See Men Shredded, Then say you don't back War

[abu afak]

See men shredded, then say you don't back war
By Ann Clwyd
March 18, 2003


“There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein’s youngest son] personally supervise these murders.”

This is one of the many witness statements that were taken by researchers from Indict — the organisation I chair — to provide evidence for legal cases against specific Iraqi individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This account was taken in the past two weeks.

Another witness told us about practices of the security services towards women: “Women were suspended by their hair as their families watched; men were forced to watch as their wives were raped . . . women were suspended by their legs while they were menstruating until their periods were over, a procedure designed to cause humiliation.”

The accounts Indict has heard over the past six years are disgusting and horrifying. Our task is not merely passively to record what we are told but to challenge it as well, so that the evidence we produce is of the highest quality. All witnesses swear that their statements are true and sign them.

For these humanitarian reasons alone, it is essential to liberate the people of Iraq from the regime of Saddam. The 17 UN resolutions passed since 1991 on Iraq include Resolution 688, which calls for an end to repression of Iraqi civilians. It has been ignored. Torture, execution and ethnic-cleansing are everyday life in Saddam’s Iraq.

Were it not for the no-fly zones in the south and north of Iraq — which some people still claim are illegal — the Kurds and the Shia would no doubt still be attacked by Iraqi helicopter gunships.


For more than 20 years, senior Iraqi officials have committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This list includes far more than the gassing of 5,000 in Halabja and other villages in 1988. It includes serial war crimes during the Iran-Iraq war; the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds in 1987-88; the invasion of Kuwait and the killing of more than 1,000 Kuwaiti civilians; the violent suppression, which I witnessed, of the 1991 Kurdish uprising that led to 30,000 or more civilian deaths; the draining of the Southern Marshes during the 1990s, which ethnically cleansed thousands of Shias; and the summary executions of thousands of political opponents.

Many Iraqis wonder why the world applauded the military intervention that eventually rescued the Cambodians from Pol Pot and the Ugandans from Idi Amin when these took place without UN help. They ask why the world has ignored the crimes against them?

All these crimes have been recorded in detail by the UN, the US, Kuwaiti, British, Iranian and other Governments and groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and Indict. Yet the Security Council has failed to set up a war crimes tribunal on Iraq because of opposition from France, China and Russia. As a result, no Iraqi official has ever been indicted for some of the worst crimes of the 20th century. I have said incessantly that I would have preferred such a tribunal to war. But the time for offering Saddam incentives and more time is over.

I do not have a monopoly on wisdom or morality. But I know one thing. This evil, fascist regime must come to an end. With or without the help of the Security Council, and with or without the backing of the Labour Party in the House of Commons tonight.

The author is Labour MP for Cynon Valley.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3284-614607,00.html

[andak01]

That's why I am for a holistic approach to human rights abuse. If the Shah of Iran and Pol Pot and Marcos and Pinoche weren't bad enough to induce our ire, why single out Saddam? And if you go after Hussein, then continue on to China and Zimbabwe and Columbia. Keep making wars until there are no more wars to make. Oops, I forgot, that will probably cost a billion or so lives. Well, as long as we do it for humanitarian reasons, we are justified.

[ibrodsky]

It's very simple, andak01.

We are not at war because Saddam treats his own people brutally.

We are at war because of the threat he and his WMD pose. He clearly supports terrorism and has developed/is developing portable WMDs that can be supplied to terrorist groups. We don't have proof he was involved in 9/11, but there is good reason to suspect he was.

The point of the article above is this: how can some people compare President Bush to Hitler and act like Saddam Hussein is the innocent party? We did not go to war just to save Iraqis from their own evil leaders, but that is certainly an additional benefit.

Yesterday on PBS they interviewed a New York Times reporter in Baghdad. John Burns, I believe. He said that it was amazing how, in just the last few days, Iraqis were telling him what they were afraid to say before - that they welcome the removal of Saddam.

I just hope they didn't speak too soon.

[andak01]

Originally posted by ibrodsky
It's very simple, andak01.

We are not at war because Saddam treats his own people brutally.

We are at war because of the threat he and his WMD pose. He clearly supports terrorism and has developed/is developing portable WMDs that can be supplied to terrorist groups. We don't have proof he was involved in 9/11, but there is good reason to suspect he was.

If it's that simple, why aren't we at war with North Korea???

The point of the article above is this: how can some people compare President Bush to Hitler and act like Saddam Hussein is the innocent party? We did not go to war just to save Iraqis from their own evil leaders, but that is certainly an additional benefit.

Well, I have never compared Bush to Hitler. But I will compare him to any other world leader of the past that has put his country in danger because of his arrogance. If Bush thinks that we can fight three or four wars at once without allies (and no, I don't count allies that have no money like Eritrea or that are not willing to expend soldiers or arms like Japan), he is going to destroy our economy further than it is already. Any thinking person knows this is a war for oil, not a humanitarian war or a war to prevent WMDs. Most dangerously, this gives us and the rest of the world the right to preemptively strike anywhere.

Yesterday on PBS they interviewed a New York Times reporter in Baghdad. John Burns, I believe. He said that it was amazing how, in just the last few days, Iraqis were telling him what they were afraid to say before - that they welcome the removal of Saddam.

I just hope they didn't speak too soon.

Of course they do, as do I. Just not at the cost of thousands of lives.

[MichaelC]

Originally posted by andak01
That's why I am for a holistic approach to human rights abuse. If the Shah of Iran and Pol Pot and Marcos and Pinoche weren't bad enough to induce our ire, why single out Saddam? And if you go after Hussein, then continue on to China and Zimbabwe and Columbia. Keep making wars until there are no more wars to make. Oops, I forgot, that will probably cost a billion or so lives. Well, as long as we do it for humanitarian reasons, we are justified. First of all, according to the logic that you begin with, no one should ever learn from the errors of history. You have always liked to use past events to hamper intelligent choices in the present.

Those powers in the world who are threats on the international level will be considered quite differently from the people you named who were not, though I would be in total support of any action taken against a present day pol pot. Hey! Wait a minute, saddam is trying for that category, already having fulfilled the first requirement.

Countries that do not pose an international threat like those countries that you named are just not in the same category as those that do.

Many of the new people here at the board may not be familiar with your rhetoric, but many of us are. You have never grasped the difference between S.O.B.s who confine their barbarities to their own precincts and those who evince a greater ambition.

But you have, without fail, attempted to minimize the widespread terrorism of the Islamic world by spamming us with irrelevant examples like those listed above.

[Northlander]

This is absolutely disgusting testimonies. One would have hoped that all this would have prevented the USA,France and Britain from getting the Baath party to power and even more supporting them for so long when things like this happened.

BTW, I have heard testimonies about iraqi soldiers throwing kuweiti children in hospitals. Have you heard them?

Oh I forgot, they were fabricated. It was the ambassadors daughter acting eyewitness. It was all a gigantic propaganda lie. How about that? Would you belive that? Americans using propaganda to excuse war? It can never have happend.

Saddam is a cruel dictator everybody knows that. Idi Amin was too and he lives in the great allied democracy S.Arabia. Maybe your beloved troops can see him on the streets when they go seightseeing. What does it have to do with the war?

[Johnny Yuma]

Originally posted by Northlander
This is absolutely disgusting testimonies. One would have hoped that all this would have prevented the USA,France and Britain from getting the Baath party to power and even more supporting them for so long when things like this happened.

BTW, I have heard testimonies about iraqi soldiers throwing kuweiti children in hospitals. Have you heard them?

Oh I forgot, they were fabricated. It was the ambassadors daughter acting eyewitness. It was all a gigantic propaganda lie. How about that? Would you belive that? Americans using propaganda to excuse war? It can never have happend.

Saddam is a cruel dictator everybody knows that. Idi Amin was too and he lives in the great allied democracy S.Arabia. Maybe your beloved troops can see him on the streets when they go seightseeing. What does it have to do with the war?

Hey.... since we're going after despotic regimes! We're going after Sweden, next.

You said that you were a producer of WMD and would sell them to anyone that wanted them. Remember? Or was that just the old Swedish sense of humor talking?

[L@mplighterM]

Originally posted by abu afak
See men shredded, then say you don't back war
By Ann Clwyd
March 18, 2003


All these crimes have been recorded in detail by the UN, the US, Kuwaiti, British, Iranian and other Governments and groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and Indict. Yet the Security Council has failed to set up a war crimes tribunal on Iraq because of opposition from France, China and Russia. As a result, no Iraqi official has ever been indicted for some of the worst crimes of the 20th century. I have said incessantly that I would have preferred such a tribunal to war. But the time for offering Saddam incentives and more time is over.

I do not have a monopoly on wisdom or morality. But I know one thing. This evil, fascist regime must come to an end. With or without the help of the Security Council, and with or without the backing of the Labour Party in the House of Commons tonight.

The author is Labour MP for Cynon Valley.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3284-614607,00.html


Any tribunal would have had to be backed up with force. Finally the Hussein family’s iron grip over Iraq is coming to an end and a new era will begin.

Eventually the country might end up being carved into three sections with the Kurds in the North, the Shiites in the South and the Sunni in the middle. Of course this will open the possibility of a civil war in that country unless the world is willing to baby sit the people there until the end of time. The fact is that the country is a tribal society where blood feuds are very much a reality.

[rambi]

Originally posted by Northlander
Saddam is a cruel dictator everybody knows that. Idi Amin was too and he lives in the great allied democracy S.Arabia. Maybe your beloved troops can see him on the streets when they go seightseeing. What does it have to do with the war? I am coming from the Balkans... remember the Balkans? No? I didn't think so. It took 4 years of European hypocrisy and finally the USA had to take it in their hands... although the same guys as French were not so happy about it (sounds familiar?)... Oh, there was also some idiot by the name of Carl Bildt acting a dirty role there... Do you want some testimonies from there?

[Johnny Yuma]

Originally posted by rambi
I am coming from the Balkans... remember the Balkans? No? I didn't think so. It took 4 years of European hypocrisy and finally the USA had to take it in their hands... although the same guys as French were not so happy about it (sounds familiar?)... Oh, there was also some idiot by the name of Carl Bildt acting a dirty role there... Do you want some testimonies from there?

I'd love to hear some. I'm sure the rest of us would, as well.

Fire away!

[Northlander]

Ive had my share of that conflict thank you. Many of my friends are from there and I have visited both Croatia and Serbia.
It has nothing to do with the Iraqi war.

I take no responsibility for Carl Bildt at all.

Balkans however and Kosovo in particular is a very interesting subject when we compare it with Israeli-Palestine conflict. But that is a different topic.

[ibrodsky]

Originally posted by andak01
If it's that simple, why aren't we at war with North Korea???

Because Islamism - a fanatical ideology that says any means is justified in conquering the world for Islam - is not a feature of the N. Korean regime.

China, Japan, Russia, and S. Korea all have good reasons to contain N. Korea.

What's simplistic is the complaint, often heard from the Arab world, that if the US is intent on disarming regimes with WMDs then the US must disarm Israel.

A chilling film was shown on CBS this morning. On the day Saddam took power he spoke before Iraq's parliament. He named names of his opponents who were escorted outside and immediately executed.

The combination of a brutal dictator with links to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction must not be tolerated.

Well, I have never compared Bush to Hitler. But I will compare him to any other world leader of the past that has put his country in danger because of his arrogance. If Bush thinks that we can fight three or four wars at once without allies (and no, I don't count allies that have no money like Eritrea or that are not willing to expend soldiers or arms like Japan), he is going to destroy our economy further than it is already. Any thinking person knows this is a war for oil, not a humanitarian war or a war to prevent WMDs. Most dangerously, this gives us and the rest of the world the right to preemptively strike anywhere.

Typical leftwing drivel.

"Any thinking person knows this is a war for oil."

You apparently believe that if you wrap your unsubstantiated charges in a childish insult that somehow gives more weight to your false accusations.

The "No blood for oil" slogan was first used by opponents of Persian Gulf War 1. Actually, it was Saddam who went to war for oil and anti-war activists who tried to defend his brutal conquest.

Nothing gives anyone a universal "right" to strike preemptively. But if you were honest, you would notice that if anyone strikes preemptively it's Islamist terrorists and Arab dictators.

Of course they do, as do I. Just not at the cost of thousands of lives.

Saddam Hussein has started wars that killed more than 1 million people. You go out of your way to ignore those one million people to make it look like *we* are the ones who have no regard for life.

You go out of your way to ignore suicide/homicide bombers to make it look like *we* are the ones who have no regard for life.

Look at the tactics Saddam is already employing: today Iraqi soldiers pretended they were surrendering and then attacked the US forces that came to receive them. In Baghdad, Saddam is placing his forces and war material around mosques, hospitals, and schools. There is very good reason to believe that American soldiers captured by the Iraqis were executed. (Israelis know from their wars with Syria that any soldiers captured by Syria are likely to be executed.)

[cerulean]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/030321/168/3l00i.html
Caption: An Iraqi woman welcomes U.S. Marines, as soldiers enter the southern border city of Safwan, Friday, March 21, 2003. The white flag on the car for safety reasons. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)

[peacelover]

Originally posted by rambi
I am coming from the Balkans... remember the Balkans? No? I didn't think so. It took 4 years of European hypocrisy and finally the USA had to take it in their hands... although the same guys as French were not so happy about it (sounds familiar?)... Oh, there was also some idiot by the name of Carl Bildt acting a dirty role there... Do you want some testimonies from there?

Sorry, I had forgotten the squeaky clean and proud history of the righteous Balkan people.

Listen, can we just quit with the cheap shots against other countries? There is not one - I repeat, NOT ONE - country in this world who doesn't have a lot to be ashamed of in its history. How easy it is to just wantonly slag other places off without looking first at your own state.

[andak01]

Although, being no fan of Saddam, I was perfectly willing to believe the article at the beginning of this post. But I am aware that in the Gulf War there was a story of babies being pulled from incubators which turned out to be pure fiction. But it's effect was to successfully strengthen support for the war effort. This appears to be yet another stab at propoganda. Hasn't Saddam done enough bad stuff that they could get him on something real?

http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/3314/index.php

[MichaelC]

Originally posted by andak01
Although, being no fan of Saddam, I was perfectly willing to believe the article at the beginning of this post. But I am aware that in the Gulf War there was a story of babies being pulled from incubators which turned out to be pure fiction. But it's effect was to successfully strengthen support for the war effort. This appears to be yet another stab at propoganda. Hasn't Saddam done enough bad stuff that they could get him on something rea Well, it should be obvious that, all things being equal, people are going to believe what resonates with their own sense of what is happening.

Your tact of pairing something you would like to disprove with something you feel has been disproved does not in itself prove anything. It is an opionion, nothing more. Believe what you want.

Today a friend said to me that if 10,000 U.S. soldiers were shown dead on the ground from a chemical attack, there would be those, and you strike me as one of them, who would say that it was all staged to discredit muslims.

[Johnny Yuma]

Originally posted by andak01
If it's that simple, why aren't we at war with North Korea???

Technically, we are. The war with Korea never ended. We have an armistice which is nothing more than a temporary truce or cease-fire. Not so coincidentally, and incorrectly assuming the same thing as you-that we are not capable of fighting a war on multiple fronts-, they are threatening to withdraw from it.

Well, I have never compared Bush to Hitler. But I will compare him to any other world leader of the past that has put his country in danger because of his arrogance. If Bush thinks that we can fight three or four wars at once without allies (and no, I don't count allies that have no money like Eritrea or that are not willing to expend soldiers or arms like Japan), he is going to destroy our economy further than it is already.

Umm. As I see it, we are fighting a war with allies that do have money; Britain and Japan, specifically, since theirs are the next two largest economies. Japan is constitutionally precluded from participating in the direct conflict. However, they can provide monetary and support functions. And, as an aside, we are not destroying our economy. Go look at Viet Nam. We got to seven times the amount of GDP we're currently using. Did it destroy the economy? No sir. It grew.

Any thinking person knows this is a war for oil, not a humanitarian war or a war to prevent WMDs. Most dangerously, this gives us and the rest of the world the right to preemptively strike anywhere.

Now how do "you know" that this is what this war is about? Were you a part of the planning and execution of this campaign? Are you being consulted? Are you a part of any organization involved in the financial or security matters of the United States of America?

Any "thinking person" would not claim to have knowledge about about that which they did not have. Instead, a "thinking person" would claim they had "belief" about the matter.

The only thing you can "know" is this: You "know" you are on the path to "knowledge", when you realize that the more you learn, the more you realize how little you "know", and you come to the conclusion that you don't "know" anything....

How do you "know" who your daddy is? Because your momma told you so????