From todays New York Times:
"Do you want me to dig up everything or just the head?" the gravedigger asked. Mr. Jassim decided just to see the head, because he believed he could identify his brother by his two missing back teeth.It's a shame we didn't give the inspections time to work, isn't it?"There are so many graves that don't have numbers," he said. "We don't know what to do."
The dirt was dry and easily dug and soon the gravedigger held up a skull. "It's not him," Mr. Jassim said. "The teeth are complete."
At grave No. 444, a large family worked together to unearth Hamid Omran, who was 31 when he was arrested in 1994. As the family carefully lifted the bones onto fresh linen, his cousin, Farhan Jassim, 47, exploded in anger.
"I don't think there was a regime in the world that treated political prisoners the way Saddam did," he said. "You can't imagine such exaggerated injustice."
The jaw surfaced. Mr. Hussein, the cousin said, "hated every Iraqi. Believe me, he hated all Iraqis."
Then the family found the skull, which showed a crack in a temple. A guard kicked him when he was arrested, the family said.
Another cousin, Thaer Ghawi, 27, wept as he smoked a cigarette once the bones were out of the grave. "We are just people who opposed the regime," he said. "Why couldn't he just put political prisoners in prison?"
Mr. Hani, the man whose brother disappeared in 1995, spent three hours picking through the grave of his brother. It was laborious. After the teeth, a few small bones, perhaps from the feet or hands, were found. Finally, Mr. Hani had found enough to fill a small coffin. He did not find the skull.
"It is enough for me," he said as he loaded the coffin onto a truck. "I feel relieved. What worried me before was I didn't know if he was alive or dead. Now I know."
Lets see 14yrs * 52 weeks *9 bodies means at least 6552 buried by this guy alone. Now compare this to the civilian dead by the coalition.
Dean, my friend. You are absolutely right. Even though I never thought much about the notion of turning Iraq into the kind of country that any westerner might want to live in, I have never questioned the decision to pull down the saddamite baathist regime.
As for these American traitors who attempted to put every stumbling block they could dream up in the path of George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and our armed forces, they can rot on earth or in hell.
Moreover, I'm sorry we couldn't find all the gangsters who committed the crimes discussed in your cited article, stand them up against a wall, and shoot them dead. There's only one kind of real justice I know of, and it's the type you control with a trigger.
About the democracy in Iraq angle. The fact is, it may just be possible. But only if that country is run by the correct standards that Rumsfeld has announced and that Powell has denounced. Namely a secular government under a real constitution that will not be dominated either by Shia or Sunna imams or by Arab nationalist would-be dictators.
I wish our people well in these efforts. Because I don't want to our young men and women in the military to be sent out to re-fight the same wars against the same set of gangsters.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
...I don't want to our young men and women in the military to be sent out to re-fight the same wars against the same set of gangsters.
You said it.
If it works, when we're pissed off at Iraq 25 years from now, and they're pissed at us, we'll be calling each other names and throwing our Iraqi-made radios and cooking oil into the garbage--rather than throwing 19 year olds with M16s at each other.
If it doesn't, well hell, there's worse fates than failure.
The biggest question: can the Shias and the Sunnis find a way to bury the hatchet--in something other than each other, that is?
We'll see.
And who do the people of Iraq have to thank for their freedom? well in a small, but very important way Saddam Hussein himself. Had he fulfilled the UN resolutions, Bush would have allowed him to continue his murderous rampage.
But know that I have made the provocative flame bait statement, I'm interested in knowing this. Give the fact that there are at least a dozen regimes around the world where innocents are being slaughtered wholesale, and given the fact that there are probally more where we don’t even have a clue to the extent of the suffering, do you all support a foreign policy that would use our military to put an end to such régimes? If so what would your criteria be and how much of our GDP are you willing to expend in this endeavor?
My criteria are simple:
1) There must be a significant U.S. strategic interest involved,
2) The war must be morally justifiable, and
3) We must have reasonable chance of success.
All three were the case here.
Obviously, I'm not going to support war with France even though they have been obstructionist toward our strategic interests.
Obviously, I'm not going to support spending billions and shedding American blood simply to topple brutal dictators. Although that's what we did with Milosovich, and I'm not going to gnash my teeth and rend my garments over it, I think it's a bad habit to get into.
By the way:
My main reason for concentrating on human rights issues is to continue to point out that those who opposed this war on human rights or moral grounds were sorely and embarassingly mistaken.
And no, human rights issues are not irrelevant. They're not the only reason we did this, but so what? They are one reason among many, most of them good.
Fair enough, so did you support Kosovo? I didn't, (but not because I thought it was an immoral war how could it be, freeing people from genocide) but even in your criteria you don't mention to liberate oppressed people. It's like if that happens it's a bonus. But you still don't address the fact that the freedom of the Iraqi people was * not * a deal breaker for the adminstraion. If the issue could be delt away how is it that you can claim it was even a reason at all. Seems to me it's just a pleasent side effect. I'll give you another one.
I know people don't like to discuss this but if a friendly government is created in Iraq, then a number of problems involving the free flow of oil at market prices is going to be solved. We will have prevented France and Russia from gaining control over the flow of Iraqi oil and we will have defeated the ability of the Saudi's to set prices on the world market. We won't have to kow tow to them and it will give us a free hand to deal with them from a postion of (economic) strength. And best of all we can do all of this and insure that the Iraqi people profit from the bounty of their natural resources.
Isn’t that even worth a mention, I mean not as a "reason" to go to war, but one of those bonus things like bringing freedom to the Iraqi people? Now unless you're a "no blood for oil" conspiracy type you have to acknowledge that this is an issue that can also be dealt away. That is, if it were not possible to work out a situation where the Iraqis would pump oil in the face of a Saudi embargo or some other problem we still would have invaded.
So the "oil" benefit was a "side issue" as well. But no one will mention it, and if you do mention it you’re labeled as some off the wall lefty freak. But other then the moral good feeling you get when you think of the now free people of Iraq that make it in many ways more satifying, the two issues are both "bonus points".
Well, the I mention the moral issue because it IS one of the reasons we went. Had he not been a corrupt, despotic monster, the war probably wouldn't have been necessary. So I don't separate out the moral issue very much.
I also mention the moral issues because many people have a -- mostly healthy -- aversion to war, and the horrors it brings. They need to be reminded, regularly, that there are much greater horrors.
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Having said that, I agree that a rational person could said that"the free flow of oil at market prices" (I hear that phrase a lot, it weirds me out) is a primary consideration. I would, however, not be one of those people. Indeed, if I thought that was our primary reason for going, I would have opposed the war.
I admit that a rational person could think it. But he'd still have to be confronted with the fact that there are rational people who think that's not a good reason to go to war, and others who think it wasn't a primary reason for going.
People must think I'm stubborn that way but I do not believe that "preserve the free flow of oil" was ever more than a minor side discussion during the Bush 41, Clinton, or Bush 43 administrations. I mean, I suppose it was a consideration, in the same sense that "helping reduce unemployment at army boot factories in Virginia" might somewhere along the lines have been discussed. I just don't think it was more than a tertiary issue.
I know we've got business interests in Saudi Arabia. I know we also want to keep oil prices somewhat stable during a conflict. It's just that my mind doesn't wrap around any President thinking that hard about the oil issue, except as one of many tactical considerations.
But the money that the oil gives despots like Saddam to play with? Now that's a big, big issue, and a part of the problem. But, "how do we keep our economy stable by keeping gas prices relatively cheap?" Sorry, don't believe it. Boost gasoline to $5/gallon and I still don't think most Presidents would view it as a primary consideration. Not irrelevant, not meaningless, but just another among a thousand details you have to think about when you're in the big seat.
Maybe I'm a simple-minded fool. But it's what I think.