Yeah but Sadam was worse!
netvegetable
people by US troops, and gross humiliating torture of Iraqi detainees
(some of who are almost certainly helpless non combatants), one
occasionally here's the argument that "Iraqis are better off now! Sadam
was worse!"
This argument is now completely accademic.
It now does not matter how bad Sadam was. You can talk about the discovery
of mass graves 'till the cows come home. It in no way justifies the death
of 600+ civilians in Falluja, 42 at at a traditional arab wedding, or acts
of torture that the entire middle east must see as nothing more than the
acts of complete perverts.
The only thing that is relevant is what the Iraqi people think of us. That
must be pretty grim, and getting worse by the week.
Don't blame me. I never wanted the gig.
--
to email me remove the word "NOT" from my addy
#politcs_oz irc.undernet.org
"..... I think what has kept your country safe and sane, relatively, is that you
have an ethic we don't have in America, which is that if one person is hurting,
we're all hurting."Michael Moore
Stuart Fenech
"netvegetable" <netvege...@dodo.com.au> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.05.20....@dodo.com.au...
> With all the media emphasis on the now regular massacres of the Iraqi
> people by US troops, and gross humiliating torture of Iraqi detainees
> (some of who are almost certainly helpless non combatants), one
> occasionally here's the argument that "Iraqis are better off now! Sadam
> was worse!"
>
> This argument is now completely accademic.
The argument was always false to begin with, because it was based on invalid
logic - the logic of 'two wrongs make a right'. We teach it to children but
somehow our "leaders" are allowed to sprout this rubbish.
Cheers
Stuart
Roger
invading?
"netvegetable" <netvege...@dodo.com.au> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.05.20....@dodo.com.au...
Tom Aldrich
netvegetable wrote:
> acts
> of torture that the entire middle east must see as nothing more than the
> acts of complete perverts.
Like the entire Middle East can crow about human rights or what not.
> The only thing that is relevant is what the Iraqi people think of us. That
> must be pretty grim, and getting worse by the week.
I'd be willing to bet that some Iraqis are thinking thats childs play compared to
what was done to me by Saddam's goons. It was wrong what those troops did to those
detainees, but unlike Saddams regime, it''s being aired and attempts are being made
to fix it.
I'll bet even if they fix it completly, you'll still harp on it.
Tom Enright
more
cowbell:
> The argument was always false to begin with, because it was based on invalid
> logic - the logic of 'two wrongs make a right'. We teach it to children but
> somehow our "leaders" are allowed to sprout this rubbish.
>
> Cheers
Fine. The Allies inflicted some rather serious property damage on
France during the period 1940-1945. So, was bombing the hell out of
Caen despite the fact that many French died 'right'? If yes, than
why doesn't the same apply in Iraq? If no, do you believe that
Germany should still occupy France until today?
-TOE
"But speaking here in my capacity as a polished, sophisticated
European
as well, it seems to me the laugh here is on the polished,
sophisticated
Europeans. They think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid,
ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they've taken as their own, as
their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of
those qualities." - Christopher Hitchens on Michael Moore
> Stuart
Stuart Fenech
> Stuart Fenech, Guess what? I got a fever and the only prescription is
> more
> cowbell:
>
> > The argument was always false to begin with, because it was based on invalid
> > logic - the logic of 'two wrongs make a right'. We teach it to children but
> > somehow our "leaders" are allowed to sprout this rubbish.
> >
> > Cheers
>
> Fine. The Allies inflicted some rather serious property damage on
> France during the period 1940-1945. So, was bombing the hell out of
> Caen despite the fact that many French died 'right'? If yes, than
> why doesn't the same apply in Iraq? If no, do you believe that
> Germany should still occupy France until today?
This, in turn, is also bad logic - a faulty analogy.
Cheers
Stuart
netvegetable
> netvegetable wrote:
>
>> acts
>> of torture that the entire middle east must see as nothing more than the
>> acts of complete perverts.
>
> Like the entire Middle East can crow about human rights or what not.
>
Re read the bits you snipped for a reply to that one.
>> The only thing that is relevant is what the Iraqi people think of us. That
>> must be pretty grim, and getting worse by the week.
>
> I'd be willing to bet that some Iraqis are thinking thats childs play compared to
> what was done to me by Saddam's goons. It was wrong what those troops did to those
> detainees, but unlike Saddams regime, it''s being aired and attempts are being made
> to fix it.
> I'll bet even if they fix it completly, you'll still harp on it.
And if they continue to completely screw up the situation abysmally, by
killing people en masse, and generally showing themselves up to be
complete hypocrites ... I'll bet you still be saying "Yeah but Sadam was
worse!"
Roger
> On Thu, 20 May 2004 09:58:47 +0000, Roger wrote:
>
> >
> > Isn't he supposed to be worse? Isn't that why the US felt justified in
> > invading?
>
> stockpiles" of chemical agents, and was allegedly trying to resurrect his
> nuclear weapons program.
That was the first excuse. What I mentioned was the third excuse, after
terrorism.
>
> They've since retrospectively changed the justification to "bringing
> democracy to the Middle East". This they are attempting to do by
> committing genocide, and torturing people.
This is the fourth excuse. It is also a lie, for the reasons you mentioned,
and because Bush has proven that he doesn't much care for democracy, after
having let it disappear in Haiti and not minding one of our biggest allies
in the "war on terrorism" being run by a dictator who came to power in a
coup. Pakistan, of course.
>
> The torture images probably can not be underestimated in their effect,
> because of the sexual nature. The people of this region are very ascetic,
> almost puritanical in some parts. If you're American, try to imagine
> someone had shown such images to the Puritan settlers.
The Puritans weren't very puritanical after all. They had a great time when
they got here. But I get your point.
Arthur Brain
> I'd be willing to bet that some Iraqis are thinking thats childs play compared to
> what was done to me by Saddam's goons. It was wrong what those troops did to those
> detainees, but unlike Saddams regime, it''s being aired and attempts are being made
> to fix it.
> I'll bet even if they fix it completly, you'll still harp on it.
him.
Iraqis know that and they won't have forgotten. They certainly don't
believe all the US guff about the US being there to "help" them. (they
aren't as stupid as 60% of americans, obviously).
Bob
> On Thu, 20 May 2004 09:58:47 +0000, Roger wrote:
>
> >
> > invading?
>
> stockpiles" of chemical agents, and was allegedly trying to resurrect his
> nuclear weapons program.
>
> democracy to the Middle East". This they are attempting to do by
> committing genocide, and torturing people.
"My fellow citizens, at this hour, American
and coalition forces are in the early stages of
military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its
people and to defend the world from grave
danger."
Gregory Shearman
What a pack of fucking lies.
Iraq was no danger to the world. The USA is the danger to the world.
Disarm Iraq? They had nothing to disarm. The USA is the one with WMD.
Free its people? By torturing them and bombing them and keeping invading
soldiers in control of the puppet US government of Iraq? The USA doesn't
believe in freedom. We can see that from the way they run Guantanemo Bay.
What a bunch of hypocritical murdering thugs.
--
Regards,
Gregory.
"Ding-a-Ding Dang, My Dang-a-Long Ling Long."
LawsonE
"DemSoc" <Dem...@MarxismIsEvil.com> wrote in message
news:c8q71k$6r6$1...@news.f.de.plusline.net...
> More marxist trog propaganda from a supporter of muslim imperialsm.
>
> USA used a nuclear weapon twice on japan to end a terrible war you will
> never understand.
>
That is, the Japanese refused to submit...
> Saddam used chemical weapons on kurds because they refusedto submit to
him.
>
> That is the difference.
Yep, HUGE distinction there.
Actually, I think that there ARE differences, but the submission thing
certainly isn't one of them.
Lars Eighner
<c8q71k$6r6$1...@news.f.de.plusline.net>,
the lovely and talented DemSoc
broadcast on alt.politics:
> Saddam used chemical weapons on kurds because they refusedto submit to him.
The evidence is not in fact clear. It may be as you say. Or the
Kurds may have been gassed by Iran in retaliation for the attacks on
Iran (which is what the US gave Saddam the gas for). Or Saddam might
have been attempting to attack Iran, per US instructions, and hit the
Kurds by mistake. In any event, the attack on the Kurds came stamped
"Made in the U.S.A."
What is more, the US has promised Turkey that the Kurds will not be
allowed autonomy, no matter how the Iraq war comes out - assumming it
ever ends. There is no reason to think any democratic government in
Iraq will go any easier on the Kurds than Saddam did, and if the end
of the war turns out to include an end to no-fly zones, the Kurds are
very likely to be worse off when the US leaves Iraq than they were on
the day Bush took office.
--
Lars Eighner -finger for geek code- eig...@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
"With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects,
I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them"
-- Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman
Fran
> "DemSoc" <Dem...@MarxismIsEvil.com> wrote in message
> news:c8q71k$6r6$1...@news.f.de.plusline.net...
> > More marxist trog propaganda from a supporter of muslim imperialsm.
> >
> > USA used a nuclear weapon twice on japan to end a terrible war you will
> > never understand.
> >
>
> That is, the Japanese refused to submit...
>
That's a point of dispute. Actually, the US was quite worried that
they might submit before he'd had a chance to show off its power, and
after the first one, he was even more worried that the weather would
stop him using the second before Japan surrendered, and so he let it
go before they had a chance to absorb its impact. There is now little
room to doubt that the US could have had a Japanese surrender without
deploying either bomb, and certainly without the second bomb.
Of course, the postwar talks with Stalin might have been a little less
positive if Stalin wasn't convinced that Truman was as ruthless a
megalomaniac as he was, and thus willing to sacrifice a few hundred
thousand people in the blink of an eye just to drive home the point.
> > Saddam used chemical weapons on kurds because they refused to submit to
> him.
> >
Also debatable. The precise circumstances are somewhat murky.
FRAN
Fran
> In our last episode,
> <c8q71k$6r6$1...@news.f.de.plusline.net>,
> the lovely and talented DemSoc
> broadcast on alt.politics:
>
> > Saddam used chemical weapons on kurds because they refusedto submit to him.
>
> The evidence is not in fact clear. It may be as you say. Or the
> Kurds may have been gassed by Iran in retaliation for the attacks on
> Iran (which is what the US gave Saddam the gas for). Or Saddam might
> have been attempting to attack Iran, per US instructions, and hit the
> Kurds by mistake. In any event, the attack on the Kurds came stamped
> "Made in the U.S.A."
>
> What is more, the US has promised Turkey that the Kurds will not be
> ever ends. There is no reason to think any democratic government in
> Iraq will go any easier on the Kurds than Saddam did
True
> and if the end
> of the war turns out to include an end to no-fly zones, the Kurds are
> very likely to be worse off when the US leaves Iraq than they were on
> the day Bush took office.
Not really, as the British and the Americans were allowing the Turks
to bomb, strafe and ransack Kurdish areas under their "Provide
Comfort" protection.
FRAN
Fran
> Tom Aldrich <TomA...@usenetserver.com> wrote in message news:<40ACAF13...@usenetserver.com>...
>
> > I'd be willing to bet that some Iraqis are thinking thats childs play compared to
> > what was done to me by Saddam's goons. It was wrong what those troops did to those
> > detainees, but unlike Saddams regime, it''s being aired and attempts are being made
> > to fix it.
> > I'll bet even if they fix it completly, you'll still harp on it.
>
> While Saddam was murdering people by the thousand, the USA was helping
> him.
>
And of course Saddam had to start somewhere. He didn't start off
murdering and torturing by the thousands. And some of those he did
were names of enemies handed to him by the CIA. And in any event, most
of the people who died under his regime died in the US-backed war with
Iran.
Yes he was an evil bastard. The US wouldn't have had it any other way.
And some of the pro-US posters are almost ready to yell "come back
Saddam, all is forgiven."
Here's what one of the more candid ones said in a topic called
"Hussein was doing world a favor"
" Now my theory is that Hussein was actually keeping these animals
down by
whacking them out when they got outta line. When the people really
got out
of line, he would whack the entire family to make sure there was
nothing
left of the bloodline. This way he could be sure that 20 years down
the
road somebody's son wouldn't come back to settle the score. He did us
another favor when he kept Iran bogged down in a war for ten years. I
wonder if the 375,000 people that Hussein whacked simply deserved
whacking.
Now Hussein is gone, and this is the end result. Chaos
and mayhem.
John De Gennaro"
I love it when these characters drop the crocodile tears for the
victims of "evil dictators" and say what they really think.
FRAN
DemSoc
America may not have had to use the nuclear bomb if Russia had informed the
Americans Japan contacted them about ending the war.
Instead Russia declared war on Japan and seized an island to the north and
still refuses to withdraw.
"LawsonE" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:9j1sc.7017$be....@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
mark
>
> FRAN