French, Germans on Saddam Tribunal?

[epepke]

By the way - does the American public know that? Perhaps, if they do, there will be a little more of an outcry next time their government cozies up with a "friendly" dictator.

Yes, we all know that, if for no other reason than every five milliseconds someone says to us "Do you know that?"

 

[Chaos]

I think in several threads now everybody has already agreed that we created him. we also acknoweldged the creation of others and hope that we learned that the enemy of our enemy may soon be ours. I was in the Marines when Ronnie backed the guy agaisnt Iran, I was in the Marines when we went and removed him from Kuwait. Hell, Washington and Jefferson weren't against slavery, but Lincoln took over and things changed. Get over it

The USA didn´t just decide that yesterday´s tyrant/terrorist ally was now an enemy. They backed them right until they turned on them or their allies.

Don´t you think it is time you LEARNED something of that? How many times do you want that to repeat itself? How many people do you want to get killed by attacks from former allies? If you go to bed with dogs, you will wake up with fleas, and if you go to bet with "allied" tyrants and terrorists, you will wake up with bombs - and can´t except any sympathy for that.

 

[rikzilla]

What should happen...

- a fair trial, with ALL parts of his reign publicly investigated, including the times when the US supported him - let all the dirty deals become public!
- all assets confiscated (as far as they aren´t already)
- life in prison with no special treatment (like luxuries), but isolated from other prisoners

Under NO circumstances should he be executed or risked being killed by other prisoners - as might happen if he has contact with other Iraqis. A dead Saddam might be a martyr, a living Saddam is detention: "Look at him: we will NOT make you a martyr; we will make you spend a long, miserable life in prison."

What really should happen is that IDIOTS who have been railing against everything the US has done in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have been screaming for our withdrawal should JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!

If it were up to you, Chaos, and others like you...Saddam would still be living in tacky Las Vegas splendor, murdering his people and generally scareing the UN into gridlock.

Just do us all a favor....admit you were wrong,...have been wrong all along. Only then should we allow your particiapation.

NOTE TO ALL LEFTIES.....if you've been crying for the US to cease it's "cruel war for oil(tm)" you are not allowed to tell us what we should do with Saddam.

-z

Sic Semper Tyrannis

 

[aerocontrols]

Gosh It appears no one here really know's history, and if they do they put some kind of revisionist, vis-a-vis slant on it.
Saddam was a creation of the American....no that not quite right, he was his and circumstances own creation , but was nurtured and fed by ST.Ronald, like some kind of vile beast ( which he turned out to be. ).

Speaking of slanting things, let's not just gloss over the acts of St. Jimmy. He did encourage Saddam to start his war with Iran, after all. And while we're at it, let's keep in mind that nearly the entire world backed the Iraqis in the Iran/Iraq war. And that while the US said little about Saddam's atrocities in the 1980s, the rest of the world was silent as well.

Since we're trying to avoid slanting history, that is.

 

[hammegk]

That may be the case; however, not choosing one "evil" will often put you in the uncomfortable position of it choosing you.

Perhaps you don't understand that the neocon ideal is the US triumphant over the world. Who is going to choose?

 

[Luke T.]

Whatever the truth is, let it all come out at trial. This is no time for any country to cover its own ass. If we really believe in our principles, we'll let all that information out in the open at the trial.

If we really believe in our principles, the media will also accurately report everything. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[Luke T.]

There seems to be an impression around some circles that we sold the chemical weapons to Hussein that he used against Iranians and Kurds. I have not seen anything yet to convince me of that. I think it has gone from rumor to fact without any evidence. So what is the real deal?

 

[aerocontrols]

There seems to be an impression around some circles that we sold the chemical weapons to Hussein that he used against Iranians and Kurds. I have not seen anything yet to convince me of that. I think it has gone from rumor to fact without any evidence. So what is the real deal?

From the evidence I've seen, he got his chemical weapons equipment and material from the Germans, mostly.

The French sold him his nuclear power plant.

The US sold or gave him biological agents.

MattJ

 

[Troll]

The USA didn´t just decide that yesterday´s tyrant/terrorist ally was now an enemy. They backed them right until they turned on them or their allies.

Don´t you think it is time you LEARNED something of that? How many times do you want that to repeat itself? How many people do you want to get killed by attacks from former allies? If you go to bed with dogs, you will wake up with fleas, and if you go to bet with "allied" tyrants and terrorists, you will wake up with bombs - and can´t except any sympathy for that.

What was all that above? An attempt at a jab at the US? I already stated that I hope we learned by now that the enemy of our enemy may soon be our own. So your question was answered before you asked it.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Ed:

Listen, I'm in constant battle with Tundra Mammoths(tm). They evidentially crossed that ice bridge from Denmark that you have also been keeping secret. I have a suspicion that 9/11 was related to the emerging Tundra Mammoth infestation but it has, alas, been covered up.

Although I hate to brag, you have to admit that it does take a certain skill to cover up rampant attacks by our Tundra Mammoths. Our partners in crime, the Illuminati, are quite good.

Seriously, every post that begs a response is a troll, by definition. Just because the current one is sarcastic does not in any way diminish the seriousness of the question. A basic issue is whether Iraqi precident trumps european sensibilities. A side question, which is very sarcastic, is how the EU will patronize the Iraqis.

There was a serious question burried in there?

While I would have no problem with global representation (provided, naturally, that China, Japan and other countries that have the DP are included) I sort of think that a pure Iraqi deal would be for the best. A pan-arab tribunal would be interesting for it's innate hypocracy if nothing else. I do sorta think that he should be offed for the sake of closure, if nothing else. This notwithstanding my opposition to capitol punishment.

Your last two sentences are wonderfully self-contradictory, my dear Ed. That said, I think the end result will be an Iraqi war-crimes court.

 

[whitefork]

Of course, with enough Sunni Iraqis on a jury, Saddam just might be acquitted.

 

[Agammamon]

[B. . .Realistically, Saddam's refusal to fight back during his capture may have significantly hurt his re-election chances, however. [/B]

Yeah but he got a 100% of the vote last time, if he can still swing 51% he's in there.

 

[DanishDynamite]

rikzilla:

What really should happen is that IDIOTS who have been railing against everything the US has done in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have been screaming for our withdrawal should JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!

Why should they (in regard to Iraq)? They've been right all along.

If it were up to you, Chaos, and others like you...Saddam would still be living in tacky Las Vegas splendor, murdering his people and generally scareing the UN into gridlock.

Rick, Rick, not this old tired false dichotomy, again!

"Either you are for a unilateral, un-provoked invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq or you love the butcher Saddam and all his deeds".

False dichotomies are cool, though. Here's some more:

"Either you are pro-illegal-search-and-seizure or you love difficult-to-prosecute mass-murders."

"Either you are pro-democracy and support the Allende or you love ruthless murdering dictators and suppport Pinochet."

Just do us all a favor....admit you were wrong,...have been wrong all along. Only then should we allow your particiapation.

They weren't wrong. There were no WMD.

Some war-mongers seem to have forgotten the source of disagreement. It wasn't whether ruthless dictators are bad, but whether there was sufficient evidence for the international community to invade a sovereign country.

NOTE TO ALL LEFTIES.....if you've been crying for the US to cease it's "cruel war for oil(tm)" you are not allowed to tell us what we should do with Saddam.

Of course we are allowed. Standing up to bullies is quite noble, you know.

 

[Segnosaur]

Actually not true.

The lion's share of his armament came from two countries: Soviet Union/Russia and France.
...
I think the US was about 1 percent which was about the same as Denmark and some other countries.

(That is from a study which I will try to find a link from a Sweedish based organization.)

Try here: http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html

Edited to add:
You're right... the US contributed only sold Iraq about 1% of its arms (Russia, France and China are the top 3).

And as others have pointed out, the US wasn't a supplier of chem weapons to Iraq. (I believe Germany, and maybe the Swiss and France did that). They did give Anthrax, but it should be noted that anthrax can be used in devising treatments.

The worse thing the US did was look the other way, during both Saddam's suppression of the Kurds, and his use of poison gas in the war against Iran. (I believe the US also gave Iraq strategic intelligence at the time.) However, it should be noted that at the time, Iran and Islamic fundamentalism was considered a more serious threat. (Does that make it right? Perhaps not, but if the US had not supported Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war, we could have more Fundamentalist governments in the middle east.)

 

[Sundog]

Hmm, I can't delete a message I just entered? How quaint.

 

[reprise]

And as others have pointed out, the US wasn't a supplier of chem weapons to Iraq. (I believe Germany, and maybe the Swiss and France did that). They did give Anthrax, but it should be noted that anthrax can be used in devising treatments.

I'm not sure that the US senate would agree.

According to a 1994 Senate report, private American suppliers, licensed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, exported a witch's brew of biological and chemical materials to Iraq from 1985 through 1989. Among the biological materials, which often produce slow, agonizing death, were:

* Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.

* Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.

* Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord, and heart.

* Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.

* Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness.

* Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.

Also on the list: Escherichia coli (E. coli), genetic materials, human and bacterial DNA, and dozens of other pathogenic biological agents. "These biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction," the Senate report stated. "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program."

The report noted further that U.S. exports to Iraq included the precursors to chemical- warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare production facilities, and chemical-warhead filling equipment. (bolding mine)

The exports continued to at least November 28, 1989, despite evidence that Iraq was engaging in chemical and biological warfare against Iranians and Kurds since as early as 1984.

The American company that provided the most biological materials to Iraq in the 1980s was American Type Culture Collection of Maryland and Virginia, which made seventy shipments of the anthrax-causing germ and other pathogenic agents, according to a 1996 Newsday story.

Other American companies also provided Iraq with the chemical or biological compounds, or the facilities and equipment used to create the compounds for chemical and biological warfare. Among these suppliers were the following:

* Alcolac International, a Baltimore chemical manufacturer already linked to the illegal shipment of chemicals to Iran, shipped large quantities of thiodiglycol (used to make mustard gas) as well as other chemical and biological ingredients, according to a 1989 story in The New York Times.

* Nu Kraft Mercantile Corp. of Brooklyn (affiliated with the United Steel and Strip Corporation) also supplied Iraq with huge amounts of thiodiglycol, the Times reported.

* Celery Corp., Charlotte, NC

* Matrix-Churchill Corp., Cleveland, OH (regarded as a front for the Iraqi government, according to Representative Henry Gonzalez, Democrat of Texas, who quoted U.S. intelligence documents to this effect in a 1992 speech on the House floor).

The following companies were also named as chemical and biological materials suppliers in the 1992 Senate hearings on "United States export policy toward Iraq prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait":

* Mouse Master, Lilburn, GA

* Sullaire Corp., Charlotte, NC

* Pure Aire, Charlotte, NC

* Posi Seal, Inc., N. Stonington, CT

* Union Carbide, Danbury, CT

* Evapco, Taneytown, MD

* Gorman-Rupp, Mansfield, OH

Additionally, several other companies were sued in connection with their activities providing Iraq with chemical or biological supplies: subsidiaries or branches of Fisher Controls International, Inc., St. Louis; Rhone-Poulenc, Inc., Princeton, NJ; Bechtel Group, Inc., San Francisco; and Lummus Crest, Inc., Bloomfield, NJ, which built one chemical plant in Iraq and, before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, was building an ethylene facility. Ethylene is a necessary ingredient for thiodiglycol.

In 1994, a group of twenty-six veterans, suffering from what has come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome, filed a billion-dollar lawsuit in Houston against Fisher, Rhone-Poulenc, Bechtel Group, and Lummus Crest, as well as American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) and six other firms, for helping Iraq to obtain or produce the compounds which the veterans blamed for their illnesses. By 1998, the number of plaintiffs has risen to more than 4,000 and the suit is still pending in Texas.

A Pentagon study in 1994 dismissed links between chemical and biological weapons and Gulf War Syndrome. Newsday later disclosed, however, that the man who headed the study, Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg, was a director of ATCC. Moreover, at the time of ATCC's shipments to Iraq, which the Commerce Department approved, the firm's CEO was a member of the Commerce Department's Technical Advisory Committee, the paper found.

from http://www.progressive.org/0901/anth0498.html

However you justify the sale of raw materials, you cannot approve the sale of chemical war-head filling equipment to a nation and then claim that you didn't know what they were going to use it for.

 

[Supercharts]

One way to get International support for the trial is to include some member states of the U.N. as part of the jury. In order to ensure fairness and avoid the trial as being a Western Imperialist kangaroo court I suggest the following as jury members:

Burkina Faso
Comoros
Gambia
Guinea-Bissau
Kiribati
Nauru
Palau
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Timor-Leste
Vanuatu

It's a shame that GWB did not send Powell to these places before the U.S. & U.K. invaded. We might have gotten U.N. support as part of the broad coalition.

 

[Jessica Blue]

BTW,

Does it make Saddam less guilty if he can show he bought weapons from countries all over the world?

No...none of this makes Saddam any less guilty but it does take some of the sting out of the moral outrage shown by the US and others.

According to reprise's excerpt, the US continued to export chemical and biological substances to Iraq"despite evidence that Iraq was engaging in chemical and biological warfare against Iranians and Kurds since as early as 1984."


The shipments to Iraq went on even after Saddam Hussein ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja,in which at least 5000 men, women and children died. The atrocity, which shocked the world, took place in March 1988, but a month later the components and materials of weapons of mass destruction were continuing to arrive in Baghdad from the US.

http://www.sundayherald.com/27572


Troll in his wisdom says there's been a change of leadership since the US and Saddam were cosy and we should all "get over it" as though it's all a gigantic bore. But if we aren't expected to *get over* Saddam Hussein why should we shutup, forget or bury the history behind his rise and fall.