Someone please explain to me (POWs)

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I just laughed hard enough to draw unneccesary attention from the rest of the office.

 

beware, plutonium fillings can reap the world winds gentlemen. WMD, right there.

 

You may be onto a vital truth, Splunge

I'm just glad that they didn't show the WMD search in all of the possible "locations of concealment."

Then we'd all have something to whine over.

 

There was evidence of WMDs, the Iraqis actually said that they destroyed the evidence.

BTW, the WMD accusation/rationale was never used in the States. The war was over Iraq's link with the al-Quaida terrorist group, which has been inarguably proven.

The Iraqis will be trying Hussein. Not us, so they'll be the ones deciding what happens to him. Seems only fair to me.

Other than Afghanistan (which we're no longer in control of the government), cite other examples.

Just out of curiousity, you people saying the the US doesn't apply its own laws to itself, did the US ever sign the Geneva Convention? I seem to remember hearing that we did not, rendering the hypocrisy argument null and void. I'm not 100% sure on this, though.

Unfortunately, one of the elements of Freedom of Speech (United States Constitution Amendment 1) states that we can't control our journalists. The American government has no censorship powers at all, so we cannot bear responsibility for what our journalists air to get viewership.

 

Such as the link between the US and Osama bin Laden and, yes, Saddam himself. BTW, I wonder what will the trial look like if they mention the Iran-Iraq war. Yea, mustard gas and nerve agent...

I'll believe when I see.

 

AFAIK, the US was a party to the original Geneva conventions, but has never endorsed or ratified the proposed ammendments made in 1977.

The validity of the acceptance of captured Iraqi insurgents as POW's is entirely dependent upon adopting the more recent proposals to the Conventions.

I am not sure if the 1977 ammendments have ever been formally ratified by most of the world powers. They stand out there on par with the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" which is a nice, but toothless document.

Oh and here is some evidence that the US does hold itself accountable to law. Wait...here is another.

What's next? Freedom for Sadam because his Miranda rights were violated?

[ December 19, 2003, 15:33: Message edited by: Hacken Slash ]

 

Rastor, I don't know how you can think some of those things, I mean, people have allready talked about other dictators emplaced by the US in this thread alone, let alone the other recent political topics, I mean, with most of them out there this has been the case.

Ok, I'll do a short list (and I'm not listing everyone here because I have a bad memory, and I'm too lazy to search very hard for this);

Abacha, General Sani ----------------------------Nigeria
Amin, Idi ------------------------------------------Uganda
Banzer, Colonel Hugo ---------------------------Bolivia
Batista, Fulgencio --------------------------------Cuba
Bolkiah, Sir Hassanal ----------------------------Brunei
Botha, P.W. ---------------------------------------South Africa
Branco, General Humberto ---------------------Brazil
Cedras, Raoul -------------------------------------Haiti
Cerezo, Vinicio -----------------------------------Guatemala
Chiang Kai-Shek ---------------------------------Taiwan
Cordova, Roberto Suazo ------------------------Honduras
Christiani, Alfredo -------------------------------El Salvador
Diem, Ngo Dihn ---------------------------------Vietnam
Doe, General Samuel ----------------------------Liberia
Duvalier, Francois --------------------------------Haiti
Duvalier, Jean Claude-----------------------------Haiti
Fahd bin'Abdul-'Aziz, King ---------------------Saudi Arabia
Franco, General Francisco -----------------------Spain
Hitler, Adolf ---------------------------------------Germany
Hassan II-------------------------------------------Morocco
Marcos, Ferdinand -------------------------------Philippines
Martinez, General Maximiliano Hernandez ---El Salvador
Mobutu Sese Seko -------------------------------Zaire
Noriega, General Manuel ------------------------Panama
Ozal, Turgut --------------------------------------Turkey
Pahlevi, Shah Mohammed Reza ---------------Iran
Papadopoulos, George --------------------------Greece
Park Chung Hee ---------------------------------South Korea
Pinochet, General Augusto ---------------------Chile
Pol Pot---------------------------------------------Cambodia
Rabuka, General Sitiveni ------------------------Fiji
Montt, General Efrain Rios ---------------------Guatemala
Salassie, Halie ------------------------------------Ethiopia
Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira --------------------Portugal
Somoza, Anastasio Jr. --------------------------Nicaragua
Somoza, Anastasio, Sr. -------------------------Nicaragua
Smith, Ian ----------------------------------------Rhodesia
Stroessner, Alfredo -----------------------------Paraguay
Suharto, General ---------------------------------Indonesia
Trujillo, Rafael Leonidas -----------------------Dominican Republic
Videla, General Jorge Rafael ------------------Argentina
Zia Ul-Haq, Mohammed ----------------------Pakistan

Here is the article I copied this list from, which explains who each man was and what they did, and how they achieved power. It is actually from a book by the same title. By the way, that list is more than eight years old, so I would assume a great many more would be present now, like Ossama Bin Laden and Mullah Muhammad Omar.

And if you're trying to tell us that America never pushed that they needed to be invaded becasue they had WMD that is sorely mistaken, I can't think of anyone else here, for or against this war, who would deny that this issue was pushed.

(Hacken Slash, I know that some of the legal system is crazy, but that's not what I mean. I agree with you that the criminal system gets out of control, but I don't think anyone here is suggesting Hussein be released, only that everyone abides by the same rules)

 

The matter that is far more pertinent than whether or not Sadam was somehow shamed by being deloused on worldwide TV, is that he will enjoy a judicial process light years ahead of anything available to anyone accused under his regime, and more real than anything that existed in Iraq prior to the US occupation.

At the risk of sounding Shralpish, I think that so many people feel resentment toward America (and in some cases, rightfully so), that you are quick to grasp other avenues to vent criticism without really discerning if your point, though "technically" valid, is rationally pertinent.

Surely there are far more vital issues than whether Sadam might have felt embarassed?

 

Manus, you're taking that list out of context. You're confusing dictators the US has tolerated with dictators the US has emplaced (there have been a few). Re-read the snapshots in that article you linked to. For example, just to start with the first in line - Abacha - the US had nothing to do with Abacha's annuling of Abiola's election. Nor does the US own Shell Oil - it's a Dutch-Anglo company. And incidentally, to this very day the US still has sanctions on Nigeria - despite its democratic government - because of its military's murderous manner.

If you read the list, the fella's standard seems to be that the US is "friends" with any dicatorship that it doesn't starve or invade. 'Course, when the US does starve and invade a dictatorship, like Iraq...

 

Sorry, GM, but that's not true, all the ones I read myself were either lead by a US or CIA coup, backed by US funds, or handpicked and put in place by the president. I know the first one doesn't fit this scheme, that is merely an example of the US doing business, but look further down the list and the rest all do.

Now I stopped only a small way down the list, and every dictator there was either actually put in place openly, or was put in place or supported secretly with US government funds, training, or personnel. I didn't even include the quotes about those whop were merely supported and not actively assisted. The rest of the list continues along the same scheme.

Please read more than the fist example, it is an alphabetical list after all.

None of these are example of where the US merely did nothing, it's not trying to say that the US is somehow responsible for everyone they don't decide to defeat. They are all example of when the US actively supported or installed those leaders.

BTW Rastor, here is a link to a compilation of quotes regarding Bush and the WMD. It is a .swf, and the end is a bit obscene, but all the quotes are there for you to hear for yourself.

 

Off-topic: Waitasec, wasn't CIA helping Fidel against Battista, actually? At the beginning, before he nationalised the industry and banking?

 

You could be right HS, I know I would probably be more tolerant of this sort of thing if another country was responcible, but it is the straw which broke the Camel's back so to speak; and this is what is upsetting, not whether Saddam is embarressed or not, but that he is being embarressed by the US in the same way they were complaining of.

It is just another example of how the US Administration seems to think it is above the laws it is enforcing on everyone else, even if they only suspect you might be thinking of breaking the laws now it seems.

There might be other reasons that Hussein is to be either tried very quickly in the US, or by a mock-Iraqi council instead of the world or UN court, as he would probably have a great deal to discuss of the collusion between himself and other parties, which Bush, Cheney, and Rummsfield don't want to become public knowledge. Perhaps it would be a good thing if it were televised.

Here is an article written before he was found (from that same site, if they turn out to be hucksters I'm going to look like such an ass. Of course, I manage fine on my own) which suggests that US officials knew he was in Tikrit and were deliberately avoiding going there. It also suggests that they did certainly want to capture him, but since he wasn't going anywhere that it gave them a good excuse to further entrench themselves.

It is interesting to read as it was written some two months before he was captured, and things have played out very similarily to the way in which this article supposed.

 

That was an interesting article, Manus... and I would venture to say that much of that is true, particularly the bit about Saddam exposing the true US/Iraq relationship for what it is. I suspect there's been a great deal of palm greasing done in private for quite some time (aside from the sale of military weapons). The last thing in the world Bush would want is for all the subtle intricacies to be aired in a world court -- talk about a feeding frenzy.

 

I, too, would welcome it. Let's get it all out.