Without WMD, exactly what is Hussein going to be prosecuted for?

[MichiganVote]

[VotefurKerry]

1. The Iraqis want to prosecute him

He is out of US hands.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. How many people WORLDWIDE want to prosecute shrub, Rummy,

Cheney and the rest of the neocons for warcrimes?

Plenty -------> www.brusselstribunal.org

[VotefurKerry]

7. When they leave office this year Kerry should deport them

to face the tribunal.

[cmd]

48. I think he should seize the Bush/Cheney assets

Then put them toward the national debt.

[bunkerbuster1]

68. Let Bush keep the pig farm

and stay exiled there for life.

[DrWeird]

3. That's right, he's out of us hands.

The sovereign Iraqi government has him.

[birdbrain]

61. I think the US still has physical custody....

and it's not like the "sovereign" Iraqi's have much say in the matter. Anyway, he'll be prosecuted for SOMEthing. Maybe
freedom-hating...

[TankLV]

69. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Oh, you mean you're being SERIOUS?!?!?!

Bunkerboy and his crowd have absolutely NO involvement in his prosecution.

Riiiiiiiiight!

[NV Whino]

4. Previous crimes

[teach1st]

5. Was he charged with other crimes?

I thought Saddam was charged with crimes relating to mistreatment of Iraqis.

[ghostsofgiants]

9. If Saddam is charged with such things

Will there be any backlash on Rumsfeld, Bush the Elder, et al. for supporting Saddam through his worst arocities?

[VotefurKerry]

10. You mean like killing Iranians?

No.

[Old and In the Way]

46. That's the nut.....the bloody facts.

No chance Hussein stands trial as long as Bush is in office....he'll die a natural death or be Norriega'd...held incommunicado while the wheels of justice stop turning.

But I bet, if Kerry wins-

(1) He transfers Hussein to the Hague.....and Saddam will be allowed his day in court....and trial begun immediately and in public testimony. The real nasty shit on Bush 41/Rumsfield/Cheney gets entered as international evidence.

(2) Kerry will also begin the real war on international terrorism....and its going to drag BCCI/House of Saud-Bush-Carlyle-bin Laden connections to the fore front. I want Elliott Spitzer as AG. I'll bet he lost many friends on 9/11 and he has the HP to run Justice to attack the financial institutions that profit from terror.

(3) I think we'll see a new, objective Independent commission to revisit the entire 9/11 Commission report and address lots of stuff that got buried under the rug.

My October Surprise prediction? Saddam dies in his sleep sometime before 11/2/04.

[Lefty48197]

6. For being a threat to...

reconstitute his WMD's program, and possibly to make a nuclear bomb, and sell it to al Qaeda.

[Inland]

8. Lying about WMD, causing a war and killng Iraq civilians

Oh, wait, that's the Bush indictment. Something else.

[Birthmark]

11. I'm operating from memory here, but...

...I believe that Saddam was responsible for thousands and thousands of murders. I believe that that's prosecutable, no?

[VotefurKerry]

12. By the UN probably

The UN can definitely prosecute Saddam for genocide and torture.

[Birthmark]

15. Sounds good to me.

I'm very glad he's gone, but the cost was, and is, horrific and unnecessary. There were many ways to remove him short of war.

[VotefurKerry]

16. I agree

The same could have been said for Milosevic.

[venus]

49. No Milosevic

was in the process of committing ethnic cleansing and they were asking for our help; albeit a UN resolution was not given for whatever reason. However we did work closely with the UN for some time on trying to come stem the violence: the Dayton Accords that Milosevic openly and flagrantly violated, were in place. To me it was similar to the Sudan on a smaller scale. Saddam was doing nothing to us when we decided to take over his sovereign country. Even the mass graves purportedly from our first invasion have come under scrutiny. And not one U.S, soldier lost their life in combat. Yes I know there were bombing mistakes where innocent civilians died, but no intentional torturing of prisoners and indiscriminate bombing. The difference is huge.

[Djinn]

53. Many Serbs would disagree with that

they'd say that Milosevic's reaction to a violent rebellion (KLA) which included kidnapping children from Serbian families was FAR milder than the reaction to 9/11 for example. Interestingly Serbia's "rebel" problem also came from fundie Muslims and unlike 9/11 they knew precisely who was responsible and who to act against. I don't think the lack of US casualties meant much to those Serbians mourning their loved ones.

BTW - I did not support Milosevic's actions in Kosovo but then I didn't support the KLA's actions either and the bombing of Serbia was a crappy way of dealing with it and solved absolutely nothing.

[NeoConsSuck]

26. You're making a statement that the purpose of the war..

was to remove Saddamn.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The purpose of the war was to get our hands on the Iraqi oil wells.

[Birthmark]

47. Me? I'm claiming nothing of the sort.

I'm claiming that the Bush Administration claimed that that was the purpose of the war. Well, one of the many purposes that they have claimed. I also claimed that there were better ways to get Saddam - and there were.

[Djinn]

22. torture yes

genocide would be hard one, the vast majority of deaths in Iraq over the last 30 years were casualities from the Iran/Iraq war, can't really prosecute over that and sanctions which although the money getting into Iraq was getting syphoned by Saddam, would also be impossible to prosecute.

There are however plenty of people able to testify as to his repression, torture and murder of political opponents and presumably this is what he'll be prosecuted for - any of the bigger issues may be a little "uncomfortable" for the US and other western nations so I imagine it will be a series of charges relating to specific individuals. You could argue that the suppresion of the Shiite uprising in 1991 was genocide bt again that incident has some embarrasing connections with the US so I'd expect it to be off the agenda as well.

[patcox2]

63. Was Bush prosecutable for the State sanctioned homicides in TX?

Tricky stuff, this, when you prosecute the sovereign for putting down insurrections, no matter how brutally. Right now the supposedly sovereign, US-appointed Iraqi government is killing an equal or greater number of Iraqis, with a weaker claim to legitimate power than Saddam had.

Should we prosecute Clinton for Waco?

I know you are going to say thats absurd, the death penalty was legal in Texas and Waco wasn't Clinton's fault.

But the fact is that when it comes to international affairs like this, there is no "law." The winners in a war or an insurrection simply declare the losers outlaws and thats it.

What is the Bush administration position on presecuting Pinochet? That would be an example of the law and principles in question. Expediency, politics, and might makes right are the rules of decision. Please don't make me puke by pretending it has anything to do with law or justice.

[IdaBriggs]

71. Also, Tony Blair debunked a lot of that already. Ooops!

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1263830,00.html

PM admits graves claim 'untrue'

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday July 18, 2004
The Observer

Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.
The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were given widespread credence, quoted by MPs and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet on Iraq's mass graves.

In that publication - Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves produced by USAID, the US government aid distribution agency, Blair is quoted from 20 November last year: 'We've already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.'

On 14 December Blair repeated the claim in a statement issued by Downing Street in response to the arrest of Saddam Hussein and posted on the Labour party website that: 'The remains of 400,000 human beings already found in mass graves.'

The admission that the figure has been hugely inflated follows a week in which Blair accepted responsibility for charges in the Butler report over the way in which Downing Street pushed intelligence reports 'to the outer limits' in the case for the threat posed by Iraq.

<more>

[Ardee]

13. recent history not a forte?

Crimes against the citizens of Iraq....murder, torture, rape, theft of a nations assets, being a despotic lunatic.......

If we do not educate ourselves about the world around us how can we make intelligent decisions about issues?

[Avalux]

14. LYING

ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!!

[karlrschneider]

17. For lying about a blowjob.

:eyes:

[6th Borough]

18. I wonder if he will escape justice through age and/or infirmity.

Milosevic. Pinochet. Pol Pot.

Due to the glacial pace that these cases take, the defendant often dies or becomes too ill to face (or finish) trial.

This applies to UN tribunals, in-country prosecutions, and combinations of both (Pol Pot's case, a joint effort between the UN and Cambodia, is an example of the latter).

Pinochet seems to be too ill...then okay...then too ill...face it, the man is going to die of natural causes before any charges stick to him.

Milosevic...seems like 4 years for the prosecution, another 4 for the defense (if it's even begun). And 4 years of cross-examination. Throw in off and on again illness...

Old tyrants don't die, they just fade away...(ala Idi Amin).

[6th Borough]

19. Edited missing comma /EOM

[Disturbed]

20. Saddam On Trial

Saddam On Trial


Marsh Arabs. He could make the same argument for reclaiming the marshland that countries around the world do for hydroelectric dams. All in the name of progress. And he did have a rebellion to put down. Insurgents were attacking government troops during the night and hiding in the marshes during the day.

If that were happening today, what do you think the US would do? The first major marsh-draining scheme was proposed in the 1951 Haigh Report, "Control of the Rivers of Iraq," drafted by British engineers working for the Iraqi government. "The report describes an array of sluices, embankments and canals on the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates that would be needed to 'reclaim' the marshes." The study's senior engineer, Frank Haigh, felt that the standing marsh water was being wasted, so he "proposed concentrating the flow of the Tigris into a few embanked channels that would not overflow into the marshes. He proposed one large canal through the main `Amara marsh." In this way, Iraq would be able to "capture the marsh water for irrigation" purposes to aid in feeding the newly created State of Iraq. Construction of the large canal, called the Third River, began in 1953. Further construction took place in the 1960's. It was not until the 1980's, however, during the Iran-Iraq War, that major work was resumed. Today, many of the water projects in the marsh area bear a striking resemblance to the Haigh Plan -- the only problem is that the projects are not being used for agricultural improvement!

<http://gurukul.ucc.american.edu/ted/marsh.htm>

Mass graves

Group 1: Shiites and Kurds killed by the Iraqi govt before Gulf war (when he was an ally of the US. The US provided WMD and the means to deliver them to Saddam during that period. They were allies, and the US continued to supply arms and assisitance knowing that Iraq was doing this. How can the US say then it was ok, but now 20 years later it's bad. Aren't the countries who supplied the means for this murder just as guilty?)

Group 2: Iranians and Iraqis killed during the Iran Iraq war (Again, the US supported Iraq with WMD, helicopters and critical battle planning assistance, so it looks pretty foolish coming to him 20 years later and saying, but you shouldn't have helped us fight our enemy Iran)

Group 3: Masses of Iraqi soldiers and buldozed into mass graves by US troops during the Gulf War. If you think that is a crime against humanity, you know who to blame)

Group 4: Sunnis and Shites massacred by Shiites and Kurds in the pose Desert Storm uprisings encouraged by the US. You can't blame Saddam for this, and when you read about the situation, what choice did he have but to put the rebellion down, just as the US is doing in Iraq today.

As put forth by regional analyst Sandra Mackay: "The rebels utilized their guns and numbers to seize the civilian operatives of the Baath government while former Shia conscripts turned on officers of the army. They hung their captives from rafters of an Islamic school, shot them in the head before walls turned into execution chambers, or simply slit their throats at the point of capture.' (The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein, page 24) Dilip Hiro, another Iraqi historian, documents atrocities in the holy city of Kerbala: "Insurgents had attacked the army headquarters and seized weapons? They decapitated or hanged 75 military officials, some of them Shia, and tortured many more." (Desert Shield To Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War, page 402)

All said, several thousand policemen, clerks, military personnel and employees of the government were slain, according to Omar Ali, another regional authority. (See Crisis in the Arabian Gulf, page 147) Meanwhile in northern Iraq, Kurdish separatists were gearing up for their own shot at the regime. As far back as 1961 ? seven years before Saddam Hussein came to power - they had been staging violent attacks on Iraq's central government, trying to leverage off a piece of the country to form their own fledgling state.

Accepting Washington's pronouncements about a vanquished Iraqi military, up to 400,000 Kurds undertook a ferocious spree of mayhem that rivaled that of the Shia. According to Mackay, in Kirkuk "no one bothered to count how many servants of Baghdad were shot, beheaded, or cut to shreds with the traditional dagger stuck in the cummerbund of every Kurdish man. By the time Kurdish rage had exhausted itself, piles of corpses lay in the streets awaiting removal by bulldozers." (The Reckoning, page 26)

<http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/433> /

Group 5: Rebels killed by the Baathist regime when putting down the Shiite and Kurdish rebellions (Saddam would merely argue that he did exactly what the US is doing now in Iraq -- using all necessary means to restore stability. How do you convict him for that?)

Group 6: Victims of the current invasion, estimated to be between 35,000 and 100,000 Iraqis. The US and UK killed these people.

*Almost everybody says that Saddam gassed the Kurds as if it were a fact, even J. Kerry. News Flash! There is zero proof of this.

[Djinn]

24. I'm sure you'll get flamed for this

but I'm glad you posted this - Saddam was a dictator and brutally disposed of political opposition but his crimes have been (unneccesarily) exagerated to include the mass graves filled with war dead, and the fact that he had western backing and support during his worst repression makes me wonder if he'll ever be charged.

[6th Borough]

31. I might be flamed for as well...

But I do know that a sizable number of Kurds fought along side Iranian forces during the Iraq-Iran war.

IIRC, kurdish peshmergas knocked off 10k or so Iraqis as part of an insurrection during the 1970's.

I still think enough evidence exists to convict him on charges related to, at the very least, homicide and torture against political opponents (real and imagined). Much like Pinochet.

[venus]

51. Thanks for this informative post.

I remember some of the high level history but don't have all of the details.

[venus]

50. Kerry is against the death penalty anyway

and I'm sure it doesn't bother him if Milosevic rots in the Hague.

[ladybugg33]

21. For "pretending to have them" or "intending to have them"

:shrug:

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Djinn]

25. I'm having a psychic moment

I see a slab of engraved granite in your near future...

[Boyz2Menz]

27. Sorry but thats the way I feel

We should have never gone in there. It was a stupid move. Now we have a mess on our hands. If you want to kick me off for that then you are just silly.

[Djinn]

29. it's got nothing to do with ME wanting to do anything

it's to do with swallowing propaganda whole (sarin gas cannister = WMD ring any bells) and posting it on your first day.

I'd rather you stuck around it's easy arguing with people who don't seem to have a grasp of the issues

[Boyz2Menz]

36. It is my belief that Sarin Gas is dangerous. Yes. what is your point.

[Djinn]

41. yes it is

however on it's own it's NOT a WMD, that needs a delivery system capable of distributing said gas to a large number of people.

HAVING some nasty weapons does not constitute a WMD capability, you know that the anthrax that was sent via mail after 9/11 came from US stocks don't you - know how big the US chemical weapon stockpile is.

[Mr.Jingles]

58. I never said it was a WMD

I said it was bad stuff..

What are you trying to prove here?

[UpsideDownFlag]

59. ...mr. jingles? is this boyz2men's ghost? nt

[patdem]

39. The Human Head Weighs 8lbs...you mean there is a The Human Head?

[Mr.Jingles]

60. Gibberish

[geek tragedy]

30. Are you a Star Trek fan?

I'm trying to think of those weapons the Romulans used.

[patdem]

40. I too alerted.....to say that ALL IRAQI'S are ANIMALS..well,,,

granite is too good for the poor fella!

[Mr.Jingles]

57. I didn't say all Iraqis

You did.

[redstaterebel]

28. Excuse me?

Iraqis don't need anyone to "keep them in line." If a certain imperialistic country that shall not be named would just leave them alone, I believe they could function just fine.

They are not animals. They are human beings that are being killed by the thousands by our repugnant military.

[geek tragedy]

32. I believe this poster lives under a bridge, if you catch my drift.

[Boyz2Menz]

35. So you are saying Saddam was a good thing?

[Old and In the Way]

52. More like a necessary thing.

It appears that Hussein made Iraq, an artificial political entity, work.....it was the most progressive and secular society in the ME in the 80's. He ruled ruthlessly, but the Kurd, Shi'a, and Sunni co-existed well enough. He was our proxxy in the Iraq/Iran War.

I've always been a proponent that if enough of The People hate their leader strongly enough, they will find extra-legal ways of resolving the problem. I can't recall any sustained homegrown Iraqi insurgency trying to overthrow Saddam.

Longterm, I think Iraq is doomed to be Balkanized or we will be forced to keep an unstable peace.

[Name removed]

62. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MichiganVote]

33. Animals in line? An entire population of animals?

First of all, there are decent people in Iraq. Educated or no, they do not deserve to be lumped in with those who sided w/Saddam and committed atrocities.

If fear is the only motivator for civilized behavior then surely George Bush is cut from the same cloth as he has been a primary fear monger the last 3 years? Does that make all Americans animals too?

For the record, I didn't get involved in Iraq. George Bush and his administration did and they did it with lies, distortion and outright exaggeration. Everyone is paying the price and with hope and determination, Goerge Bush will finally pay his price on Nov. 2nd.

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Djinn]

37. sigh

once again it's OK to pound a civilian population with bombs, to blow children apart while they sleep in their beds, to imprison people with no conviction (gee that was one of the reasons saddam was a bad man wasn't it) but if the "other" side gets brutal it's "screech they're animals"

If we stay in Iraq for as long as Saddam did our death toll would be higher.

I think you know FUCK ALL about Iraq or it's people.

[Boyz2Menz]

38. ha

So you agree. They are better off with Saddam.

[DrWeird]

44. Funny how it's bad when Saddam does it...

but you haven't a care in the world when a republican rapes, massacres, and tortures Iraqis.

Fucking savages.

[Mr.Jingles]

56. You missed the point.

Saddam had control of that country when he was in power. He did it using force and fear but he kept control.

Either he was doing a good job using these tactics of torture, mass murders and rapes or he is a bad man who needed to be taken down.

Before I was tomb stoned I said that he did a good job. We have a mess over there.

The animals I refereed to are the People with guns who kill indiscriminately and attack out of the blue. Saddam didn't have many problems like that. And when he did he handled it.

So what would your choice be Mr. Compassion. Should the good people of Iraq have to live with Saddam and his fear tactics or the US and the problems that have come with us invading and attempting to "free" them.

I am unclear on the views here. One minute you say Saddam is evil, the next you say he was doing a good job.....

[Djinn]

45. using small words so you'll understand

some of us were protesting western links with Saddam a LOOONG time ago when we were arming him.

some of us have no problem with an arrested Saddam, we're a little peturbed that he will probably not get a full trial because there's some info that would be very intersting indeed that would come to light about the role of the West in the abuse of Iraqi citizens.

Maybe IF the forces had been sent in to remove Saddam I may ahve even supported it, as long as we went after Burma and North Korea etc etc next but they didn't because they knew that the majority of the moronic wouldn't buy going to war for regime change so they made everyone shit scared talking about mushroom clouds.

Right now life in Iraq for the average person is more dangerous and harder in terms of electricity/water and other services than it was before YES If the Iraqi population has to put up with an occupation for a long time or a CIA puppet govt then YES they were probably better off under Saddam, after all they are STILL getting killed and they're still watching their kids die AND they're STILL being put in prison and tortured.

However public pressure removed the US from Vietnam and if the Iraqi people can ever vote in a free election THEN they MAY be better off, I just don't hold out any delusions that the US will let that happen.

[Ardee]

72. Saddam silenced?

I had, until I noted your excellent point about how much he knows, assumed that Hussein was awaiting the installation of a legitimate Iraqi government (yeah like thats going to happen...I can see the strings from here) to stand trial.

You are absolutely on target in surmising that neither Bush wants Saddam on the stand talking! I wonder if he will share a cell with Noriega in perpetuity?

[patdem]

43. boyz calls them all animals..ever call an animal a civilan??? NO?

boyz is not long for this site..trust me!

[MichiganVote]

42. I asked a question to get an answer, or two, or three

I don't recall asking for an indictment.

In this country we have obliterated whole tribes of the Indian culture, hung boys and men from tree limbs for the mere sake of the color of their skin and butchered others for their sexual orientation. We have suppressed women, willfully ignored the homeless (most of whom are children)and ravaged the environment.

Are we animals?

[Name removed]

65. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dennis4868]

54. for flying the planes into the twin towers....

[daleo]

55. I still haven't figured out how he survived that one

Parachuted at the last moment, I guess...

[kayell]

64. For being a very, VERY BAD man.

You don't remember getting the memo?

[theboss]

66. Probably the catch-all "crimes against humanity"

That's the favorite for deposed dictators.

[killbotfactory]

67. Conspiracy to gather a threat

???

[baldguy]

70. How 'bout tax evation?