Saddam brought up on new charges of genocide and crimes against humanity today. The new charges, on top of the current charges of the mass killings of over 140 people, branch from the 1980s gassing of Kurds in Iraq’s northern province.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it odd that Saddam has not been charged with a single crime against an American citizen, an American interest or anything to do with 9/11. We were led to believe, by the Bush administration, that the invasion of Iraq would be some sort of vengeance for the attacks of 9/11. That Saddam bore some sort of responsibility for the planning, the financing or the foreknowledge of the attacks was all along a key ingredient-- next to WMD-- of the invasion. If there were evidence of any such things, wouldn’t there be an indictment pending?
Tags:
Bush, Saddam, Genocide, Iraq, Invasion
4.04.2006
A Saddam Connection
Posted by Chris at 2:05 PM
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12 comments:
Well we know that the war was not about what the war was supposed to be about .....
oh it could have been though....they certainly want us to know it could have been.
Iraq was never a threat to us and we all know it; at least no more or less a threat than other places where we have no vested interest and would not even attempt to invade but where they routinely terrozis and practice inhuman acts against their citizens.
I'm told constantly by conservatives that Saddam's brutality toward his own people is enough justification to get a couple thousand of our troops killed, and nearly 20,000 injured... and 100,000 of their people killed...and spend 400 billion+, and ruin relationships with allies...and increase terrorist attacks worldwide...and increase distrust of everything we do...and knock their power and water out for years...and increase Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah recruitment...and forget about bin Laden and al-Zawahiri...and spark civil war in the Middle East...etc.
Darfur? Not so much.
The trial is pretty much a farce anyways. Everyone knows the truth, the jurisdiction of the court is questionable, and what's worse, people have died as a result of the proceedings. I don't call that justice.
I am a glutton for punishment so let me share my thoughts.
I have pondered this whole affair for quite some time, and although I feel we should have gone to Iraq, I have been quiet about why.
It is true that the arguement that Saddam's torture of his own people is reason enough is not too strong. Let's fact it, there are pleny of nations that do the same, like Thailand and the young sex slaves.
Saddam did not fly a plane into any buildings, did not send an army to start a war with America. However, he has sent money to organizations that sought to use violence against citizens. And contrary what we hear on the news, he had WMD and working on acquiring more. I have talked to several soldiers that have returned that informed me their gieger counters would go off the charts sometimes while standing in abandon warehouses. The simple fact that they are not there now, does not mean they never were.
Is fighting in Iraq retribution for 9/11, no. Is it a definitive battle in the fight against terrorism, absolutely.
Sorry I took up so much room, I should not be so winded. I just love Chris. That's right, I said it.
MJ, my man, quit drinking lattes and spreading liberal crap. :) good to see you back and going. even if he isn't being charged for WMD, he's a horrible war criminal and his life should be judged by Iraqis. Take care and my cat, Thurman, says hello.
"Is it a definitive battle in the fight against terrorism, absolutely." I can see no evidence to suggest this is a difinitive battle a gainst terrorism. There is nothing to suport it. It was never a bttel about terroiszm to begin with they merely turned it into a battle about terroism when Sadaam didn't com ethrough with his weapons.
"he has sent money to organizations that sought to use violence against citizens." Humm I' thik I am going to have to find that list of people that have terrorized their own people that we have financed over the years.
Alice, very true. I'm thinking Africa, you?
Jeremy, yeah when you add it all up it isn't very balanced is it. It's time to come home. Thanks for reading.
ew, it does appear to be a circus act. I by no means think Saddam is innocent of anything, and I don't know many who do. Justice appears to be the last thing on the peoples mind right now. Thanks for reading.
Craig, I thought you had given up on blogs...it's good to see you around. You need to do some updates for your site. I agree with you that we had to remove Saddam. I just think it was all rushed. Saddam was a terrorist, just not the one responsible for 9/11. I think we were misled, and that lack of upfrontness has led to a three year occupation and one hell of a mess.
I've talked to several soldiers too who have said that we have no business being in Iraq. One is my neighbor who just returned a couple weeks ago from an 18 month deployment. He thinks the invasion of Iraq is a war crime. I've also talked many times to our good friend Kevin who is in Iraq right now. You remember Kev don't ya?? Iowa?? :) Kev doesn't have very nice words about Iraq either. Iraq had WMD??? really, I thought we invaded to spread democracy...now I'm really confused. Good to see you around my man.
Sminky, I told ya I'm double fisting those lattes over here now :) Good to hear from ya. Tell Thurman to quit catting around. Thanks for reading.
To all: Wasn't the gas that Saddam used to murder his own people, and which he is now being charged with genocide, supplied to him by the Reagan administration? If so, where does that bring this whole debate?
Thanks you guys are great!
Do I dare wade into this? I guess I'll take a stab at it (because I can't resist adding a few things). Here's what happened in Iraq. Many people thought Saddam had WMDs or was in the process of producing them, including many Democrats now crying out that Bush lied to them. Saddam in the past gassed his own people, which we know. He also invaded Kuwait. Not the behavior of a guy minding his own business and trying not to make trouble with the international community. He also was in violation of numerous UN resolutions, and he wasn't fully complying with UN weapons inspectors. Saddam also financed Palestinian suicide bombers. I would say that this would be a guy worthy of suspicion(at the very least). PJ O'Rourke once asked the question of why Saddam would not comply with the weapons inspectors if there was no incriminating evidence where they wanted to look. (His phrasing was more humorous than mine.) It's a good question. If I'm Saddam, and I hate the United States for numerous reasons, wouldn't I want to show them up by proving that they were wrong? Maybe not. I'm still not convinced that WMDs never existed.
So we invaded Iraq, with a reasonable suspicion by many people in the international community, as well as in the US, that Saddam was close to having WMDs. We didn't find 'em. Not surprising when Saddam had plenty of time to destroy them or hide them somewhere else. I can't prove that WMD existed, but I also can't prove that they did not. I think that the mission changed after the invasion to this "freedom and democracy" philosophy. We can't leave Iraq in the weakened state it's in, but I do think that setting some benchmarks for withdrawing US troops from Iraq is reasonable. We must give the Iraqis more incentive to move along with forming the new government and controlling their own country without our help. I have no idea how long this will take, unfortunately.
Just adding this comment:
As far as the relationship between Saddam and Reagan is concerned, I think it was based on the political calculation that Iran and the Ayatollah were more dangerous threats than Saddam was at that time. I suspect that when Reagan made that calculation, it was the right one, but I'm sure you will disagree with me. :P
Hey storming, thanks for the visit. I will check out your new blog today. It seems like there is so much going on politically right now that I can't fit it all in this blog. I think the leak investigation has been spun on its head with Libby's testimony. The White House isn't denying anything right now either. If Bush did okay the leaks, then I'm not sure that's illegal, but it does make Bush a flat out liar because numerous times he denied having any knowledge of the leaks. Thanks for reading, and I'm sure I'll touch on the leaky leak soon on the main page.
Lisa, you make very good points. But shockingly, I don't entirely agree :)
What happened in Iraq was not that many people thought Saddam had WMD, but rather Bush & Co. gauranteed us that Saddam not only possessed WMD but was also seeking ways to increase his capabilities as well as trying to obtain uranium from Africa to build a nuclear bomb. The Bush administration portrayed the threat as being so imminent that preemptive invasion was the only way to absolutely gaurantee that Saddam would not be allowed to possess those weapons and also so that he could not supply those weapons into the hands of al Qaeda or other terrorists organizations.
Sadly the Bush administration and the neocons that led him astray were wrong and now want to make this war look like it was forced upon us because of 9/11-- of which Saddam had absolutely no links to.
Our main objectives in this war were to disarm Saddam and make sure that he could not supply other terrorists with WMD.
I'm not sure what scares me more, the fact that Saddam never had the weapons and we were just that wrong, or the fact that Saddam did have the weapons and we let them escape-- apparently now into unknown hands. Both cases are failures on behalf of the Bush administration.
It is true, like you mention, that Saddam was in violation of 17 UN resolutions prior to the March 2003 invasion. But Israel, is in violation of 40+ UN resolutions and Iran nearly just as many as Iraq was. By stating that America was going into Iraq to enforce the UN rule makes us the world police and conservatives cannot possibly believe that to be our role in this world.
If we invaded on suspicions alone like you say, then that means we invaded at best on circumstantial evidence that Saddam had WMD. I don't believe that the invasion of a sovereign country should be based on circumstantial evidence. And besides, it all goes back to what I said earlier, we weren't told that Saddam probably had WMD, we were told that he had them, was willing to use them and would supply them to other terrorists.
I do agree with you that our mission completely changed once the boots hit the ground. And that change was something the Bush administration was not prepared for. I also agree that we cannot leave Iraq in such a weakened state. We broke it, now we must fix it.
As far as the Reagan question, I'm going to move your comment to the above post and address it there. Thank you for reading and contributing. You always bring up very good discussion.
I just nailed you. Invading Iraq was never 'vengeance' for 9/11.
You're buying next week.
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