THE US, UN AND IRAQ V

Gelisgesti wrote:

Iran is claiming the right to bring charges against Saddam for war crimes against Iran in the Iraq Iran war. Should that be allowed and if so, should charges against the U.S. for aiding and abetting also be allowed?

YES!

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I think it was Jeffry Dahlmer that was convicted of selling arms to Iran.

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dyslexia wrote:

I think it was Jeffry Dahlmer that was convicted of selling arms to Iran.

Did you hear ... they did an autopsy on Dahmer .... found Jimmy Hoffa

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McGentrix wrote:

hobitbob wrote:
Link?

Went to google, typed in "Zeyad, Healing Iraq" and got it. It's really not that hard to do.

Now that is weird ... I backtracked from your post (you need to clean your cache) and came up with ;

http://watch.windsofchange.net/

and from there to;

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

I really didn't notice any significant google bits , probably dissipated .....

anyhoo clean that cache! Rolling Eyes

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Any thoughts on good old "Bring it on" Bush taunting Hussein?
"He hid in a hole, rather than dacing things like a man...etc...."
Hmmmm....lets see, what would our fearless leader have done? Perhaps hid in a hole and whimpered like an infant?

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Bush would be too easy to find .... just sprinkle some 'viagra' over the ground and the dick would pop right up ...

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Gelisgesti wrote:

Bush would be too easy to find .... just sprinkle some 'viagra' over the ground and the dick would pop right up ...

Now now...no kidding about the Bush twins! Laughing

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Sunday was certainly a sad day for Bush bashers----The econcomy is marching upwards-------now with the capture of Saddam the picture there is improving---while I expect a flurry of attacks from pro-Saddam groups those will decline as we capture the remaining leaders.

Don't despair though----during the next year Howard Dean will boast of how his is going to rescue you from 4 more years of Bush. Laughing

Happy nightmares Ya'all.

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Yeah, most of the financial pundits were saying yesterday that the market is gonna shown some gains today. Guess what happened? It went d-o-w-n.

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Quote:

Security council to consider Iraq's future

Tuesday 16 December 2003, 4:54 Makka Time, 1:54 GMT

The US security council has been divided over the US invasion of Iraq

With the long manhunt for Saddam Hussein finally over, the UN Security Council will meet Tuesday to discuss the still uncertain political future of Iraq.

Iraq's interim foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari is expected to face a grilling by the 15-nation council, whose bitter divisions over the Iraq war again risk bubbling to the surface.

The United States hopes the dramatic weekend capture of Saddam will unite the council behind its plan for rebuilding of Iraq and the delicate steps needed to establish an interim Iraqi government in the next few months.

"Affirmations of support for the political, economic and security development of Iraq would be most welcome indeed, and most appropriate under the circumstances," US ambassador John Negroponte said on Monday.

But an especially terse statement from Security Council president Stefan Tafrov of Bulgaria on Saddam's capture reflected the reluctance of other nations to throw their full support behind US plans in Baghdad.

"Council members welcomed the capture of Saddam Hussein on December 13," he said.

Large UN role

France, Germany and Russia, the council nations that led opposition to the war, want a large role for the United Nations in the political transition and reconstruction of Iraq.

The council will discuss a step-by-step plan hatched by the United States and its handpicked Iraqi Governing Council to end the US occupation by June, and will quiz Zebari on how Iraq plans to prepare for the handover.

He is also expected to be questioned on plans for the trial of Saddam in Iraq, where the Governing Council last week set up a special tribunal to try the former members of Saddam's regime.

Death penalty

Governing Council president Abdel Aziz al-Hakim said Monday that Saddam could be subject to the death penalty, a possibility that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said should be rejected.

"The UN does not support the death penalty. So as secretary general... (I'm not) going to now turn around and support the death penalty."

Kofi Annan
UN secretary general
"This should be done through open trials in properly established courts of law which will respect basic international norms and standards, including respect for international humanitarian law," Annan said.

"The UN does not support the death penalty," he said. "So as secretary general... (I'm not) going to now turn around and support the death penalty."

Annan met Monday with Jeremy Greenstock, the top British envoy in Iraq, who told reporters that any major return of the United Nations to Iraq was unlikely until the US-led occupation finishes at the end of June.

Ambassador Heraldo Munoz of Security Council member Chile suggested Saddam's capture could pave the way for an even faster handover of power to Iraqis, a proposal that drew a lukewarm response from US officials.

"We expect with Saddam Hussein out of the picture maybe to hasten the process, so that sovereignty can go back into the hands of the Iraqis as quickly as possible," Munoz said.

Iraqis divided

With the United States concerned about the fall-out if Iraqis prove unable to make a successful go of their new government, however, one official told AFP: "We want to avoid acceleration for acceleration's sake."

Under an agreement reached November 15 between the United States and the Governing Council, sovereignty would be handed to a provisional government before the end of June. Proper elections would not be held until 2005.

Ayat Allah Ali al-Sistani wants
an immediate general election
But Iraqis are divided over the process and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's highest-ranking Shiite cleric, wants immediate general elections.

US ambassador Negroponte on Monday again repeated that Washington believes the United Nations has a "vital" role to play in the process, but that has yet to be spelled out.

In a report that he will formally present Tuesday, Annan said Iraq remains too dangerous to send his international staff back to Baghdad.

He said security would have to be improved before he would consider risking the lives of his staff in Iraq, where the UN's Baghdad headquarters was bombed on August 19, killing 22 people, including his special envoy.

Source

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perception wrote:

Sunday was certainly a sad day for Bush bashers----

I agree. It's so much more comforting to hear optimism. Like Vice President Cheney saying Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops as "liberators." Or Ken Adelman saying the invasion and reconstruction of Iraq would be "a cakewalk." Or Richard Perle saying Iraq could "be taken with a light force of 40,000 American troops. We don't need anyone else." Or Donald Rumsfeld saying "We know where they [WMD] are." Or President Bush saying "We've found the weapons of mass destruction."

Let's celebrate the capture of Saddam, but let's not forget the real danger is Osama and his crew. Remember what Glinda said when Dorothy thought she'd killed the wicked witch? "That was her sister, the Wicked Witch of the East. This is the Wicked Witch of the West. And she's worse than the other one was."

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The reason the stock market went down today is most investors learned that "we" are the terrorists, and how much more pain we'll impose on the world and the American People is still not good for our economy. Most financial pundits were saying that our stock market will show an increase today. So much for their highly paid skills......

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I'm pleased Hussein is caught. Who in their right mind wouldn't be? I've been calling Hussein one evil son of a bitch since Donald Rumsfeld sold him the precursor chemicals for weapons in the 1980's, and Hussein had the British journalist Bazoft hung for spying. My ex colleagues back from Baghdad told me enough about the regime long ago not to leave room for doubt.

What I find laughable is the pathetic whoops of joy from the American right. These people for the most part (with the honorable exception of David Petraeus) have no idea how to fight a war of counter insurgency.

Displaying Saddam like that just cost more American/coalition blood.

Now the question really is what are American troops doing in Iraq? What can possibly justify occupation forces staying on after July 2004? For stay they will, and the longer they stay the worse it will get.

All because this whole Iraq adventure was based from the outset on a tissue of lies and deceptions which the American people have for the most part swallowed whole.

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Moderate clerics hold the key in Iraq

12:20 AM CST on Tuesday, December 16, 2003

By WILLIAM McKenzie / The Dallas Morning News

Think Ayatollah al-Sistani. He has become the guy. The Shiite cleric is as important to Iraq's future as anyone in his country, now that Saddam Hussein is behind bars.

Why an ayatollah? Aren't they the guys who brought us Iran?

Sure, Ayatollah Khomeini and his spiritual descendants gave us all sorts of grief in Iran. They captured and tortured our diplomats. They set Iran back a hundred years. And they established a theocracy.

But Grand Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani appears a different breed. He has seen Muslim rule in Iran and reportedly doesn't like it. No theocracy for him, he says.

And he is in a position to make a difference. The fact that he is the senior leader of Iraq's Shiite majority makes his opinion all the more crucial. Shiites probably will end up with the top hand in the new Iraq. They are the dominant Islamic faction, and they were kept out of their country's affairs by the divide-and-conquer Hussein. Most people think it is their time to make a difference in Iraq, not the Sunni Muslims whom Saddam Hussein used to his advantage.

Ayatollah al-Sistani is important because he appears a voice of moderation and reason among his fellow Shiites. He wants Iraq to embrace and favor Islam, but he doesn't want the mullahs to run the government.

That's a distinction we Americans must accept. A neat line separating mosque and state probably won't get drawn in Iraq's new constitution. We can't expect all forms of our democracy to go down well.

Still, with the right moves, we probably can get a nod toward Islam without clerics running the new government. That's why President Bush should get his Iraqi envoy, Paul Bremer, to court Ayatollah al-Sistani like a homecoming queen. According to interviews I have had with experts over the last few months, he is a spiritual leader with whom we can deal. Some compromises here and there, and we may be able to avoid an Iranian-style theocracy.

It is worth noting that the ayatollah lives in a region of Iraq that has plenty of Shiite history. You find houses of learning in and around cities like An Najaf. And the Shiites in this part of southern Iraq aren't friendly to the kook wing of their faith, which has led to anti-intellectualism and coldblooded justice in Tehran.

They are closer to the Islamic tradition that plays well with others, where the faith has flourished under governments that weren't explicitly Muslim. We need to encourage the ayatollah to keep that tradition alive.

To be fair, Mr. Bremer won't find it easy to woo this Islamic cleric. He tends to speak through intermediaries. And he recently let it be known that Iraq needs a direct election when choosing a government. He didn't want the caucus elections that Mr. Bremer and the United States championed for next year.

But, surely, we can get past those differences, especially with Saddam Hussein under arrest. (I am not on the ground in Iraq, but it would seem that we now have less reason to worry about the wrong people taking over in a direct election. Those who feared the long arm of Saddam Hussein now may be free to vote for a government that doesn't have a bunch of thugs.)

We especially should want to get past those differences since some Shiites are less willing than Ayatollah al-Sistani to keep clerics out of Iraq's government. A band of younger toughs want mullahs in charge. And they have used intimidation to get their point across, including killing opponents.

We sure don't want them to get hold of the government. It seems only shrewd to work as hard as we can with a moderate cleric. He may be able to help us realize some of our aims.

For example, the United States needs to nudge Iraq toward a secular government. If Iraq can have some degree of pluralism, where many faiths feel at home in a predominantly Islamic country, it can avoid deadly purges.

All of that will require stroking and more stroking. But we have a unique chance with Saddam Hussein gone. It is up to diplomats like Paul Bremer to make sure Iraq doesn't have its own combustible collision of religion and politics.

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Quote:

Displaying Saddam like that just cost more American/coalition blood.

Steve, please explain, and what is the evidence so far?

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interesting conversation on c-span2 ..... neo conservative

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Quote:

Any thoughts on good old "Bring it on" Bush taunting Hussein?
"He hid in a hole, rather than facing things like a man...etc...."
Hmmmm....lets see, what would our fearless leader have done?

hobitbob, I don't agree completely with your entire comment, but I do think that his response was inappropriate.

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Two letters from readers in today's NYTimes:

To the Editor:

Re "Hussein Caught in Makeshift Hide-Out; Bush Says `Dark Era' for Iraqis Is Over" (front page, Dec. 15):

The welcome capture of Saddam Hussein allows the Bush administration to claim another victory in the phony war against Iraq.

President Bush's claim that a "dark era" is over for Iraq should remind us that the dark era for the United States will not be over until we see a similar picture of Osama bin Laden in custody.

Unfortunately, the entire Iraq episode has continued to distract us from the real and continuing threat from terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. We need look no further for proof of this threat than the attempted assassination on Sunday of President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan (news article, Dec. 15).

PAUL M. WORTMAN
East Setauket, N.Y., Dec. 15, 2003

To the Editor:

In "For U.S. Foes, a Major Blow: Fighters Now Lack a Symbol" (military analysis, Dec. 15), you say that the capture of Saddam Hussein has "deprived many insurgents of a rallying symbol."

But symbols can be replaced. Hard-core Baathists fighting the American occupation now have a new symbol: a leader struggling through filth and squalor, eluding capture from the world's foremost superpower for many months, who chose to stay in his country and survive among his people rather than ease away into exile.

Certainly the rest of the world will not see the narrative this way, but will rightly see Saddam Hussein as a broken man without a country or allies, who had no choice but to sleep with the rats. But to his loyalists, he could emerge appearing brave and heroic, an image that could galvanize, rather than weaken, the resolve of the resistance.

DAVID SPEARS
Forest Hills, Queens, Dec. 15, 2003

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Steve said:

Quote:

all I meant Gozmo was that

Quote:
Our crimes in Iraq should be as closely examined as will be those of Saddam.

whilst desirable, is unlikely to happen.

Ge asked:

Quote:

Iraq is claiming the right to bring charges against Saddam for war crimes against Iran in the Iraq Iran war. Should that be allowed and if so, should charges against the U.S. for aiding and abetting also be allowed?

Here is another reader's letter to the NYTimes, today:

To the Editor:

Re "The Capture of a Dictator" (editorial, Dec. 15):

You state that Saddam Hussein "ranked with the world's most vicious dictators." Let us not forget that the United States took advantage of this man's talents in the 1980's to further its own foreign policy goals.

I wonder how much evidence that demonstrates our previous collusion with this monster will be deemed "top secret" during a future war crimes trial and not be available for his defense.

JOHN F. ZIPETO
Andover, Mass., Dec. 15, 2003

*************************

I heard a discussion on NPR yesterday as various people nibbled around the edges of this subject. They all, philosophers and politicians alike, came down to the same bottom line: the winner is right and is, in the eyes of the world, if only temporarily, on the side of the angels.

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THE US, UN AND IRAQ V

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