Ms. Short is wrong. If you want to help the people of Iraq, remove Saddam from power. If you want to stop the death of children, remove Saddam from power. The only reason they suffer and have suffered is because of the actions that Saddam has taken and continues to take. There have been 11 years where UN resolutions have been ignored by Iraq. The only way to impose them is the removal of Saddam and his totalitarian regime. Saddam does not frighten easily. He is a deranged, power hungry lunatic. Experience has shown this. The only time that he gives a millimeter is when he sees a possibility that he may lose power. Otherwise his playbook is to evade and come back stronger. The goal of a war would be to remove Saddam, not to hurt his people. Something that Ms. Short apparently is unable to fathom. With regards to non-UN action which lead to a removal of a similarly evil man (one who is the Hague right now defending himself against the most heinous crimes since World War II) please consider Yugoslavia. The US (Clinton) and Canada pushed NATO into the middle there to protect innocent lives. The UN fiddled its thumbs all the while. According to those that are saying either UN or nothing, Milosovic would still be in power, still be killing innocent women, men and children and still denying all of it to the world. In the NATO bombing some 500 innocent people died. That is incredibly sad and unfortunate. However as a result of the bombing Milosovic was stopped from killing thousands more (as he had in previous years in concentration camps chillingly similar to Auschwitz). Sadly you can not impose the law without hurting someone and often times they are innocent. For example, a convicted killer will go to jail. This may cause mental anguish and hardship on his wife, kids, parents but that does not mean that he shouldn't go to jail. Anyone who believes that Saddam should be left alone simply does not comprehend simple facts. However, I still respect all opinions and believe everyone should be free to make up their own mind. Something they are not able to do in Iraq.
But you are really naive, stupid, fanatic and blind... If after all those evidences by so many journalists politicians you still think that The US administration plays for the good of the Iraki people then you are certainly an idiot that is too much brainwashed.... You have on one side guys like Rumsfeld and Bush that are involved deeply in financial scandals like Enron, Haliburton an economy that is declining and elections coming... and gojnd to elections is good for the polls but also a war that will enable them to control the second oil reserves after Saudia is certainly the aim... NOT HUMAN RIGHTS YOU STUPID
David Albright, the director of ISIS and a scientist with first-hand experience of Iraq's nuclear weapons programme as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspection team, said there was a debate within the US scientific community about the government's claims but added that the Bush administration had clamped down on such discussion. "I don't know why there is not more debate. I have heard that a lot of people are expected to remain silent. [The Bush administration] has certainly scared people," he said. "I met one government scientist who said his phone was being monitored." Despite such alleged tactics, there are signs of dissent in the scientific community. A report in the current edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, also questions the tubing "evidence". It says: "The aluminum tubing story -- and others to come -- may be taken at face value by an insufficiently sceptical press, but the decision to go to war is simply too important to let the administration 'wing it' in presenting its rationale."
But a glance back at George Bush's UN speech last week shows that a free inspection of Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction was just one of six conditions which Iraq would have to meet if it "wishes peace". In other words, stand by for further UN Security Council resolutions which Saddam will find far more difficult to accept. The other Bush demands, for example, included the "end of all support for terrorism". Does this mean the UN will now be urged to send inspectors to hunt for evidence inside Iraq for Saddam's previous â or current â liaisons with guns-for-hire? Then Bush demanded that Iraq "cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shia, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans and others". Notwithstanding the inclusion of Turkomans â worthy of protection indeed, though one wonders how they turned up on the Bush list â does this mean that the UN could demand human rights monitors inside Iraq? In reality, such a proposal would be both moral and highly ethical, but America's Arab allies would profoundly hope that such monitors are not also dispatched to Riyadh, Cairo, Amman and other centres of gentle interrogation. Yet even if Saddam was prepared to accede to all these demands with a sincerity he has not shown in response to other UN resolutions, the Americans have made clear that sanctions will only be lifted â that Iraq's isolation will only end â with "regime change". For Mr Bush's sudden passion for international adherence to UN Security Council resolutions -- an enthusiasm which will not, of course, extend to Israel's flouting of UN resolutions of equal importance â is in reality a cynical manoeuvre to provide legitimacy for Washington's planned invasion of Iraq. My own suspicion is that the Americans may try for a war crimes indictment against Saddam Hussein. Mr Bush's crocodile tears for the victims of Saddam's secret police torturers â who were hard at work when the president's father was maintaining warm relations with the Iraqi monster â suggest that somebody in the administration is playing with the idea of a war crimes trial. The tens of thousands of Iraqis subject to "summary execution, and torture by beating, burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation and rape" could provide the evidence for any war crimes prosecution. Indeed, when the Americans sealed off northern Iraq in 1991 to provide a dubious "safe haven" for the Kurds, they scooped up masses of Iraqi government documents, flew them out of Dohuk in a fleet of Chinook helicopters and squirrelled them away in Washington as evidence for a possible future tribunal. But even this idea has a hand grenade attached to it. Today, for example â and you will look elsewhere in vain for any mention of this â marks the 20th anniversary of the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre, the slaughter of 1,700 Palestinian civilians by Israel's Phalangist militia allies, a bloodbath which Israel's own army watched and noted â and did nothing about. Lawyers for the families of the victims are even now appealing against a Belgian decision not to allow Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon â then the defence minister who was judged "personally responsible" by Israel's commission of inquiry â to be tried for these mass murders. If Saddam Hussein can be charged with war crimes â and he should be â then why not Ariel Sharon? Why not Rifaat Assad, the brother of the late president of Syria, whose Special Forces killed up to 20,000 Syrians in the rebellious city of Hama in 1982? Why not the Algerian police officers who have routinely tortured and murdered civilians in the country's dirty war against the "Islamist" insurgency? But justice is not what President Bush wants â unless it's a useful way of putting America's enemies out of the way, of effecting "regime change" or of providing a useful excuse for a military invasion which will leave US oil companies â including Mr Bush's own buddies â in control of one of the world's largest reserves of oil. Saddam Hussein's own cynicism â for he could have given UN inspectors free rein years ago â will be matched by Mr Bush's cynicism. Saddam's letter to Mr Annan was a smart move, as contemptuous as it was inevitable. Stand by, then, for an equally contemptible response from President Bush.
An interesting story. But I could write the same heartfelt touching piece about the mothers and fathers in this country whose sons and daughters are voluntarily enlisted in our armed services. I could easily substitute the movie house in Baghdad for many that can be found all across our country. And while we go on with our day-to-day lives we too can say that we as a people are prepared to commit to our country's decisions in this matter. We will be 100% behind our military forces and their impending missions. We will pray with them that each task is preformed successfully and at the end of the day they return unharmed. As evidence of the feelings of pain and uneasiness being able to be matched here, try this paragraph: It is September 12, 2001, at the moment, New York is a strange and surreal place. Normal life has been forever disrupted and there is fatalism feeling not far below. People go through the routine with the knowledge that life has been turned upside down in the near and foreseeable future. They have lost many friends and relations. The horror for some is so intense that they feel they have died themselves. This is surely but a dream and can not be real. For to accept it being real, you must understand that the World Trade Center is no more. International terrorism has finally arrived to the shores of America! The writer that you shared wrote of a Khalid's comments: It is a very brave or very foolish Iraqi who would talk totally candidly about Saddam Hussein, and Khalid is neither. He does not want his views on "regime change" aired in public, but he does not believe that it is the real goal of the Americans to rid Iraq of its ruler. ------------------------------ Interesting that with all the pain and suffrage there he never states that maybe they should consider that they might be doing the wrong thing. Why did the writer not say to the man that part of the American desire is to make his ability to descent aloud without the fear of life ending consequences, real? And to you I would say, why do you not intensely question the man, men, women of Iraq aloud? Dying is clearly expected there. Why should they now care who kills them? They openly fear dying in war at home and privately fear dying at home for speaking out. This is living? Am I hearing/reading this properly? They expect to lose everything in the war yet, they fear losing everything if they dissent to war to their own leaders? The man openly states that he believes that this war is about oil. Oil that his country controls and sells now that he gets no fiscal benefits from. Under-employed he toils daily to keep his family going though. And he sees (or sounds as though) no easing of the situation on the horizon. Tell you what, now that you have relayed his feelings to us, would you be willing, able, interested in relaying the average American's feelings back to him and his peers without them being watered down. Oh by the way, make sure he is not killed if he agrees with our interests also! Would you do that, please? Here in America, we are tired of having to be everyone's last ditch police force. Sometimes the only viable separation from them and the most vile evils that they refuse to deal with themselves. Especially since they hate our guts so. We truly don't desire their hatred. You see, we just want to make sure ALL children throughout the world have the ability to get a good education and have ALL the opportunities of success within their grasp. We don't want any sons, and in their country daughters too, to grow up knowing how to fight a war that clearly has no winners. But you see now we are afraid of is what is going to happen because we can see there is a terrible cancer growing. And we again will call on our military to go and save a people who will not appreciate their presence, nor understand their call to duty. They do understand that they may be cursed, scorned and ridiculed, but they will achieve their task. They have but one true mission, execute the war. And they will wage it until they are recalled home. It is a shame that they are to be used in this instance when all that truly was needed was a peoples standing up (a few million strong) and removing the oppressor - themselves!
How can you be so sure that The US goes to Irak to deliver the people from the Tyran Saddam... Very few in europe and in the thirld world believe that... Only an american can... In 1994 I met with 2 american girls in France and I said to them that the gulf war was a big mascarade.. a guy who was said to have the 4th military power in the war who was the best friend of wetsern countries (France The US, UK) suddenly became the biggest ennemy of the whole humanity and his army was defeated in one day???? strange isnt it??? And the girsl answered to me that Bush wanted the good of the world and that american were good people.. The thing is I am sure that she thought Bush intents were good and I am convonced there are very good americans... But the Irakis and 80% of the planet are not blind.. The only interest of the Us in that part of the world is oil and not human rights in Irak.. More than 1,5 million Iraki died because of the US embargo.. this is a real genocide... As a black american born in the fifties, I am sorry that you are saying such words.. you know that men can be very bad and that black people were victims of awful and terrible things in the US... the people at the head of the US have not changed and what happenned inside your country and to your people can happen abroad...
While having read it before I took a minute to reaffirm the feelings that I expressed back when the Stark was ATTACKED! This article again strengthened the resolve for me that this individual MUST go. I did not buy the explanation then, nor do I now. You might find it interesting that I feel a lot of the so-called leaders of their respective fiefdoms should be removed. I say that attitudes of the world must NOW change. And sooner or later we will have to pick one corrupt leader to have the distinct honor of being - FIRST! There are many who could fill the bill, but for now the focus is in Sadamn's yard. This is one injustice that we, America, helped create. Who better than America to now topple the regime? We have covered for is atrocities for long enough. It will also send a message to the other villains that we have help create. I think it will also change the attitudes of many others who have done gravely wrong. It is my hope that this is but the first step in the world addressing many ills. There are many areas in Africa that need attention. Israel and Palestine both need to focus on the bigger picture. The whole task is formidable, but again I say it must start somewhere.