Desmond Tutu calls for war crimes charges for Blair, Bush

christmas2012

yes , he might have been a psychopath,but the country still functioned..

snafuk35

christmas2012 wrote: »

yes , he might have been a psychopath,but the country still functioned..

His brutal secret police apparatus, torture chambers, rape rooms, prisons, and executioners?

hatrickpatrick

snafuk35 wrote: »

His brutal secret police apparatus, torture chambers, rape rooms, prisons, and executioners?

All of which continued to operate in some form or another under US rule, or have you forgotten about these?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

snafuk35

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

All of which continued to operate in some form or another under US rule, or have you forgotten about these?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

The perpetrators of the Abu Graib torture and abuse scandal were arrested, tried and sentenced to many years in prison by US courts. The abuse was condemned by the US government and it was brought to an end.

In Saddam's Iraq torture and execution was routine and positively encouraged by Saddam Hussein himself. Saddam took his own sons to the torture chambers to watch prisoners having their limbs dissolved in acid. Prisoners were raped and tortured, their wives and children were raped and tortured and killed in front of them. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shia were gassed, tortured, shot and bulldozed into mass graves.

Valmont

snafuk35 wrote: »

The alternative was leaving a genocidal psychopathic fascist dictator in power.

So your solution is to send in a foreign army and do his killing for him? 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan (so far) and a highly unstable government and you think this is an improvement?

Saddam is gone, but the killing has just quickened. Now it's done in the name of 'democracy' but I don't see how changing the name of the program helps those killed by NATO bullets instead of local bullets.

Nodin

snafuk35 wrote: »

The perpetrators of the Abu Graib torture and abuse scandal were arrested, tried and sentenced to many years in prison by US courts. The abuse was condemned by the US government and it was brought to an end.

You mean the rank and file were.

The experience of the General who reported on the affair suggests that arrests and condemnation were somewhat 'lacking in sincerity'.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/25/070625fa_fact_hersh?printable=true

snafuk35

Nodin wrote: »

You mean the rank and file were.

The experience of the General who reported on the affair suggests that arrests and condemnation were somewhat 'lacking in sincerity'.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/25/070625fa_fact_hersh?printable=true

But you have no problem with Saddam remaining in power and continuing to butcher his own people?

Nodin

snafuk35 wrote: »

But you have no problem with Saddam remaining in power and continuing to butcher his own people?

Once again you misrepresent my position, despite it being perfectly clear. While of course dodging the point re abu ghraib.

Valmont

snafuk35 wrote: »

But you have no problem with Saddam remaining in power and continuing to butcher his own people?

This is the logical fallacy beneath much interventionism: if you're against sending in a foreign army because of the inevitable death and chaos 'regime change' entails, then you must be in favour of whatever repressive regime is already in place.

This does not make sense and is one hell of an assumption. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria et al you cannot just send in a foreign army to make things better. It invariably results in the death of innocent people and messes things up even further. There is no easy solution, especially when it's a land and people very different from our own.

snafuk35

Nodin wrote: »

Once again you misrepresent my position, despite it being perfectly clear. While of course dodging the point re abu ghraib.

The perpetrators of the abuses at Abu Graib were brought to justice and punished and abuse of prisoners was ended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

Of course you willfully overlook the fact that during the Saddam Hussein regime the prison at any one time and torture, rape and execution were routine.

Nodin

snafuk35 wrote: »

The perpetrators of the abuses at Abu Graib were brought to justice and punished and abuse of prisoners was ended.
..............

As shown here, the instigators and designers of the regime were not.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/25/070625fa_fact_hersh?printable=true

The procedures were used in a number of "black" prisons, where discovery and reportage were highly unlikely.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7229169.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6733353.stm

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-report-cites-proof-of-cia-black-sites-massive-and-systematic-violations-of-human-rights-a-487325.html

And of course, systematic destruction of evidence once the tide turned.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7919579.stm


You'll note that neither Cheney, Addington, Yeo or Rumsfeld have ever been charged.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/?hpid=specialreports

Laminations

snafuk35 wrote: »

Of course it was illegal to overthrow Saddam. He was the sovereign ruler etc etc etc.

I don't think Nodin is arguing that. Just that in the overthrow of Saddam you do not need to be brutal or tortuous to prisoners. Saddam's crimes against his people do not excuse Allied crimes against their prisoners.

EDIT: And please don't post pictures like that. I do not wish to see dead babies on my computer screen.

snafuk35

Laminations wrote: »

I don't think Nodin is arguing that. Just that in the overthrow of Saddam you do not need to be brutal or tortuous to prisoners. Saddam's crimes against his people do not excuse Allied crimes against their prisoners.

Nobody said they did. Nodin is saying that Saddam Hussein should never have been overthrown and that it should have been left to the Iraqis who were already crushed by his despicable tyranny to rescue themselves. Unbelievable! I suppose the Jews in Auschwitz were supposed to somehow wave a magic want and the SS would just leave them alone?

EDIT: And please don't post pictures like that. I do not wish to see dead babies on my computer screen.

Well some people apparently seem to be willfully unaware of what Saddam did to his own people and think he should have been left in power.

christmas2012

Im not here to argue a psychopath,certainly he was a disturbed evil unstable man ..but at least there was a country with infracstructure,buildings and jobs and industry etc,im not going to argue the political climbate was what it should have been..But it was a country that did not deserve an invasion on the scale that happened,now in contrast to what the country was,is broken factions,civil war,a broken country,a broken community,mass killings,bombings,possibly very few jobs and livelyhoods as a result of the tony blair led invasion..

Desmond tutu said what so many people in western countries are quietly thinking and do not have the public political forum to do so, and he is one of the only few to say it,i say fair play to him for having the guts to speak up,no matter how politically risky it might be to say it ,he said it.And that deserves respect.

Nodin

snafuk35 wrote: »

Nobody said they did. Nodin is saying that Saddam Hussein should never have been overthrown and that it should have been left to the Iraqis who were already crushed by his despicable tyranny to rescue themselves. ......................

You continue to misrepresent my position. You're also ignoring what I've said in order to present these emotional diatribes.

Nodin

snafuk35 wrote: »

Well some people apparently seem to be willfully unaware of what Saddam did to his own people and think he should have been left in power.

Nobody has demonstrated such ignorance or argued that.

Nodin

Laminations wrote: »

I don't think Nodin is arguing that. Just that in the overthrow of Saddam you do not need to be brutal or tortuous to prisoners. Saddam's crimes against his people do not excuse Allied crimes against their prisoners.
....

Actually my sole point there was that the notion that there being a condemnation and series of arrests by the US being the end of the matter - in a meaningful sense - was a nonsense.

southsiderosie

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Eggy Baby!

Well some people apparently seem to be willfully unaware of what Saddam did to his own people and think he should have been left in power.

lol I think you are getting the wrong end of the stick here, rather a lot like "Go and live in North Korea" plasmaguy does. Its fantastic how people can still peddle the "you are with us or against us" line of thinking, even after all this chaos in Iraq. People who don't support the invasion of Afghanistan or the illegal invasion of Iraq and its heavy-handed aftermath are "Taliban supporters" or "love Saddam". Situations are so much more nuanced than you seem to realise.

I would have supported heartily any grassroots attempt to topple Saddam, or democratic reforms by his government. Because he was a brutal dictator, and his state was unjust and oppressive. I would not support the frankly selfish, malicious and brutal foreign invasion by forces who did not have Iraq's best interests at heart. It is plain to see, both from the lies and deceit propagated by the USA in particular, that this conflict was initiated with their best interests at heart (let's face it, Britain followed). If you cannot see/believe that, then I commend your optimism but I'm afraid it is misguided.

Your comparisons with Ireland and post-war Europe are also misplaced. Ireland wasn't (immediately anyway) a sectarian bloodbath (note it also had a strong tradition of democracy) and post-war Europe was heavily subsidised by the USA.

snafuk35

I would have supported heartily any grassroots attempt to topple Saddam, or democratic reforms by his government.

Saddam had thoroughly crushed any grassroot opposition and only a lunatic you think Saddam was going to reform.

Because he was a brutal dictator, and his state was unjust and oppressive.

So why aren't you glad he is dead and gone then?

I would not support the frankly selfish, malicious and brutal foreign invasion by forces who did not have Iraq's best interests at heart.

They ovethrew him didn't they? Beggars can't be choosers.

It is plain to see, both from the lies and deceit propagated by the USA in particular, that this conflict was initiated with their best interests at heart (let's face it, Britain followed). If you cannot see/believe that, then I commend your optimism but I'm afraid it is misguided.

I have already said I don't give a damn what reasons the US and its allies had for overthrowing Saddam. I am glad it was done. That's all that matters.

Your comparisons with Ireland and post-war Europe are also misplaced. Ireland wasn't (immediately anyway) a sectarian bloodbath (note it also had a strong tradition of democracy) and post-war Europe was heavily subsidised by the USA.

Ireland experienced a greater bloodbath in the subsequent civil war than it ever experienced in the war of independence. For decades Ireland was a theocratic society and Northern Ireland was a sectarian state with an oppressed Catholic minority.

Eastern Europe was dominated for more than four decades by the Soviet Union.

Nobody is going to tell me that overthrowing British rule in Ireland or overthrowing Hitler was not worth it.

Iraq is going to have problems for decades to come but Iraqis can now chart their own course free of a fascist regime.

christmas2012

Iraq is going to have problems for decades to come but Iraqis can now chart their own course free of a fascist regime.

Iraq is going to have problems decades to come thanks to broken infrastructure,as a direct result of the US/Blair invasion.

Free from fascism?No.Its only going to get steadily worse there with gangs clambering for power in a more unsteady political climbate than ever.

Car bombs have been going off recently over there,people are still being shot and maimed,there is a sense of lawlessness that wasnt as apparent when,yes that psychopath saddam ran the country..

snafuk35

christmas2012 wrote: »

Iraq is going to have problems decades to come thanks to broken infrastructure,as a direct result of the US/Blair invasion.

Free from fascism?No.Its only going to get steadily worse there with gangs clambering for power in a more unsteady political climbate than ever.

Car bombs have been going off recently over there,people are still being shot and maimed,there is a sense of lawlessness that wasnt as apparent when,yes that psychopath saddam ran the country..

Things are fluid at the moment but eventually power will solidify and become concentrated. That is what happens when tyrants are overthrown.
Leaving Saddam in charge was not an option.

shanered

[/quote]
Things are fluid at the moment but eventually power will solidify and become concentrated. That is what happens when tyrants are overthrown.
Leaving Saddam in charge was not an option.[/Quote]

I think the whole point that it would be a logical option when weighted against the invasion that happened. Think of the before and after situation for the iraqi people. There country have been destroyed. Livelihoods and thousands of lives lost. Civil war, lawlessness etc etc. And to boot all the evil tourturing and killing that was happening during his regeime greatly increased but at the hands of forgein force that now occupy their country. Detention without trials happening under the new occupying forces etc....
It wasnt a good thing the way that things happened nor was it the only option. It was started by lies and deciet.
And ended in making a bad situation worse . The only winners where all the contracts and money made on the back of the war.

snafuk35

Things are fluid at the moment but eventually power will solidify and become concentrated. That is what happens when tyrants are overthrown.
Leaving Saddam in charge was not an option.[/Quote]

I think the whole point that it would be a logical option when weighted against the invasion that happened. Think of the before and after situation for the iraqi people. There country have been destroyed. Livelihoods and thousands of lives lost. Civil war, lawlessness etc etc. And to boot all the evil tourturing and killing that was happening during his regeime greatly increased but at the hands of forgein force that now occupy their country. Detention without trials happening under the new occupying forces etc....
It wasnt a good thing the way that things happened nor was it the only option. It was started by lies and deciet.
And ended in making a bad situation worse . The only winners where all the contracts and money made on the back of the war.[/QUOTE]

The Americans, British and other coalition forces have withdrawn and the elected Iraqi government rules the country.
A civil war between Iraqi Shia and Sunnis and Al-Qaeda attacks were responsible for the thousands of deaths and the sectarian carve up of the country in the wake of the invasion.
General Petraeus's surge crushed the insurgency and Iraqi armed forces are now in control of Iraq's security.
Saddam is dead and gone and good riddance.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
I am through chasing tails debating with you.

Eggy Baby!

For decades Ireland was a theocratic society

I don't think you quite understand what a theocratic society is. I encourage you to do some research on that, then get back to me.

So you support an invasion which killed probably more people than Saddam ever did?

Also, were the sanctions in the 90s following the First Gulf War against Saddam justified, in your view, snafuk?

The Americans, British and other coalition forces have withdrawn and the elected Iraqi government rules the country.

The Iraqi government can hardly be said to rule their country any more than the Congolese government rules theirs. The government there is a disaster and you know it. To be fair, they have had to deal with a chaotic series of problems, most if not all of which were caused by the sudden removal of Saddam/the invasion and its physical effects. And given the corrupt, nepotistic and inexperienced nature of the government I'm not surprised they were overwhelmed by their many problems.

(But enough about Ireland! )