Blithering Idiots
What part of “mass graves” don’t you people understand?
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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October 18th, 2004 at 4:23 pm
These are the people that believe every pregnant woman should have an abortion so that we don’t populate the earth with any more people, except of course with mexicans and other immigrants, who flood the hospitals to have babies that we should enthusiastically pay for.
Sorry if I sound crass but some people just can’t see the forest for the trees.
October 18th, 2004 at 5:11 pm
What part of “18 years ago” don’t you understand?
October 18th, 2004 at 5:15 pm
Chris, what part of “irrelevant” don’t YOU understand? Contrary to popular opinion, there wasn’t one dictator named Saddam Hussein in power in 1987-88 and a different one in 2003. There is no statute of limitations on genocide.
October 18th, 2004 at 6:55 pm
I guess its ok that a couple million of “those jews” were whacked 60 years ago…
As far as the ppl pictured in the link…some ppl dont have a fucking clue.
October 18th, 2004 at 6:57 pm
oops almost forgot…I guess its ok that thousands of other muslims were exterminated in Yugoslavia/Bosnia et al in the 1990’s. Damn..almost forgot, that was a Democrat in the white house so its ok to invade another country to put a stop to it.
October 18th, 2004 at 8:18 pm
For more on why a genocide 18 years ago is not sufficient justification to invade a country now, see this fine essay on this topic by Ken Roth, someone who was actually fighting to intervene in Iraq in 1988 when it would have made a difference.
October 18th, 2004 at 8:51 pm
Chris, putting all other arguments aside (lets act like we are in make believe world where Iraq never happened and we are all holding hands singing Kumbaya) I would like for you to explain to me why you seem to brush off the discovery of yet another mass grave based upon how long ago (years) the victims were killed? I really don’t like your snide remarks toward discovering a mass grave containing murdered human beings. Explain to me Chris why it wasn’t important?…better yet, maybe you could hitch a ride with Sean Penn to Iraq and tell the family members of those murdered that its not important that some bastard is out of power…that even though our government fucked up in their intelligence re WMDs Al Quada et al…that it would have been better off to leave the SOB in place vs. invading under what would be found out later to be false/misleading/wrong intelligence. Explain to me Chris why you have such a flippant attitude toward mass murder?…in your own words…no googling web sites to get others to speak for you please.
My opinion? We fucked up. Did Bush lie?..I doubt it. Was he sucked in by others?…was he too stupid and gullible to listen to reason by the anti war crowd in re to the WMD/terrorist angle? Yes.
Do I feel proud to be an American after Colin Powell went to the UN and pointed out pics of WMD trucks/labs etc..that were never there or were not what they appeared to be? Nope. But beside the fact, I’m happy that a middle-eastern version of Hitler was put out of business. Was it worth the deaths of our soldiers? Your damn right it was…especially if you were on the receiving end of a mad mans wrath.
October 18th, 2004 at 9:35 pm
What part of We were also partly responsible for said genocide because we supplied him with some of his weapons as well as said nothing at the time nor did anything to stop it at the time do you not understand.
Also what part of Abu Ghraib, the 10s of thousands of Iraqi Citizens that we’ve killed in this war do you not understand?
Also, what part of most of them think that we are occupiers, not liberators do you not understand?
I’m not saying that these people don’t take an overly simplistic view of the world, but saying that its just about the mass graves is dishonest.
October 18th, 2004 at 9:48 pm
“What part of We were also partly responsible for said genocide because we supplied him with some of his weapons”
Yeah, we sold him 0.58% of his weapons. source The USSR and France were the biggest arm sellers to Saddam. What have France and Russia done for Iraq other than skimming money out of the UN Oil for Food program?
Total '80 - 02 % share
USSR 17503 50.78%
France 5221 15.15%
China 5192 15.06%
Czechoslovakia 1540 4.47%
Poland 1626 4.72%
Brazil 724 2.10%
Egypt 568 1.65%
Romania 524 1.52%
Denmark 226 0.66%
Libya 200 0.58%
USA 200 0.58%
October 18th, 2004 at 9:58 pm
Manish, don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say it was JUST about mass graves. Of course, if we really WERE partially responsible for it, why then shouldn’t we be responsible for righting the wrong? Oh that’s right; we want to hate our Bush and eat him, too.
And “tens of thousands” of Iraqis we’ve killed? I say bullshit. Proof please. Finally: Abu Ghraib? Yeah, panties on a grown man’s head is the moral equivalent of a bullet in a baby’s brain. Good job; you’ve proved my point exactly.
Chris, I’m going to break my policy of ignoring you just to say the same goes for you: don’t put words in my mouth. I said nothing about genocide being a sufficient justification for invasion. But we get it: you hate Bush. Now why don’t you go drink your kool-aid somewhere else?
Good to know, though, that your reflexes are working, both of you. All I have to do is say “Iraq” and imply that maybe, just maybe, some good came of toppling Saddam. Oh no, we can’t have that, can we? We hatessss Bush too much, don’t we, my precious?
October 18th, 2004 at 10:23 pm
I’m sorry, too.
Sorry we had a president for 8 years afraid to do what was right because it was unpopular. There may not have been as many mass graves today.
But know what? Saddam aint going to be creating any more mass graves tomorrow.
October 18th, 2004 at 10:44 pm
What part of We were also partly responsible for said genocide because we supplied him with some of his weapons as well as said nothing at the time nor did anything to stop it at the time do you not understand.
If we were so “responsible”= your words, not mine Manish, for the genocide by supplying him with weapons to murder his “people” with should we not be responsible for correcting a wrong now that we are more “enlightened”? Pot=kettle, kettle=pot
October 19th, 2004 at 12:11 am
Justin:
I didn’t say it wasn’t important.
Thibodeaux:
You linked to the FOR project, an anti-war organization, saying that there was something about the mass graves that they “didn’t get”. Naturally, I assumed that you meant to imply that what they “didn’t get” was that this justifies the war.
I’m sorry if that’s not what you meant. Feel free to clarify.
October 19th, 2004 at 1:11 am
Les..by we, I mean the royal we and the international community and yes, that includes the hated France.
And precisely what wrong, do you think that we are righting?
The difference between Iraq and the Balkans is that the Balkans were in the middle of a mass genocide. And we went in to stop it as it was happening.
In the pursuit of Saddam Hussain, 1100 of our soldiers died, over 6000 are wounded and over 13000 Iraqi civilians are dead and all of those numbers will only increase. Do you really think that it was somehow worth all of these people dead and wounded to catch Saddam, who wasn’t actively commiting genocide? That’s 20,000 people killed or wounded and no end in sight. We’ve created our own tragedy in pursuit of Saddam.
We went to war without a plan for the peace as a veteran State Dept. officer said “We didn’t go in with a plan. We went in with a theory.” So now what? Your talking about a country with three major ethnic groups where civil war is a distinct possibility. An Arabic cab driver that was giving me a lift made a point about the insurgency…just wait until the US leaves, and then you’ll see the insurgency grow. Given how much the Administartion has misjudged this war,
Even if you use the WMD angle, the very same CIA that told us that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD, also told us that he was unlikely to use them UNLESS he was attacked.
We didn’t right a wrong, we wronged a wrong. And two wrongs don’t make a right.
October 19th, 2004 at 1:33 am
The part that leads to the conclusion that we’re supposed to give the guy a pass. Are we also supposed to excuse the millions of his own people that Josef Stalin murdered while fighting along the good ol’ U.S. of A. in World War II? If so, why on earth? And if not, why on earth would you raise such a silly, irrelevant point about Saddam Hussein?
October 19th, 2004 at 3:48 am
Are we also supposed to excuse the millions of his own people that Josef Stalin murdered while fighting along the good ol’ U.S. of A. in World War II?
Of course not, nor should we excuse Saddam..but we also didn’t attack the Soviet Union to try and bring Stalin to justice, because it would have been suicidal on the part of the United States and only made things worse. There is a concept known as the lesser of two evils and keeping Saddam in power definitely fits this paradigm.
October 19th, 2004 at 9:55 am
Manish, your compassion for the Iraqi people is so moving…until I remind myself that you think their being ruled by a dictator who tortured, maimed, and killed them the “lesser of two evils.”
Stuff it.
October 19th, 2004 at 11:04 am
“Do you really think that it was somehow worth all of these people dead and wounded to catch Saddam, who wasn’t actively commiting genocide?”
Yes. There’s nothing to say it wouldn’t have happened again. Saddam had prisons full of his political opponents and their families. He had children in prisons because their parents opposed him. That doesn’t bother you?
And what was going to happen when Saddam died? Either his crazy sons would have taken over or there would have been a civil war.
You’re really arguing yourself into the untenable position of carrying water for a murderous dictator, while criticizing the country that liberated his country from dictatorship, murder, and oppression. Why do you fell compelled to take up for the bad guy?
October 19th, 2004 at 11:40 am
Manish: the reason we didn’t knock Stalin out of power during World War II is because we needed him then, much like we needed Hussein as a check on Iran. The reason we didn’t take him out shortly after WW II was because FDR had a soft spot in his heart for commies like “Uncle Joe,” to whom he ceded half of Europe in exchange for a shallow promise to hold democratic elections there. By the time the U.S. had wised up to the communist menace, it was too late to do anything without causing a bloodbath. And no, “bloodbath” does not include a three week war with U.S. casualties numbering in the hundreds, even if it also meant losing roughly 1,000 of our troops every year and a half during the subsequent occupation of the country. If any U.S. President from Eisenhower to Reagan had had an opportunity to bring down the Russian bear that easily, he’d have taken it in a heartbeat.
October 19th, 2004 at 1:11 pm
much like we needed Hussein as a check on Iran.
Its intellectually dishonest to then claim that we went into this war because of his previous actions.
By the time the U.S. had wised up to the communist menace, it was too late to do anything without causing a bloodbath.
This is precisely my point. We made peace with Stalin to avoid further conflict and ultimately lead to a point where neither country could attack each other without destroying themselves. However, any desire on our part to invade the Soviet Union was not based on genocide.
If any U.S. President from Eisenhower to Reagan had had an opportunity to bring down the Russian bear that easily, he’d have taken it in a heartbeat.
At the end of the day, we didn’t have to take them down, because we won without a shot being fired.
That doesn’t bother you?
Of course it bothers me and I’m not defending Saddam. But what I am saying is that we don’t know what is going to happen next and there is a decent possibility that what happens next will be worse than what we had.
Take Afghanistan in the 1980s as an example. We went in and helped stop the spread of communism and what happened? We ended up arming people who became our enemies and Afghanistan ultimately turned into a country ruled by the Taliban who provided sanctuary to Al Qaeda. Were we or the Afghan people better off from all of this? History tells us that of course not.
October 19th, 2004 at 2:47 pm
No, it’s not. It’s quite accurate, it’s just not the only reason we went in, which no one claimed it was.
You are confusing bugs with features. The world would have been much better off if we had taken out Stalin right after World War II, when it would have been relatively easy to do so. Eventually the Soviet Union fell, but the world paid a terrible price in the meantime. Your suggestion that we ought to re-create a Cold War scenario voluntarily ratehr than defeat our enemies outright defies reason.
And spare us the crap about how you’re not defending Hussein, when it is clear that is exactly what you are doing. Had the U.S. done what you say it should have done, he’d still be in power, and he’d still be torturing and murdering large numbers of his own people. And you wouldn’t care.
October 19th, 2004 at 3:47 pm
It’s quite accurate, it’s just not the only reason we went in, which no one claimed it was.
Thib started this thread by noting that a group of people who were holding signs saying they were sorry for the damage caused by the US invasion and asked if they had ever heard of the mass graves. I pointed out that this invasion has thus far claimed 14,000 lives and over 6,000 soldiers wounded and that the time to invade over the mass graves was when he was commiting those atrocities, not long after the fact.
The world would have been much better off if we had taken out Stalin right after World War II, when it would have been relatively easy to do so. Eventually the Soviet Union fell, but the world paid a terrible price in the meantime.
We can agree to disagree, but we don’t know what would have happened if we took out Stalin, much like we thought that our troops would have been out by Christmas in Iraq. We potentially could have spread ourselves too thin and not achieved success in the reconstruction of Germany and Japan.
Had the U.S. done what you say it should have done, he’d still be in power, and he’d still be torturing and murdering large numbers of his own people. And you wouldn’t care.
How am I defending Hussain? And did you care in the 80s or did you see Hussain as a necessary counter-balance to Iran? Spare me your moral indignation. Has murder and torture ended in Iraq now that Saddam has gone?
The world is more complicated than your either with us or your with the terrorists. Even President Bush realizes this otherwise he would have quickly come to the obvious conclusion that Pakistan is with the terrorists.
I’ve even said before that if I truly believed everything that the Administration was pushing on us (greeting us as liberators, out quickly, etc.) that I would have supported the war. Its easy to say that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussain, the harder part is to acknowledge that we don’t have a clue what or who will replace him and whether said what or how will be any better as Afghanistan of the 80s shows us.
October 20th, 2004 at 4:30 pm
Never mind the mostly post-hoc justification provided by the mass graves (the resolution doesn’t even bother to specifically mention it). It boggles my mind how people (mostly war supporters) continue to address the Iraq issue as if the only two possible courses of action were “invade and take out Saddam” or “do nothing.” That’s what we call a “false dilemma” and it’s complete BS.
Among other things, prior to our invasion, plans were in the works to exile Saddam Hussein. If an agreement could have been reached, he would have been removed from power (and, indeed, from Iraq completely) without firing a shot. But we’ll now never know if such an arrangment could have been made. True, such an arrangement wouldn’t have all the punitive aspects that some of us might like, but it would have saved quite literally thousands of lives. How many lives are you willing to sacrifice to make sure Saddam receives “justice?”
In any case, the two primary war justifications (WMD stockpiles and substantial links to al-Qaeda) have both been shown false; trying to sugar coat the pill by discussing the peripheral justifications amounts to little more than blind apologia and post-hoc justification.