What did Saddam do?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
It strikes me that giving major support to Shi'ites in Iraq would be just about the best way to deal with Islamic conflict against the US. Watch the Al-Qaidr recruitments evaporate.

Al-Qaeda are enemies of the Shi'ites. They follow the Wahabbi'ist sect of Sunni Islam. Helping Shia's won't dry up the pool of recruits for al-Qaeda.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by yavoon
chegitz ur so missing a matter of scale. yes the US isnt pure and innocent. but to compare the US gov't w/ saddam hussein is showing a complete and total lack of perspective and scale.

The US and its agents have murdered over 10 million people since WWII. Hussein has only managed about one million in half the time, most of those because of the war Iran forced upon him. I'm not the one without perspective and scale.

[GePap]

Originally posted by yavoon
its depressing that u expect us to do everything about everything or nothing. kinda extreme dont u think? how about when our morality and our interests coincide that u allow us to take a stand?

instead of spitting some inane hypocrisy talk at us. when in reality ALL THESE things moraly outrage u and u do absolutely nothing about any of them.

I can do nothing about them..last tim I checked, I was not in power..let me check, yup, I am not.

Daz asked why American hate Saddam..you and others state that it is cause he is a bad man. That makes a huge assumption: that Americans hate bad people, which,simply based on a simple examination of the facts, is shown to be false. For example, Laz was able to find huge quotes about the terrible actions of the Hussein regime: are long as quotes such as that available for all the victims of countless regimes, many US supported, around the world? NO. You only know what you are told..so they question is why you are told what you are told. The US government has decided, for various reasons to go to war with Iraq..that means the gound mut be laid. The US currently is allied with Usbekistan, which means you will only rarely hear about the repression there.

Now, maybe you and Laz actually care..but that is not true about Americans in general.

As for the morality..I do care, but I also know that caring is not enough, and that sadly we live in a world were morality is secondary to greed and fear. Which is why i dislike people spout about how they are doign something for morality when it fact fear and greed is what drives them. I do not ask we do nothing..I only ask we be honet with ourselves and other about why we are doing it...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by uh Clem
Does Amnesty Internation support US military action (virtually unilateral) to remove Saddam?

Who gives a rat's ass about that bunch of left wing ideologues? That group isn't any where near neutral in their opinions and they are dominated by a group of extreme left socialists.

That doesn't mean they are terrible people but it does mean most things they say are filtered through their political bias and that we should be looking for less biased information to make our decisions upon.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Joseph
Sorry it was Iraq, Saddam even visit the Hosp. were some of our sailors were taken.

I looked it up and you're right it was Iraqi and not Iranian. I was trying to remember 16 years back and I confussed the two.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Joseph
Sorry it was Iraq, Saddam even visit the Hosp. were some of our sailors were taken.

You're gonna need to provide a source.

EDIT: Ok, the incident was in 1987 though, not 1993. When we and Saddam were still buddies!

[GePap]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
That's a great reason we should go in, and not just sit back because we think the government's motives are not as pure as the driven snow.

Any comparison of Saddam to Hitler, or the current situation to 1941 is shallow at best, wrong usually. In this instance, it was shallow, but meant to point out that "the American People" have no inborn hatred of aggressors, bullies, madmen, or butchers, a trait we share with the rest of humanity.

And if I oppose the government's actions is because I think:

a. They way they got to this point was utterly foolish and has done great harm

b. I disagree with their assesment of the likely otucomes of this action, which will affect hundreads of millions of people.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Al-Qaeda are enemies of the Shi'ites. They follow the Wahabbi'ist sect of Sunni Islam. Helping Shia's won't dry up the pool of recruits for al-Qaeda.

Both the BBC & CNN have published reports claiming several of OBL's family members have taken refuge in Iranian Buluchistan (the part of Iran which is right next to Afghanistan and Pakistan).

[yavoon]

if ur blaming us for having allies of convenience than ur not a very practical person. the enemy of our enemy is our friend.

sure they might be bad ppl too. but we would have no military bases in the entire middle east and the whole place would become one gigantic umm bad word? just because we need allies in places doesn't mean we are endorsing what they do. it just means thats how the world works.

ur a huge cynic and there's very little one can do to convince a cynic otherwise. so I guess thats just how it is.

[GePap]

Originally posted by yavoon
if ur blaming us for having allies of convenience than ur not a very practical person. the enemy of our enemy is our friend.

You mean, like Saddam in the mid 1980's? Why not ally with Al Qaeda aaginst Saddam: we both want him gone..a marriage in the making perhaps?

sure they might be bad ppl too. but we would have no military bases in the entire middle east and the whole place would become one gigantic umm bad word? just because we need allies in places doesn't mean we are endorsing what they do. it just means thats how the world works.

Ahh, so you accept that what people do is only slightly based on any sense of morality an instead is based on convinience? If we are such enemies of cruelty and oppresion, why aren't we enemies with these conviniently placed states who happen to be dictatorships?

ur a huge cynic and there's very little one can do to convince a cynic otherwise. so I guess thats just how it is.

I am very cynical sometimes..but I am not a cynic. It is not wrong to state that you are doign somehting cause you think it will make things better for you, it is wrong if you disguise the real intentions of your actions with a shroud of "morality" because it is that very act that leads to more cynicism.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Who gives a rat's ass about that bunch of left wing ideologues? That group isn't any where near neutral in their opinions and they are dominated by a group of extreme left socialists.

Not really. Individual groups may be, but Amnesty International takes no position on politics except in dealing with human rights.




CBEAST!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Both the BBC & CNN have published reports claiming several of OBL's family members have taken refuge in Iranian Buluchistan (the part of Iran which is right next to Afghanistan and Pakistan).

Buluchis are Sunni. Iran's not as homogenius as some would have you believe.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
You're gonna need to provide a source.

He's right. I would have posted something, but Joseph already took care of it. I remember having conversations about it at the place where I worked with my regular customers. They were all like, "We should go over there and kick their asses." I'm like, "I can understand that, but their fighting the Iranians, who took our people. It was obviously an accident, and they've apologized." In hindsight, it may have been payback for giving the Iranians missiles, but that's another story.

[yavoon]

why are u suggesting we ally w/ al queda? are u being "funny." or are u just being stupid. I don't think we are shrouding our efforts to neone intelligent.

this is all a backlash from sept. 11. we want to be proactive in places that coddle hatred because we have found out that that hatred is not as benign as we had hoped.

when we look at the list of possible places to attack, we find out that iraq is BY FAR the easiest. so we go there. no biggie, its not total convenience, we are driven by security issues and past mistakes(we knew afghanistan was a craphole that coddled hatred), we just thot that was benign hatred, then we learned it wasn't.

I think we only bring up saddam's horrible crimes because peopple bring up thing slike "iraq civilians will die" so its only a natural counter argument to mention the multitudes of ppl who died under saddam's reign.

[DanS]

I have a high regard for Amnesty International, whatever their position is about this war. They are very useful and are particular about keeping on message and on method.

Che: Do you know which "movement", if any, from which AI draws its support?