Iraqi Prisons Begin To Open
MonsieurEvil
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">Judge for yourself</div> Almost any alternative would be a good one to this. If there were really were the number of accidental civilian casualties as reported so far (about 1200 deaths, but those are the iraqi government numbers), is ridding 24 million people from this life described below not worth the cost? The Iraqi's interviewed seem to think so, but judge for yourself. Keep in mind that this is just one of hundreds of such places...
<a href='http://www.msnbc.com/news/897497.asp?0cl=c1' target='_blank'>http://www.msnbc.com/news/897497.asp?0cl=c1</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->April 8 — Adnan Shaker has a tiny passport picture of himself that he’s somehow managed to save during his three years in one of Saddam Hussein’s prisons. It shows a handsome man in his 20s, lean and fit, with a luxurious mustache and thick black hair. Today his own three children would probably not recognize him as the same person.
HIS HAIR is cropped short. Half his teeth have been knocked out, his face is battered and the eyes sunken and haunted-looking. His chest is covered with 50 separate cuts from a knife, his back has even more marks, which he says are cigarette burns. Two of his fingers were broken and deliberately bent into a permanent, contorted position and there’s a hole in the middle of his palm where his torturers stabbed him and twisted the blade.
Today, though, Adnan was a happy man, so happy that he could barely restrain his excitement. He was finally freed from a prison in downtown Basra, after British troops entered the city and drove the remaining defenders away. And as he took a small group of American journalists on a tour of the hospital, he enthusiastically led a crowd of fellow ex-prisoners, their families, friends and passersby in the first rendition of a pro-American chant that any of us have so far heard: “Nam nam Bush , Sad-Dam No” (“Yes, yes, Bush, Saddam No”). They chanted and danced, filling one of their former cells in a spontaneous celebration.
The prison was originally the School for Adult Reeducation, until the authorities converted it after the Shiite uprising against Saddam in 1991 and, perversely renaming it the Jail for Adult Reeducation, used it as a place to punish rebellious Shiites. The white walls outside are covered with blue-painted Baathist and pro-Saddam slogans, but nothing announces that it’s a prison. In the central courtyard, there’s a long-disused basketball hoop, under which are arrays of metal beds for prisoners who were lucky enough to sleep outside. Arrayed around that were groups of classrooms, now cells, which housed so many men that they had to lie down in shifts to sleep. Prisoners whose families had enough money to bribe the authorities at the prison went into Unit One, where they were only occasionally beaten; it cost at least three million Iraqi dinars for that privilege (about $1,000 at the current rate). Unit Two was worse, and so on. In Unit Four, where Adnan lived for his 10-year sentence, the prisoners say they were tortured daily, sometimes thrice daily. Only Unit Five was worse, in a sense. It was where they took them to die.
Adnan says his initial crime was simply stealing some bread, but even that had a political dimension. “The bread was only for the ruling Baathists and the rest of us could go hungry—they didn’t care. We had no choice but to steal.” In prison, though, he was tortured to get him to admit that he was an enemy of the regime. “They wanted me to say I stole the bread because I was against the party.” He wouldn’t admit that, but when they asked him to say. “Long live Saddam,” he refused.
Adnan claims the tortures became daily occurrences, and he and other prisoners practically dragged us visitors through a succession of cells and torture chambers. In one, electrodes hung from the ceiling. He showed how they were placed on either side of his head while the voltage was turned on. On a wall were some hooks, high up. They produced a concrete reinforcing rod that had been bent into a sort of twisted figure eight, so that each loop served as manacles, and the middle was hooked to the wall. One room even had a complete dentist’s chair and drill set, which the prisoners could use for tooth problems if their relatives paid enough—but was more commonly employed solely to inflict pain.
Now, says Adnan to general consent, “I want to kill all Baathists, I want to kill Saddam.” He pulled up his shirt to show the knife wounds and turned around to show the cigarette burn marks. “When we said we were thirsty they brought us out here to drink,” he says, running over to a drainage channel in the middle of the old basketball court, and miming getting down on his knees with his hands tied behind his back and drinking the greenish muck that streamed through.
Unit 4 was reached through an oddly yellow fence with spikes on top, and the mostly windowless cells were filthy and bedless. Perhaps saddest were two rooms, each hardly bigger than a normal bedroom, reserved for children; they had been crammed with scores of kids from 12 to 16 years old, say the former inmates. Ali Nasr, 13 at the time, was caught up in a sweep when Shiites throughout Iraq rioted after the murder of their Grand Ayatollah, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sader (also called Sader II) in Najaf. Sader had been gunned down with his two sons, and Iraqi authorities claimed to have no knowledge of who killed him. Nonetheless, it followed the killings of a series of lesser Shiite leaders in previous years, and the regime’s execution of one of his fellow ayatollahs for his role in the 1991 uprising. Ali spent six months in the juvenile wing of Unit Four, sleeping on his feet when the cell was too crowded to lie down, or taking turns on the floor with other prisoners. The boy was still too scared to talk about it, even now.
Then there was Unit Five, a long corridor where prisoners were hanged or, in many cases, simply left to die of their torture wounds. In the looted rubble of the prison office, the liberated prisoners pulled out ID cards and photographs of men they had known who went to Five. There was Hilal Abbas, whose Ministry of Defense ID card said he was an officer in the Army; he had been heard chanting “Death to Saddam” during the uprising, and was hanged. Abdul Latif Sabhan had already had an eye put out by torture by the time his ID card photo was taken; he died of torture wounds. Fadil Jarallah died similarly, but his case was tragic even by Iraqi standards. He had, they said, looked at a Baathist on the street the wrong way. There were 16 other cards of men identified by the ex-prisoners as having died there. Many others perished as well; how many, they couldn’t say.
Just before British troops entered Basra on Sunday, their guards locked them all in their cells and fled ahead of the advance. Among them was the warden, Jamal al-Tikriti, a member of Saddam’s home tribe. “We’ll find the Baathists,” said Adnan. “And even if they have guns, we’ll tear them to pieces with our teeth.” And with that he led another chant of “Nam Nam Bush, Sad-dam No.” Elsewhere in Basra, buildings were set on fire by looters and some of the unruly crowds were even denouncing the invaders. But for Adnan and his friends, there was no doubt whose side they were on now.
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I don't see how anyone could let this go on for 30 years. It's shameful. The fact that it is only being ended now is the real crime, not that we went to war to do it. And even if you are so jaded, so cynical as to believe that all we in the coalition countries fought Iraq for was oil, is this side-effect of liberation from this life not just?
<img src='http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030409/capt.1049898889.us_war_iraq_xits103.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
(Capt. Pete McAleer of San Diego, Calif., with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit shows a little girl's ID found among documents strewn in an abandoned Iraqi security facility, which included a suspected torture chamber, in Nasariyah, southern Iraq)
<a href='http://www.msnbc.com/news/897497.asp?0cl=c1' target='_blank'>http://www.msnbc.com/news/897497.asp?0cl=c1</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->April 8 — Adnan Shaker has a tiny passport picture of himself that he’s somehow managed to save during his three years in one of Saddam Hussein’s prisons. It shows a handsome man in his 20s, lean and fit, with a luxurious mustache and thick black hair. Today his own three children would probably not recognize him as the same person.
HIS HAIR is cropped short. Half his teeth have been knocked out, his face is battered and the eyes sunken and haunted-looking. His chest is covered with 50 separate cuts from a knife, his back has even more marks, which he says are cigarette burns. Two of his fingers were broken and deliberately bent into a permanent, contorted position and there’s a hole in the middle of his palm where his torturers stabbed him and twisted the blade.
Today, though, Adnan was a happy man, so happy that he could barely restrain his excitement. He was finally freed from a prison in downtown Basra, after British troops entered the city and drove the remaining defenders away. And as he took a small group of American journalists on a tour of the hospital, he enthusiastically led a crowd of fellow ex-prisoners, their families, friends and passersby in the first rendition of a pro-American chant that any of us have so far heard: “Nam nam Bush , Sad-Dam No” (“Yes, yes, Bush, Saddam No”). They chanted and danced, filling one of their former cells in a spontaneous celebration.
The prison was originally the School for Adult Reeducation, until the authorities converted it after the Shiite uprising against Saddam in 1991 and, perversely renaming it the Jail for Adult Reeducation, used it as a place to punish rebellious Shiites. The white walls outside are covered with blue-painted Baathist and pro-Saddam slogans, but nothing announces that it’s a prison. In the central courtyard, there’s a long-disused basketball hoop, under which are arrays of metal beds for prisoners who were lucky enough to sleep outside. Arrayed around that were groups of classrooms, now cells, which housed so many men that they had to lie down in shifts to sleep. Prisoners whose families had enough money to bribe the authorities at the prison went into Unit One, where they were only occasionally beaten; it cost at least three million Iraqi dinars for that privilege (about $1,000 at the current rate). Unit Two was worse, and so on. In Unit Four, where Adnan lived for his 10-year sentence, the prisoners say they were tortured daily, sometimes thrice daily. Only Unit Five was worse, in a sense. It was where they took them to die.
Adnan says his initial crime was simply stealing some bread, but even that had a political dimension. “The bread was only for the ruling Baathists and the rest of us could go hungry—they didn’t care. We had no choice but to steal.” In prison, though, he was tortured to get him to admit that he was an enemy of the regime. “They wanted me to say I stole the bread because I was against the party.” He wouldn’t admit that, but when they asked him to say. “Long live Saddam,” he refused.
Adnan claims the tortures became daily occurrences, and he and other prisoners practically dragged us visitors through a succession of cells and torture chambers. In one, electrodes hung from the ceiling. He showed how they were placed on either side of his head while the voltage was turned on. On a wall were some hooks, high up. They produced a concrete reinforcing rod that had been bent into a sort of twisted figure eight, so that each loop served as manacles, and the middle was hooked to the wall. One room even had a complete dentist’s chair and drill set, which the prisoners could use for tooth problems if their relatives paid enough—but was more commonly employed solely to inflict pain.
Now, says Adnan to general consent, “I want to kill all Baathists, I want to kill Saddam.” He pulled up his shirt to show the knife wounds and turned around to show the cigarette burn marks. “When we said we were thirsty they brought us out here to drink,” he says, running over to a drainage channel in the middle of the old basketball court, and miming getting down on his knees with his hands tied behind his back and drinking the greenish muck that streamed through.
Unit 4 was reached through an oddly yellow fence with spikes on top, and the mostly windowless cells were filthy and bedless. Perhaps saddest were two rooms, each hardly bigger than a normal bedroom, reserved for children; they had been crammed with scores of kids from 12 to 16 years old, say the former inmates. Ali Nasr, 13 at the time, was caught up in a sweep when Shiites throughout Iraq rioted after the murder of their Grand Ayatollah, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sader (also called Sader II) in Najaf. Sader had been gunned down with his two sons, and Iraqi authorities claimed to have no knowledge of who killed him. Nonetheless, it followed the killings of a series of lesser Shiite leaders in previous years, and the regime’s execution of one of his fellow ayatollahs for his role in the 1991 uprising. Ali spent six months in the juvenile wing of Unit Four, sleeping on his feet when the cell was too crowded to lie down, or taking turns on the floor with other prisoners. The boy was still too scared to talk about it, even now.
Then there was Unit Five, a long corridor where prisoners were hanged or, in many cases, simply left to die of their torture wounds. In the looted rubble of the prison office, the liberated prisoners pulled out ID cards and photographs of men they had known who went to Five. There was Hilal Abbas, whose Ministry of Defense ID card said he was an officer in the Army; he had been heard chanting “Death to Saddam” during the uprising, and was hanged. Abdul Latif Sabhan had already had an eye put out by torture by the time his ID card photo was taken; he died of torture wounds. Fadil Jarallah died similarly, but his case was tragic even by Iraqi standards. He had, they said, looked at a Baathist on the street the wrong way. There were 16 other cards of men identified by the ex-prisoners as having died there. Many others perished as well; how many, they couldn’t say.
Just before British troops entered Basra on Sunday, their guards locked them all in their cells and fled ahead of the advance. Among them was the warden, Jamal al-Tikriti, a member of Saddam’s home tribe. “We’ll find the Baathists,” said Adnan. “And even if they have guns, we’ll tear them to pieces with our teeth.” And with that he led another chant of “Nam Nam Bush, Sad-dam No.” Elsewhere in Basra, buildings were set on fire by looters and some of the unruly crowds were even denouncing the invaders. But for Adnan and his friends, there was no doubt whose side they were on now.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't see how anyone could let this go on for 30 years. It's shameful. The fact that it is only being ended now is the real crime, not that we went to war to do it. And even if you are so jaded, so cynical as to believe that all we in the coalition countries fought Iraq for was oil, is this side-effect of liberation from this life not just?
<img src='http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030409/capt.1049898889.us_war_iraq_xits103.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
(Capt. Pete McAleer of San Diego, Calif., with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit shows a little girl's ID found among documents strewn in an abandoned Iraqi security facility, which included a suspected torture chamber, in Nasariyah, southern Iraq)
Comments
Ok, I think I got something here.
There can be no denial that the desruction of Saddam in itself was a good thing. Certainly freeing these people from this oppresion was a good act, so far as good and evil can be judged.
The question now hangs however: what happens next? The UN is finished; any power it once had is gone, replaced by a rather frightening uncertain world. Because now, countries controlled by dictatorships are going to start worrying. And one of the first things they will do is think: might makes right.
Look at China. Pakistan. North Korea. Each of these nations has been guilty of terrible human rights abuses, and all are controlled by absolutist governments who will never relinguish their grip on power without massive internal uprisings or external intervention. Yet none of them even face the threat of invasion; The US has stated on repeated occassions that the North Korea situation is to be handled diplomatically.
Thus, the world's despots must now be thinking: I might be next. I'd better get some nukes. Indeed, the Iraq invasion may end up causing the exact reverse of what it intended: the spread of WMD. Nations with nuclear weapons arn't bullied, they arn't called to order, and they recieve diplomatic respect.
The question must be that if the US has taken it upon itself to become the world's policeman, how far is it prepared to go? Would the US be prepared to liberate the people of North Korea if it ment the nuclear destruction of Seoul and Los Angeles? China flaunts it's human rights abuses to the world; Would the US be willing to start World War 3 over this? The answer must come back as a resounding no; The US will only "police" those parts of the world that do not have the capacity to strike back in any major capacity.
We enter mysterious times. I'm not saying the liberation of Iraq in itself was a bad thing. the consequenses of this action however may be far more reaching than the world now expects.
I'll present my rebuttal in a while - bus ride home beckons.....
I'm thus going to stay in the conjunctive:
I'd <i>love</i> to believe Bush.
I'd love to be certain that Iraq was liberated, not occupied, that the costs of rebuilding will be financed out of oil, instead of UN money while the oil is sold cheaply to the sucessors of Enron, that the interim administration will be an <i>interim administration</i> and not a militaric government that's there to stay, that democratic elections will happen soon and that the democratic education of the Iraqis will be successful, as opposed to non-existant, that Iraq will stay a coherent country and not break apart, that the Islamic terrorism will not get another boom out of the (possibly) 1200 soon-to-be-martyrs of the last three weeks, and that in fifty years, jaded Iraqi geeks will argue with single-minded American ex-Marines about the sorry state their both governments are in.
Summed up, I hope that the Bushs are right and that Hussein was (if he doesn't happen to still 'be') indeed the darkest chapter in the Iraqs history. If it was the case, I'd be willing to forgive at least some of the indiscutable practices that led to this war.
Unfortunately, I can't believe it.
[edit]<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> ?We?ll find the Baathists,? said Adnan. ?And even if they have guns, we?ll tear them to pieces with our teeth.?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How long will it take until someone replaces 'Baathists' with 'Sunites'?[/edit]
Exactly my point, but the US has now gone ahead and proven their point: might makes right. Totalitarian governments commenly do believe this, but not on an international level; with regards to their own people and rebels, it's another story. Now, thanks to the precedent set by the US, the world's totalitarian governments can now see that the "might makes right" policy is now applicable on an international level.
My point about attacking China was that China gets away with what it does because of it's strength, the US would never attack China over something like human rights. Nukes = immunity, that's what the world sees. Thus, the world's despotic nations are going to redouble any efforts they had to aquire nuclear arms to avoid being attacked by the US in the name of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Now the US might not actually embark on a conquest of the world's despotic regimes. The retoric coming out of Washington seems to be indicating that though.
And going back to the whole issue this post raised in the first place, if the US is going to use the arguement that the liberation of the Iraqi people was reason enough for war then these despotic nations are going to be very worried. And thus, they will try and get themselves "immunity".
'Every situation is different'.
Say it with me, all together. What works in the mideast (where displays of force majeur are often the only methods that work - certainly not sanctions and diplomacy), doesn't work elsewhere. You must learn to be more flexible in your actions and thinking. We had to invade Germany and Japan and impose democracy there, because they were run by military juntas that would not respond to other methods. In the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, (and now China, at a rapidly increasing speed, if you are reading current events), we undermined them with capitalism until the desire for MTV overwhelms the population and its fear of the government. In Korea, it's usually threats and consolations - Mr. Clinton simultaneously parked aircraft carriers off the NK coast, while offering to give them food and oil if they got themselves settled down. All sorts of methods basically. You cannot be so black and white and say 'The US has done this and will always do this now!', as it is contrary to our recent and past history, and impossible to predict until you reach new situations.
The biggest advice I can give is to be more patient. Everyone ought to have learned that from the sort of wild reckless reporting and talking head behavior you saw in the past 3 weeks. Let things have time to unfold, don't always assume the worst, try to see all sides of an issue. I heard from more than a few people that this war would kill 100,000 civillians, cost of thousands of soldiers, and take years. It was nonsense - be patient and see how things turn out (especially when events unfold out of your control, which is perhaps the underlying issue of the protest movement).
All you kids are just so hyper from all that MTV we gave you for the last 20 years... <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
J/K. Sorta. Heh.
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I wish Reagan had declared war on Chile back in 1985... it would have been the exact same situation as in Iraq : the US finally taking control of a country's ressources after having supported the dictator to that end , and freeing the people he oppressed as a side effect.
Unfortunately , copper mines aren't as profitable as oil wells... and Pinochet knew how to "fairly" distribute money between foreign corporation and his friends , unlike Saddam who took everything for his regime.
Thank you. I'll remind you of this the next time you bring a WW2 analogy <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Seriously, of course it's too soon to say what <i>will</i> happen - what I tried to point out is that the effort of 'liberating' Iraq, if it has ever been more than a slogan to cover other aims, is not at its end in any way, on the contrary.
Similiar with Ryos statement - it's too soon to behold the Iraq wars impact on global politics, so we've got to see the worst case scenario as possible route.
Unfortunately , copper mines aren't as profitable as oil wells... and Pinochet knew how to "fairly" distribute money between foreign corporation and his friends , unlike Saddam who took everything for his regime. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is nothing you or I can do about the past. I can't help a woman that was raped 10 years ago while other people watched. I can help if she's being raped right in front of me though. Let's try and keep our eye on the ball. Your argument is one trotted out everytime in some shape or another, and the horse is starting to look a bit worn. Let's talk about the here and now... or perhaps you'd like to blame Nemesis for the concentration camps?
Well said Nem. I hate when we agree, I feel all dirty afterwords... <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
I can see it now - Ned Pyle and Florian Schwarzer together at an 'Iraqi elections NOW' demonstration in 2005...
Hand me the soap.
It wasn't an argument , just a cynical , sarcastic analogy...
While this is true (and quite common among pessimistic media types), one must also accept that positive outcomes are at least as equally possible.
I like to call this Cautious Optimism.
Ok, I think I got something here.
There can be no denial that the desruction of Saddam in itself was a good thing. Certainly freeing these people from this oppresion was a good act, so far as good and evil can be judged.
The question now hangs however: what happens next? The UN is finished; any power it once had is gone, replaced by a rather frightening uncertain world. Because now, countries controlled by dictatorships are going to start worrying. And one of the first things they will do is think: might makes right.
Look at China. Pakistan. North Korea. Each of these nations has been guilty of terrible human rights abuses, and all are controlled by absolutist governments who will never relinguish their grip on power without massive internal uprisings or external intervention. Yet none of them even face the threat of invasion; The US has stated on repeated occassions that the North Korea situation is to be handled diplomatically.
Thus, the world's despots must now be thinking: I might be next. I'd better get some nukes. Indeed, the Iraq invasion may end up causing the exact reverse of what it intended: the spread of WMD. Nations with nuclear weapons arn't bullied, they arn't called to order, and they recieve diplomatic respect.
The question must be that if the US has taken it upon itself to become the world's policeman, how far is it prepared to go? Would the US be prepared to liberate the people of North Korea if it ment the nuclear destruction of Seoul and Los Angeles? China flaunts it's human rights abuses to the world; Would the US be willing to start World War 3 over this? The answer must come back as a resounding no; The US will only "police" those parts of the world that do not have the capacity to strike back in any major capacity.
We enter mysterious times. I'm not saying the liberation of Iraq in itself was a bad thing. the consequenses of this action however may be far more reaching than the world now expects. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
That would be if the UN had had any real authority in the first place. Allowing the 5 permanent security council members to have a veto each pretty much negated that kind of authority long before today; the only real "power" that the UN has had up to this point was a bully-the-small-countries-into-line kind of power. The West, Russia, China, and their close allies were still free to do as they pleased.
If you want to discuss the UNs involvement in the Iraq, check <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=28&t=28796' target='_blank'>this</a>.
Thank you.
Whee makes a good point. The cold war is over, and the UN it was designed for needs that have changed with the times. Something needs to happen, as Rwanda, The Balkans, the Mideast, etc... have just shown that the UN has become a figurehead of inaction and wasted efforts. This is a separate topic for discussion though, folks. A good one, but a separate one.
Can we possibly steer this back to my original topic, Iraqi's treatment of its citizens? And how the world's war-protest movements might as well have been holding the electrodes to these guys genitals?
Edit: And Nemesis maaaakkes the saaaaavvve!
That's unfair, and you know it. It's like saying that all pro-warers could just as well have treated the heads of those 1200(?) civilians with sledgehammers.
Saving human rights in our current sociopoloitical situation is nothing anyone can present valid solutions to, as I tried to point out in the 'Are Leftists...' thread.
Please, take it back! ^_^
There is presenting valid solutuons, and there is <b>preventing</b> valid solutions. So far, the world (yes, even the precious enlightened war protesters) response to Saddam's behavior for the past 30 years has been to ignore it. Now something has been done. 1200 iraqi citizens (going with the Iraqi goernment number here) lost their lives so that 24,000,000 might have a chance in their lives. Was the price too high? The iraqi people you see on TV right now would not agree with you that it was, and they are the only ones in the position to make that call, I believe.
This is just one prison, in a town far from baghdad, far from the power center of the regime. They have dozens of buildings in bagdahd that could hold a hundred of this building, none yet explored. I think our understanding of the torture and oppression, even as presented by Amnesty International or other oganizations over the years, is just barely beginning.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->There is presenting valid solutions, and there is <b>preventing</b> valid solutions.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
About your opinion.
Gah. I'll shut up.
(ps: it figures that all the furniture in Saddam's living room would be in Louis the XIV style... :X )
He invaded Kuwait because he had tried to "tech up" Iraq quickly and ended up breaking the bank; he blamed the Kuwaitis and some of the other OPEC countries for keeping the prices of oil low and thus making Iraq poorer. We've seen that his regime will go to any lengths to stay in power - in fact, Saddam considered that he had <b>won</b> the 1991 Gulf War (in a way, he did).
Now, given the facts, and the behavior of Saddam, and the fact that he doesn't mind killing and torturing his own people, what are the chances that giving him another 10 years, or even 20 years, will change anything? What I want to know is why we didn't see this coming 20 years ago, when we were still supporting Saddam and turned a blind eye when he murdered his opponents in the Baath party.
Thats how you look when you go off like that man. It's retarded when I do it and it's retarded when you do it. Saddam may be/have been a sumbitch but he's hardly the worst regime currently in power. Fer christssake we havent even found any of the fabled weapons of mass destruction which was supposedly the reason we went there in the first place.
And given the US's track records of intervention I have serious doubts that there lives ARE going to end up better. You often tout Germany and Japan as shining examples of the US rebuilding countries but they were 1st word powers BEFORE the wars. Name one single <i>third world</i> country where the US "liberated" it and it didn't end horrifically. Anyway global politics makes this vein in my forehead throbs so lets just talk about how cute Coil's chibi skulk model is.
Have you seen Coil's chibiskulk model? It was incredibly cute already but I managed to up the Kawai factor by about 3.9 by simply adding some shine points to the eyes.
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Just to point out some nitpick, Germany and Japan were not 1st world countries when we helped them rebuild. They would've been completely financially ruined (well, maybe not so much Japan). They were <b>industrialized</b> is what you mean. And given the amount of carpet-bombing that happened to Germany's major industrial complexes (military-industrial complex, wewt), I seriously doubt that they could've done anything by themselves.
What you fail to understand is the complexity of such reconstruction efforts - but a lot of it boils down to one thing: money (including its management and distribution). IMO cash money should rarely ever be given to a country under reconstruction; that just begs for misappropriation. It should instead be spent in developing the country's resources with the partnership of one of the country's companies or departments. Quite often the lack of infrastructure leads to terrible things, not the U.S.'s "liberation" per se. America is wont to do what it has to do and then hand the job off to others to avoid being seen as "foreign occupation" - but somehow we haven't learned that devoting resources to reconstruction is a major factor in stability.
Of course, one can always point to the USSR, which had considerable infrastructure and still failed, but we won't get into that.
One thing is clear - we need to be totally committed to bringing "a better life" to the Iraqis to make it work, and from what I've seen Bush is a pretty committed president :\ for better or for worse.
As for your examples of how US intervention will make it worse... ehhh, you just sort of tail off without really explaining yourself. Panama is certainly better off now, with Noriega gone. The Balkans are certainly better off, although taking FOREVER to fix due to UN inaction. Still, better - first democracy in most balkan country's histories. Kuwait? Not precisely third world - but certainly better off than being ripped apart by iraq. Should I keep going? Nicaraugua? Democratic now, getting pretty squared away, was run by fascist death squads. South Korea was a 3rd world country when we stopped the communist invasion - it's certainly not any longer, but only due to that sacrifice. I have now named many... name all yours where it was screwed up. You get bonus points for not saying Somalia as that was *ding ding* a UN effort, not a unilateral American one.
That's the problem when you use absolutes and try to make it black and white, in a historical or geopolitical discussion psycho. It's never either.
You get bonus points for not saying Somalia as that was *ding ding* a UN effort, not a unilateral American one.
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Funny, I was just thinking about why the UN fails a lot of its undertakings in this area. Probably because the UN states always bicker about stuff, even after they've resolved to do something.
And okay lets looks at the most recent example of our libiration, Afghanistan. Everywhere out side kabul the pre-taliban warlords are back in power and making life such a piece of **** that <a href='http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-reviving-taliban,0,5937852.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dworld%2Dheadlines' target='_blank'>the Taliban is reviving it's structure</a>. and <a href='http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030405.wafgh0405_2/BNStory/International' target='_blank'> Karzai's closest advisors was assassinated.</a> This is the kinda **** that doesn't give me much hope for Iraq. Especially since Afghanistan is no where near as divide a population as iraq. I find that being pessimistic in politics is usuall a good idea.
<b>::EDIT:: Link fix ::EDIT::</b>
You also seem to think that you can take a country from the 8th century and place it in the 21st overnight. It isn't possible. Afghanistan will take time. I'm not going to repeat my previous points on this, use the search function. A hint: search for '25,000 female teachers', a first in afghani history... and to say that afghanistan is not as divided as iraq is to ignore basically all history of afghanistan, or to just be ignorant of it. Its entire history is based on fractious warlords and fiefdoms. It will take decades to change this, or more. Not that this has anything to do with iraqi prisons.
Edit: Fixed many, many dumb typos...
I'm with MonsE here, please try to consider what it must be like. Held in inhumane conditions. Denied access to your family and friends. Denied access to a lawyer, or fair trial. Even denied a legal status! Carted around on trailers in cages in the heat of Cuba.....oh hang on I'm thinking about the "illegal combatants" of Guantanamo bay! Oopsie!
(yet another serious point disguised as frippery)
I'm categorically against MonsE for a change, and I think I can quitre safely argue it without sounding like a monster.
As I see it, you can subdivide the prisoners into 2 categories initially: Those found guilty of the crimes they were imprisoned for, and those imprisoned for "political reasons". There's my first problem right there. You now have a percentage of burgulars, rapists, murders, wife beaters etc (see I can be emotive too!) wandering the "liberated" streets of Baghdad. Hurrah for freedom!
Given the choice of having a few days extra freedom, or waiting for due process to free them, I'd imagine even the political prisoners would elect to remain in a coallition administered prison, rather than have genuinely guilty people roaming the streets.
If you want to talk about inhumane treatment of prisoners, there are only 3 nations in which the lawful execution of children is carried out. Iraq is one. The US is another. Let he who is without sin.....
I particularly liked the picture at the end. I won't cast aspersions on the guy holding up the ID card, but I will ask why it was there. Children torturing? Evidence in a murder case? A missing person report? A seized forged document?
I'm sure we can all agree that the regime was not the most ethical. However, what impression would an execution chamber in a federal penitentuary give? I don't know about the circumstances the prisoners were kept in. Neither do you. The only ones that do, are the guards and the prisoners themselves. I'm fairly sure that human rights were abused, and torture carried out. Unfortunately I can't say for sure. Lets try (however hard) to keep an open mind.
The question I want to pose is fairly simple: Legality. there have been massive legal debates here in Australia over whether the Iraq war was legal. Some lawyers have said yes, others have said no. Point is that if this action was illegal, then regardless of the good things it brings it still broke international law.
Does this mean any nation can do this? Take for example Indonesia: they might consider Australia's close relationship with the US grounds for a pre-emptive strike. Hell, they could even point to our sole nuclear reactor and claim we're producing nukes. That aside, would this be an illegal operation?
What remains clear is that most of the world didn't want this war; you can boil it down to France/Russia/China but a clear majority of the world's nations didn't want the US invading without UN mandate. If, as this war demonstrates, the invasion of another nation in the name of national security is now considered "OK", then what is to stop any nation from invading another? India could say that Pakistan poses a clear threat to India (not that those 2 need any excuse to go to war <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> )
By walking over the UN in the name of national security the US has really set a dangerous precident, and we all know how much influence precidents have in law making. Sure, the UN was never really powerful, but what it did to was provide a coating of legality to actions undertaken. (I speak in the past tense because whatever Bush says the UN is gone) Without this legal "safety net" so to speak, we may very well see nations across the world decide that international law no longer applies to them either. Will this mean the US will step in personally in more and more conflicts? If it does, what sort of effect will this have on the US?
I'm not saying the liberation of Iraq was a bad thing. But, as I said above, the consequenses are even now completly unknown. As a natural pessimist, I fear for our future.