed men being thrown from a high building.
About 10 people registered to attend the hanging gathered in the Green Zone before they were to go to the execution site, the Iraqi official said.
Those cleared to attend the execution included a Muslim cleric, lawmakers, senior officials and relatives of victims of Saddam's brutal rule, the official said. He did not disclose the location of the gallows.
Raed Juhi, spokesman for the High Tribunal court that convicted Saddam, said documents related to the execution would be read to Saddam before the execution. The documents included the red card, al-Maliki's signed approval of the sentence and the appeal court's decision.
On Thursday, two half brothers visited Saddam in his cell, a member of the former dictator's defense team, Badee Izzat Aref, told The Associated Press by telephone from the United Arab Emirates. He said the former dictator handed them his personal belongings.
A senior official at the Iraqi defense ministry also confirmed the meeting and said Saddam gave his will to one of his half brothers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Saddam's lawyers later issued a statement saying the Americans gave permission for his belongings to be retrieved.
An Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence Tuesday for the killing of 148 people who were detained after an attempt to assassinate him in the northern Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982. The court said the hanging should take place within 30 days.
There had been disagreements among Iraqi officials in recent days as to whether Iraqi law dictates the execution must take place within 30 days and whether President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies had to approve it.
In his Friday sermon, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf called Saddam's execution God's gift to Iraqis.
Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves, said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI, a dominant party in al-Maliki's coalition. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam.
Saddam Hussein would provide anyone...
with anything if he thought it would be used to help bring down the United States and would make a "deal with the devil" (Al Qaeda) in order to attack the US, and I think anyone who thought differently would be disingenuous to say the least. Mortal enemies are often joined together by their hatred of some other entity....in this case of the United States, and Americans.
As to the 18 generals lined up behind Obama...what about the hundreds not lined up with him?
We will definitely disagree on this one.
Have a good night.
I wonder why he never threw his shoes at Saddam!
xx
Thousands may have been dead at the hands of Saddam anyway, what with
x
The right did not have the same venom for Saddam when Clinton was in office...sm
You should read back through some old quotes from the right when Clinton was in office. Some of the big hitters on Cap. Hill now didn't even agree with the air strikes. Go figure.
Eventually, Saddam would have killed enough of his own people sm
maybe we wouldn't have to worry about it, right? I mean, really, he was only killig his own people, so what is the problem. He was persecuting his OWN people. What a guy.
Bush and Saddam Should Both Stand Trial
Bush and Saddam Should Both Stand Trial, Says Nuremberg Prosecutor
Aaron Glantz, OneWorld USFri Aug 25, 8:57 AM ET
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 25 (OneWorld) - A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferenccz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, told OneWorld both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting aggressive wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime, the 87-year-old Ferenccz told OneWorld from his home in New York. He said the United Nations charter, which was written after the carnage of World War II, contains a provision that no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council.
Ferenccz said that after Nuremberg the international community realized that every war results in violations by both sides, meaning the primary objective should be preventing any war from occurring in the first place.
He said the atrocities of the Iraq war--from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of dozens of civilians by U.S. forces in Haditha to the high number of civilian casualties caused by insurgent car bombs--were highly predictable at the start of the war.
Which wars should be prosecuted? Every war will lead to attacks on civilians, he said. Crimes against humanity, destruction beyond the needs of military necessity, rape of civilians, plunder--that always happens in wartime. So my answer personally, after working for 60 years on this problem and [as someone] who hates to see all these young people get killed no matter what their nationality, is that you've got to stop using warfare as a means of settling your disputes.
Ferenccz believes the most important development toward that end would be the effective implementation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is located in the Hague, Netherlands.
The court was established in 2002 and has been ratified by more than 100 countries. It is currently being used to adjudicate cases stemming from conflict in Darfur, Sudan and civil wars in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But on May 6, 2002--less than a year before the invasion of Iraq--the Bush administration withdrew the United States' signature on the treaty and began pressuring other countries to approve bilateral agreements requiring them not to surrender U.S. nationals to the ICC.
Three months later, George W. Bush signed a new law prohibiting any U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court. The law went so far as to include a provision authorizing the president to use all means necessary and appropriate, including a military invasion of the Netherlands, to free U.S. personnel detained or imprisoned by the ICC.
That's too bad, according to Ferenccz. If the United States showed more of an interest in building an international justice system, they could have put Saddam Hussein on trial for his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The United Nations authorized the first Gulf War and authorized all nations to take whatever steps necessary to keep peace in the area, he said. They could have stretched that a bit by seizing the person for causing the harm. Of course, they didn't do that and ever since then I've been bemoaning the fact that we didn't have an International Criminal Court at that time.
Ferenccz is glad that Saddam Hussein is now on trial.
Saddam Hussein. © Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep This week, the Iraqi government began to try the former dictator for crimes connected to his ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kurds. According to Human Rights Watch, which has done extensive on-the-ground documentation, Saddam's Ba'athist regime deliberately and systematically killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds over a six-month period in 1988.
Kurdish authorities put the number even higher, saying 182,000 Kurdish civilians were killed in a matter of months.
Everyone agrees innumerable villages were bombed and some were gassed. The surviving residents were rounded up, taken to detention centers, and eventually executed at remote sites, sometimes by being stripped and shot in the back so they would fall naked into trenches.
In his defense, Saddam Hussein has disputed the extent of the killings and maintained they were justified because he was fighting a counter-insurgency operation against Kurdish separatists allied with Iran. When asked to enter a plea, the former president said that would require volumes of books.
Ferenccz said whatever Saddam's reasons, nothing can justify the mass killing of innocents.
The offenses attributable to ex-President Hussein since he came to power range from the supreme international crime of aggression to a wide variety of crimes against humanity, he wrote after Saddam was ousted in 2003. A fair trial will achieve many goals. The victims would find some satisfaction in knowing that their victimizer was called to account and could no longer be immune from punishment for his evil deeds. Wounds can begin to heal. The historical facts can be confirmed beyond doubt. Similar crimes by other dictators might be discouraged or deterred in future. The process of justice through law, on which the safety of humankind depends, would be reinforced.
We hung Saddam. Remember. I'll ask again.
You are defending an illegal occupation of a sovereign nation. We are NOT IN CHARGE of Iraq. Sooner or later, we have to leave. Fact: Under Saddam, a 96% Shia MAJORITY was repressed. Those would be the guys US troop literated. FACT: It will be up to the IRAQIs to decide what to do with their OWN new-found freedom to elaborate and express their Shia majority and whether or not democratic Sunni representation will be tolerated or instituted. Fact: The longer we stay there, the more sympathy and support jihadist movements will be able to garner. Fact: The war on terror cannot and will not always be a military fight. There is more than 1 way to skin a cat. Fact: This is not something the US can succeed in doing without GLOBAL cooperation...not likely to happen, given the tarnish we still wear on our own image overseas at the moment. We could use a "smooth talker" with an uncanny ablity to garner the support of his opponents at the helm...someone who is willing to try a few different approaches.
I have already addressed Ahmadinejad in a different post.
The Iraqis hung Saddam. Remember?
If we had pulled out when Obama wanted us to, the Iranian financed insurgents would have taken over and then I imagine first Iraqi Christians (and yes there are some) would be the first to be obliterated and it would have gone downhill from there. I love the way you say FACT: and then present your case. Who says it is fact?
The war on terror may not always be a military fight. But when they drop two buildings and slaughter nearly 3000 innocent people it needs to be a military fight. Why do you think we have not had another such attack?
Evil is arming Saddam and backing a war against
an enemy (in this case Khomeini's new Islamic regime) without understanding what you are doing or giving a rip about the consequences. Evil is turning around when you have no more use for the spent puppet because he went all rogue on you, assumed his own power and had the gall to defy you by controlling his own resources and proceeding to launch into impotent attempt to weaken his standing and power and bring him down, as though you are the king of the universe. Having failed that, evil is building a case for war based on lies (with the exception of the WMDs you had supplied him with 2 decades earlier), flaunting international protocol, lying to your own citizens and waging an imperial war because you do not have a clue how to solve your own problems without carnage and bloodshed. Evil is propping up a reviled, fascist apartheid state whose occupation of an entire indigenous people has been the root of the rise of the terrorism you so vehemently condemn. Evil is not being big enough to recognize your own weaknesses, take responsibility for your own screw-ups, turn a page and try other more peaceful and productive approaches to the mess you have created. Evil is manipulating your own citizens into believing your lies and propaganda for decades on end, claiming the moral high ground and turning a blind eye to the death, destruction, pain, suffering and humanitarian crises in a region you seek to control that has never and will never belong to you.
Saddam's rape rooms are replaced by US prisons.....
In addition, how many people DIE of starvation every single day in Africa (mostly children)? We don't even have to invade a country to save them.
Below is a report on Abu Ghraib prison. Some Iraquis might not agree with how much more moral the Americans are:
"[B]etween October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force.
The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements (ANNEX 26) and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.
I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:
a. Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
b. Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
c. Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d. Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e. Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear;
f. Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g. Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
h. Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
j. Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture;
k. A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
l. Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee
These findings are amply supported by written confessions provided by several of the suspects, written statements provided by detainees, and witness statements.
In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses (ANNEX 26):
a. Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;
b. Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;
c. Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
d. Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;
e. Threatening male detainees with rape;
g. Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick."
Executive summary of Taguba report, finalized Feb. 29, 2004, briefed to superiors on March 3, 2004, and submitted in final form on March 9, 2004
Women didn't have rights under Saddam, and it's looking bleak for them
under the new constitution so far. I hope they are able to get some rights under the new constitution.
But you're right, Iraq is much more unstable now and we have our work cut out for us to stabilize that country.
Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal With Saddam Hussein
Rumsfeld is full of history (among other substances), but he neglected to share this piece of history with the American majority he criticized.
(I suggest Breaking Up Is Hard To Do as the perfect background music for this.)
Published on Thursday, December 8, 2005 by CommonDreams.org |
Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam |
by Norman Solomon |
|
Christmas came 11 days early for Donald Rumsfeld two years ago when the news broke that American forces had pulled Saddam Hussein from a spidery hole. During interviews about the capture, on CBS and ABC, the Pentagon's top man was upbeat. And he didn't have to deal with a question that Lesley Stahl or Peter Jennings could have logically chosen to ask: Secretary Rumsfeld, you met with Saddam almost exactly 20 years ago and shook his hand. What kind of guy was he?
Now, Saddam Hussein has gone on trial, but such questions remain unasked by mainstream U.S. journalists. Rumsfeld met with Hussein in Baghdad on behalf of the Reagan administration, opening up strong diplomatic and military ties that lasted through six more years of Saddam's murderous brutality.
As it happens, the initial trial of Saddam and co-defendants is focusing on grisly crimes that occurred the year before Rumsfeld gripped his hand. The first witness, Ahmad Hassan Muhammad, 38, riveted the courtroom with the scenes of torture he witnessed after his arrest in 1982, including a meat grinder with human hair and blood under it, the New York Times reported Tuesday. And: At one point, Mr. Muhammad briefly broke down in tears as he recalled how his brother was tortured with electrical shocks in front of their 77-year-old father.
The victims were Shiites -- 143 men and adolescent boys, according to the charges -- tortured and killed in the Iraqi town of Dujail after an assassination attempt against Saddam in early July of 1982. Donald Rumsfeld became the Reagan administration's Middle East special envoy 15 months later.
On Dec. 20, 1983, the Washington Post reported that Rumsfeld visited Iraq in what U.S. officials said was an attempt to bolster the already improving U.S. relations with that country. A couple of days later, the New York Times cited a senior American official who said that the United States remained ready to establish full diplomatic relations with Iraq and that it was up to the Iraqis.
On March 29, 1984, the Times reported: American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name. Washington had some goodies for Saddam's regime, the Times account noted, including agricultural-commodity credits totaling $840 million. And while no results of the talks have been announced after the Rumsfeld visit to Baghdad three months earlier, Western European diplomats assume that the United States now exchanges some intelligence on Iran with Iraq.
A few months later, on July 17, 1984, a Times article with a Baghdad dateline sketchily filled in a bit more information, saying that the U.S. government granted Iraq about $2 billion in commodity credits to buy food over the last two years. The story recalled that Donald Rumsfeld, the former Middle East special envoy, held two private meetings with the Iraqi president here, and the dispatch mentioned in passing that State Department human rights reports have been uniformly critical of the Iraqi President, contending that he ran a police state.
Full diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad were restored 11 months after Rumsfeld's December 1983 visit with Saddam. He went on to use poison gas later in the decade, actions which scarcely harmed relations with the Reagan administration.
As the most senior U.S. official to visit Iraq in six years, Rumsfeld had served as Reagan's point man for warming relations with Saddam. In 1984, the administration engineered the sale to Baghdad of 45 ostensibly civilian-use Bell 214ST helicopters. Saddam's military found them quite useful for attacking Kurdish civilians with poison gas in 1988, according to U.S. intelligence sources. In response to the gassing, journalist Jeremy Scahill has pointed out, sweeping sanctions were unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate that would have denied Iraq access to most U.S. technology. The measure was killed by the White House.
The USA's big media institutions did little to illuminate how Washington and business interests combined to strengthen and arm Saddam Hussein during many of his worst crimes. In the 1980s and afterward, the United States underwrote 24 American corporations so they could sell to Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction, which he used against Iran, at that time the prime Middle Eastern enemy of the United States, writes Ben Bagdikian, a former assistant managing editor of the Washington Post, in his book The New Media Monopoly. Hussein used U.S.-supplied poison gas against Iranians and Kurds while the United States looked the other way.
Of course the crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were not just in the future when Rumsfeld came bearing gifts in 1983. Saddam's large-scale atrocities had been going on for a long time. Among them were the methodical torture and murders in Dujail that have been front-paged this week in coverage of the former dictator's trial; they occurred 17 months before Rumsfeld arrived in Baghdad.
Today, inside the corporate media frame, history can be supremely relevant when it focuses on Hussein's torture and genocide. But the historic assistance of the U.S. government and American firms is largely off the subject and beside the point.
A photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand on Dec. 20, 1983, is easily available. (It takes a few seconds to find via Google.) But the picture has been notably absent from the array of historic images that U.S. media outlets are providing to viewers and readers in coverage of the Saddam Hussein trial. And journalistic mention of Rumsfeld's key role in aiding the Iraqi tyrant has been similarly absent. Apparently, in the world according to U.S. mass media, some history matters profoundly and some doesn't matter at all.
Norman Solomon is the author of the new book War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com. |
Where was the concern of anyone when Saddam was killing the Iraqi people?
I must say, this is one of the most egregious of all arguments that is made in this country, or any country. Saddam tortured, killed, maimed and raped his own people for decades and not a word was said. Now with a chance for a free Iraq, this concern surfaces. Where was it all these years?
The shoe thrower would have been executed on the spot under Saddam....nm
...most likely.....
Rights under Saddam? Any country where people are tortured, mutilated, and killed is no better
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Afghanistan - war on Al Quaeda and Taliban; Iraqi FREEDOM - kill Saddam Hussein
Two different wars based on entirely different premises.........
Terrorists
Why in hell would I want to convey anything to terrorists but stay hell out of our country or they will die? You, on the other hand want them to like us....I couldn't give a rat's behind what terrorists think about us except that they know we will kick their asses all the way to the meeting with virgins they want so desperately to get their hands on.
If you want to stick flowers in their guns go ahead. I would like to stand back and watch that.
Besides, since when do we let terrorists
decide who is going to be our next President? Are we so insane that we let a suspect endorsement by a terrorist organization sway our votes one way or another? OMG! I honestly can't believe this! I'm wondering what the people in the Twin Towers or the people on those planes on 9/11 (especially the ones that fought the hijackers) would think about their country now? Makes me sad to think that there are people who would cowtow to terrorist organizations. We should really all know better than that.
We will never have terrorists
under control per se, but at least we can give power back to the Muslims who don't want us dead. The more control the terrorists have and the bigger area they have to work in....the more of a threat they are to us. That is what this war means to me.
As for Obama....he himself has ridiculed this war and yet states that he will find Osama Bin Laden. Is he not raging war here? Obama himself has said that he will not take military force off of the table. Who is to say that Obama won't pull us out of Iraq and sent us to Pakistan to rage war there. We can't fight terrorists in Iraq because that is wasteful and wrong, but Obama wants to go to Pakistan and hunt down terrorists....same thing isn't it. Talk about double standards.
He is going to be spending all this money with no funding and says he will save money ending this war but it sounds to me like he could be starting a war elsewhere and then what money will he use to fund his programs.....TAXES....TAXES.....TAXES.........ON EVERYONE!!! Including the middle class that he now supposedly is looking after even though he voted before to raise taxes on us middle folks. Nothing but rhetoric to get in the office.
You mean terrorists,
x
Well when terrorists...
and yes I dared to use the word TERRORISTS....strike us again on US soil....what will happen to us then? Will Obama go after them and strike back or will the US turn the other cheek to be struck again? If Obama goes after them and no other country backs us.....what will you say then?
The reason these leaders like Obama is because they see weakness. They see an opportunity for the US to fall and they are all chomping at the bit.
North Korea is still talking of launching their missile but hey....I guess since it can hit Alaska that is okay because maybe they will get Palin....huh? One less pub to worry about.
China says they hate us and blame us for the global economy issues and they are using all the money they get from our country to build up their defense.
The Taliban have already said they are planning a strike on Washington. Right there is a warning. So if the Taliban succeed....are ya'll gonna give Obama crap too for not stopping it like you did W. for 9/11 since they had "warnings."
Once again, the die hard party liners here refuse to see the mistakes in their own political party and all they can do is point the finger at the other political party.....which is why I'm an independent.
You all can go on and on about Bushy's war in Iraq but the botton line is this....would you prefer that terrorists still have control of that area? Would you prefer that the woman in that region be beaten by the taliban for talking to a man or not wearing the appropriate attire. Regardless of why we went there or not....we helped the Iraqi's. Yes we tortured to get information that would save people's lives while they captured our people and beheaded them.....yet we are the bad guys. Their whole purpose of existence is to wipe us out. They want us DEAD and now we can't even call them terrorists....are you kidding me?
Seriously.....what is your solution to this problem? Talking to terrorists who want us dead and have no problem blowing themselves up at the same time isn't going to work. The brutal beating of woman just because they exist and are inferior to men......and yet you never hear women's rights group protesting THAT.
But hey.....we have our warning from the Taliban and Obama is cutting money from defense.......makes sense.....doesn't it? I guess the only ones it makes sense too are the MSNBC watching, kool-aid drinking, far-left liberals who swoon everytime Obamanation reads from the teleprompter.
How many terrorists
have died being waterboarded? How many terrorists have we brutally tortured to where they have begged for death? How many terrorists have had their head cut off at Gitmo?
It isn't like these acts are done merely for entertainment purposes. They were used to get information out of known terrorists. It was done in an attempt to save lives. It wasn't done in an attempt to destroy lives. All terrorists want to do is destroy us.
As for the treatment at Gitmo, they have it better than prisoners here in the US have it. They get reading material, food, clean clothes, etc. Of all the terrorists at Gitmo....how many were waterboarded? 2-3? Oh my. It isn't like we have waterboarded each and every terrorist and the ones we did waterboard were done because they were high up in the ranks that they would more than likely know more information/plans, etc.
As for my religious beliefs....I would much rather do what has to be done in order to keep our country, families, children, parents, etc. safe than to cuddle people who hate us and wish nothing upon us but death.
This shows you exactly how much you know about the terrorists. sm
And THAT has been the worst part about all this. Bush hatred has not only fried you to crispy critters, it has made you dangerously ignorant.
you are the ones helping the terrorists
It is Bush and you and people who think like you who have put us at risk. We now have a full fledged terrorist state/breeding ground in Iraq because of Bush's war..That has put us at great risk for decades to come. Before Bush invaded, we had a few radicals that if we kept our focus we could have hunted down in Afghanistan and eliminated. Instead Bush invaded Iraq for no go reason other than to have a presence in the Middle East for control of the Middle East. Where is bin Laden? Why are we fighting in Iraq? Why are we there? The real murderer is somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Yet, you people continue to back this war when there is no logical good reason to have entered into it or to stay there. You and your man Bush are helping the terrorists, you have given them every reason to continue to multiply and hate us even more. You are throwing oil on fire. I want to put out the fire.
How many terrorists attacks have we had since 911
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Christian Terrorists
Christian terrorism is religious terrorism by groups or individuals, the motivation of which is typically rooted in an idiosyncratic interpretation of the Bible and other Christian tenets of faith. From the viewpoint of the terrorist, Christian scripture and theology provide justification for violent political activities.
Abortion clinics have been frequent targets of violence. Christian anti-abortion terrorists and terrorist organizations include the Army of God, The Lambs of Christ, Clayton Waagner, Mike Bray, James Kopp, Paul Jennings Hill and Eric Robert Rudolph.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism
Exactly. Just like not all Muslims are terrorists. nm
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I am sure that we all know that not all Muslims are terrorists.
Why is that anyone who does not support Obama is automatically a bigot who hates everyone who is not a white Christian? And then I am called narrow minded--interesting!
But it's okay for terrorists to tortue,
maime (sp), and kill innocent men, women, children, news people, and our servicemen? I don't think so.
Give it up. Ain't worth it. Concentrate on more pressing issues as the above poster said.
O said nothing about negotiating with terrorists.
nm
Must have been palling around with terrorists
hahahahahaha
So, we are no better than terrorists? That answer
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We waterboarded known terrorists, not just
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Terrorists are not covered under
The Geneva Convention. I don't know how many times I have to repeat that tid bit of information to you people. What our government did was in an attempt to keep Americans safe and yet all you want is Bush and Cheney's head on a platter no matter what extra danger that might put our troops in.
Terrorists are not covered under
the Geneva Convention.
So you want to send a message to the terrorists.....
That Americans are all a bunch of corrupt liars who go unchecked and unpunished? I think that if you truly wanted to protect the American people that you would want dishonesty and corruption investigated. Guess not.
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