Saddam Husein has been executed

[Fan Of Arabian Horses]

Conchita, your definition is surely much better than mine! Przebucky?s one too! Always when I come across the initial saying/idiom I feel reminded to a former German Chancellor of Conederation who not only slipped out but additional was to stupid to be one of the leaders of a country. He just was elected because he had lots of support of the German economic winners of the second world war. In every Labour-Union?s newspaper he was cartooned stepping into a pot of grease having a stipe and a sheet at his nob/pear ! quite funny

Michael

[Prezbucky]

nob/pear

do you mean nob/pair?

hehe
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Conchita]

[Yankee]

Hi Conchita

I think the reference to "stepping into a pot of grease" might be a direct translation of a German idiom ("ins Fettn?pfchen treten") -- which has a meaning similar to "put your foot in your mouth". (Am I right, Michael?)

I haven't been able to figure out the part about the "stripe and a sheet at his nob/pear" yet.
(Would you like to clarify that bit for us, Michael?)

Amy

[Dark Magician]

[Fan Of Arabian Horses]

[Prezbucky]

Mba

I've got just a few random thoughts, arguments, clarifying comments, muddling comments (hehe), etc.

While we're searching for domestic terror cells here in the USA, to my knowledge President Bush hasn't ordered the wholesale gassing of people, or had them murdered otherwise, in the United States. Sometimes people need to be taken out, or jailed, so that they do not bring harm to the masses -- this makes sense. A person's rights end where they encroach on mine and those of others -- if someone wants to kill me, he has no right to do so. Ergo, if the government knows that someone wants to kill me or is planning to kill me, then the would-be killer must be stopped.

I don't fully know the undercover stuff going on in this country. I know we're actively pursuing terrorists and potential terrorists, to do just that: to stop them from harming Americans.

Right now we're dealing with the security vs. freedom issue, with wiretaps on suspected terrorists a hot topic.

(EG, how can we be free if we're dead from a terrorist attack? We're guaranteed the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What if life and liberty cannot both be 100% guaranteed, in the sense that terrorists within the US, maybe even US citizens, could plan/communicate with each other to blow up, say, a mall and everyone in it? Which comes first?)

There is a difference between war, as covered by Geneva Convention, and guerilla activity targeted at men/women/children... arbitrarily targeted (which means... not really targeted, per se, to hit any one type of person, but just to kill anyone in a certain area, ostensibly to weaken our will to keep on with the fight, and the will of Iraqis to keep on supporting the new government). It is acceptable to target military, or militant, elements. It is not acceptable to target civilians. Civilians die in any war, yes, but

a) Who is killing them?

and

b) Are they being targeted?

There have been instances of murder (willful killing of a civilian) among US forces in Iraq (murdering innocent iraqis or disarmed insurgents), and to my knowledge several soldiers/marines (etc.) have been either brought to trial on murder charges or are in the midst of that process. If found guilty, I think (don't quote me) that the punishment for a murder charge is life imprisonment or the death penalty. I know that military courts in the US are known for strong sentencing.

--------

I think since we started the removal of Saddam and helped to get them their first truly free vote in decades -- we should put forward our best effort to try to secure the foundation of the new Iraqi government, safety for Iraqis, etc.

Iraqi security forces are reportedly having trouble, but they've got to build strength so that they can protect peaceful Iraqis from nonsensical attacks of the small minority who don't like that their power base -- the dictator who cared only for them -- is no longer in place.

All we want is for Iraq to move on. Apparently they missed the vote of one year ago, so maybe the next vote will bring more of the insurgents into the Iraqi political process... and they'll cease to be insurgents -- will let their thoughts be known through their votes, not their guns.

In the United States, if I don't like a politician, I vote against him. I make my voice known through my vote. I don't go out and slaughter people. That is unacceptable. Why do they do it? Why not vote for the people they want to get into the government, instead of murdering their opponents? There is a peaceful alternative in Iraq, but the insurgency seems bent on destruction as their means of changing the political landscape back to what it was: damn the Shi'a and Kurds, the Sunnis should control Iraq.

The reason the Iraqis needed help was this: they had no way of ousting Saddam themselves. Saddam had the Iraqi military, the Fedayeen Saddam, etc., working for him to quell any and all political opposition.

There is no Democrat Army going into Republican homes and slaughtering the occupants, nor a Republican army doing the same to Democrats -- we argue a lot, bicker, whine, etc., but we don't shoot each other. President bush is the president, yes, but he does not have absolute power -- we still have checks and balances. Americans showed in the recent vote that they did not like both Congress and the Presidency in the hands of a single political party, so they turned Congress (both House and Senate) back to the Democrats. Now I don't like it, because my tax cut might get repealed, but it's nothing I'm going to shoot someone over. I'll gripe about it, as is my right, but that's all I'll do.

If a people can depose a dictator, it is their responsibility to do so. If they cannot do so, even though the will is there (about 70-75% of iraqis are shi'a or kurd -- do the math) -- and they had no opportunity to vote him out of office, as is the opportunity here in the States -- then perhaps outside help is justified.

It's been estimated that Stalin killed/tortured/sent to Gulags tens of millions of people... upwards of 20 million Russians. Saddam's numbers are not nearly so high.

We're questioning/holding some suspected terrorists... to my knowledge, once they are in custody, we do not kill them. On the battlefield, we kill them... in custody, we do not.

As for splitting up the US into different sections, i think that's a bit severe... I was mostly joking with the idea of doing that to Iraq. We bicker in the US, but everyone 18 or older can vote, and we use that right to choose our leaders. At the end of the day, the vast majority of us -- Republican and Democrat -- can more or less get along. Hell, my girlfriend is a Democrat. I can't stand some of her political views (I'm a free enterpriser, while sometimes, damn it, she sounds like Karl Marx, which seriously bugs me. hehe), but such differences are seen for what they are: differences of opinion that need not ruin our relationship.

There's got to be a way to get insurgents to put down their guns.

If that happened today, and some semblance of an organized Iraqi police/military force could be secured... we'd leave Iraq ASAP. We don't want to be there.
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Che Gevara]

I saw a mass demonstration against the war in Iraq ,in the US ...I'm really happy ,that so many people are against this war even in the US..
We are having a demonstration ,against this war near US embassy in Georgia in the near future..
This war is not only Usa-Iraq ,this is the problem of the whole world...
Somehow We have to stop him sending more and more troops in Iraq...
Only thing We can do is mass demonstrations in every Country...
If anyone of this forum members think the same way ,We can do it at the same time
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Bombing for peace is like f.. for virginity

[Prezbucky]

should Iraq be left to civil war, with the violent (on all sides) oppressing the peaceful?

Sometimes wars are fought to secure peace.

All those people who voted... should they be forgotten and left to the wolves?

If we were just sitting there (in Iraq) doing nothing -- not taking down a bad man, helping them hold a vote for a new government chosen by Iraqis, putting down a violent insurgency bent on destroying the new elected government -- then we'd be wasting our time. We may still be wasting our time putting down the violence, but at least we're trying.

Like I said, if the insurgents stopped blowing people up and simply went home and used their mouths to voice opposition and (when the time comes) their rights to vote, then we'd have no reason to be there.
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Prezbucky]

Because we're all good people (knock on wood. hehe), we want peace. Peace is the ultimate objective. The question here is, would peace happen if the US (and others) left Iraq?

Would militant Sunni and Shi'a elements stop killing each other?

It's been said before, and maybe it's lame, and I've heard (and read myself, in here) that Muslims do not drink alcohol... but what if the Shi'a and Sunni leaders just sat down in a restaurant and had a Coke or something?

They could talk about things they wanted to do in government... they could go over a (at least somewhat) fair distribution of parliament seats, ambassadorships, secretary positions, etc... and then take the news back to their camps -- military and non-military elements -- and tell them that an agreement has been reached, and that hostilities are to cease.

Something like that could do wonders.
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Che Gevara]

Hi Prez
You 're good (at least not bad ,as I see from here )
But I have video files,what US and UK troops ar doing in Iraq..
Beleive me they are not good people..they don't really care of Sunni and Shias ,they are just sick ...........
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Bombing for peace is like f.. for virginity

[NinaZara]

hi che
Saddam was a sunni, and for him to be a leader among the shiahs,I'd say he has his own political skills.How he did it was beyond my imagination.True, he killed the kurds, but the kurds were trying to kill him too.He was the president at the time and in any country, assasinating your president is treason and it is punishable by death.No?

I brought this up because he was put to death by this allegations, but what troubles me is that America supplied the weapons during this iran-iraq war.And for America to punish him for something that america self abetted is high level hypocrisy.

And I also can`t help but notice that bush just can't wait to rid of Saddam because of this. If this was brought up and resurfaced, it will, the least humiliate america, the least.

I do not like Saddam, I loath what he'd done.Nothing was islamic about it.But he was able to reign the iraqis.Let's see if Bush can do the same.
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Try your best and damn the rest.

[Prezbucky]

We didn't give him those weapons to use on civilians -- they were given to him to defeat Iran in a war, not to gas kurds.

If I give you sulfur and you go on to manufacture H2SO4 (sulfuric acid) with it... and you then use the sulfuric acid to dissolve people's fingers (or some such atrocity)... am I at fault?

At that time, we wanted Saddam to win -- to beat Iran, not to kill his own civilians with it.
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Prezbucky]

Che

I don't want to look at pics (weak stomach), but I'd ask two questions:

1) Were they civilians or insurgents? Insurgents can be justifiably treated as regular military in the respect of targeting them.

and

2) Was there intent? I know that it might be small consolation to a grieving widow/son/daughter (etc.), but accidental killing versus killing with intent is the difference between manslaughter and first-degree murder. We try very hard not to hit innocent civilians. The same cannot be said for the insurgents. And using mosques and hospitals for cover is just wrong, imo.

I don't want to sugar-coat anything.

As General William Tecumseh Sherman (US Civil War, 1861-1865) said, "War is hell."
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[NinaZara]