Saddam Hussain Executed...

[garinda]

Originally Posted by bullseyebarb

The Iraqis missed a golden opportunity here. The message should have been - the past is dead and we are moving on to a better future. Instead, the setting was all wrong and the participants ghastly. The execution should never have been taped for public viewing. Washington was careless in the final moments of Saddam's life and this is a perfect example of America's hands-off approach which has encouraged too many meddling fingers. The Iraq government is new and weak. It needs shaping up and is likely to get that in 2007. That said, the bottom line is - Saddam is gone. Moqtada al-Sadr should be next.

It's a fact, garinda, that oil fuels our economies. There will not be any workable alternatives on a mass scale for quite some time. Therefore, stability in world oil markets is crucial.

The media and critics of the Iraq war have done a masterful job of separating it from the overall war against Islamic terrorism. However, it is an integral part of the whole.

We agree on the first point re: the execution, and the way it was carried out. Is this the start of a beautiful friendship for the New Year?

Of course I disagree where you disagreed with me in the second part of your post.

Oh well, back to square one.

[Ianto.W.]

steeljack Hajj to Mecca, you want fervancy and brainwashing check out the pics, 3 or 4 million pilgrims at a time all obeying and following the mullahs rules maybe a poor analogy but the Nuremberg rallies were childrens tea-parties compared the mass hysteria generated during the Hajj.

At long last one wise member has seen the light, I just hope the manure stays out of the fan in my lifetime, selfish maybe but once in a lifetime is enough.

[WillowTheWhisp]

It will get worse before it gets better and I don't think it will be that long in coming now.

[guru]

I think Saddams hanging was disgusting, yes he deserved to be locked away for how long he had left and i think in my opinion a death sentence is no punishment, as as soon as that trapdoor opens the suffering ends, were as being kept alive and knowing you will never be free is alot more of a punishment. Also what disgusts me more is that the coalition troops capture Saddam keep him alive, and then give him to there enemy, what i mean by this is that while he was being hung they were shouting long live Muqtada al-Sadr now come on, this man is responsible for most of the coalition forces deaths and we hand over Saddam to the Iraqi security forces who support this man, have we really handed over power in iraq to the right people or are we creating a bigger problem soon to come with iraq, iran, and syria.

[mthead]

Yet another sordid film has been put on the internet.It depicts Saddam on the slab with a gapping net wound.Wonder when its going to end.

[bullseyebarb]

Originally Posted by steeljack

Barb a couple of points I want to pass by you .
1, So you agree , that is the reason we invaded and occupied a soveriegn state , for the oil .........and I suppose you find nothing wrong with the fact ,if this weekends news reports are to be believed that the Iraqi minisiter for natural resources will this week sign an order handing over total control all petroleum and gas exploration, development and production to 3 American energy companies for the next 30 years in return for 'royalty' payments.
Barb, if I was a little bare-assed raggy arab who had nothing else to lose , no matter what religion, I would be out there wanting the "foriegn devils" out,a matter of national pride, and I really expect the insurgancy to increase with increasing support from the average Arab in the street , with anti-American feeling spreading from Morroco right through the Gulf .
2, Something I don't think Washington understands is the idea that nationalism is a new/ alien concept in the Middle-east, these folks are muslims first, then sunni or shia,then tribe, then Iraqi, Egyptian, Yemeni .
Nasser, Saddam Hussien, the Late Shah. Assad (senior) in Syria were all secularists who tried to push nationalism and each one failed and the Mosques remained in control. This is where the terrorism is coming from, in another recent thread photos were posted of the recent Hajj to Mecca, you want fervancy and brainwashing check out the pics, 3 or 4 million pilgrims at a time all obeying and following the mullahs rules maybe a poor analogy but the Nuremberg rallies were childrens tea-parties compared the mass hysteria generated during the Hajj.

1. No, I don't agree. There were many facets to this, going back to Gulf I, where we so foolishly made truce with Saddam after kicking him out of Kuwait. It was inevitable that at some point we would be forced to resume hostilities.

Before 9/11, the U.S. Intelligence community never penetrated the senior leadership of either Iraq or al Qaeda - two of America's most dangerous and determined enemies. The majority opinion, (with only a few dissenters), believed that secularist Iraqis would never work with radicals like Osama bin Laden and that fundamentalists would never cooperate with an infidel like Saddam Hussein. The journalist Bob Woodward interviewed the head of the Iraq operations group at the CIA, who told him that CIA reporting sources inside Iraq before the war were thin. How thin? "I can count them on one hand," he said, "and still pick my nose." The agency simply wasn't focused on this and, therefore, their majority opinion turned out to be dead wrong.

We now know much more about Iraq and terrorism. In the three and a half plus years since the war began the U.S. government has collected more than two million documents. These include payroll logs, audio and videotapes, strategy memos between senior Iraqi regime officials, letters between government agencies and computer hard drives of top Iraqi ministers. Saddam himself had formulated a plan for insurgency post any future war. However, the U.S. intelligence community has only translated and analyzed about five percent of the documents captured, some of which have been released for public viewing. They don't seem in too much of a hurry to delve into the rest. Why? Could it be CYA at the CIA?

We know that Iraq harbored several of the world's most notorious terrorists - Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal among them. It also gave safe haven to al Zarqawi when he was forced to flee Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Within days of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, Saddam's government facilitated the escape from U.S. authorities of the Iraqi who mixed the chemicals for that bombing. Less than two months later, his intelligence service botched an attempt to assassinate George H.W. Bush during a visit to Kuwait. Saddam trained and funded terrorists, including Abu Sayyef, the al Qaeda affiliate in the Philippines, and supplied chemical weapons expertise to terrorist-friendly Islamic fundamentalists in Sudan. In 1995 a senior Iraqi intelligence official met with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda propaganda was broadcast on Iraqi government-run t.v. Iraqi financial records confirm that the government supported, harbored and financed Abdul Rahman Yasin, the 1993 WTC bomber throughout the 1990's. And this is just the tip of the iceburg.

I have no problem with the current Iraqi government inking a deal with U.S. energy companies. Who should they have called.....PEMEX? I think not. They want to increase production and revenues and are looking for investment and expertise.

Frankly, I don't care whether people in the Middle-East like America or not. I'd much prefer that they live in deadly fear of what we will do to them if they support terrorism and promote mayhem around the world.

[garinda]

Originally Posted by bullseyebarb

Frankly, I don't care whether people in the Middle-East like America or not. I'd much prefer that they live in deadly fear of what we will do to them if they support terrorism and promote mayhem around the world.

What about the known links and funding for terrorism that comes from Saudi Arabia?

Oh yes I forgot, they are friends of the West.

[bullseyebarb]

Originally Posted by garinda

What about the known links and funding for terrorism that comes from Saudi Arabia?

Oh yes I forgot, they are friends of the West.

No, they are not our friends and I put them in the same category as the other funders of terrorism.

[garinda]

Originally Posted by bullseyebarb

No, they are not our friends and I put them in the same category as the other funders of terrorism.

Well someone better inform Tony and George Dubya of our close trade, and diplomatic links them then.

This link makes interesting reading concerning the West bending over backwards to the oil rich Saudis, particularly in their attitude to American female service personnel.


http://www.danielpipes.org/article/995

[steeljack]

Originally Posted by garinda

Well someone better inform Tony and George Dubya of our close trade, and diplomatic links them then.

This link makes interesting reading concerning the West bending over backwards to the oil rich Saudis, particularly in their attitude to American female service personnel.


http://www.danielpipes.org/article/995

maybe if Bush and Blair did a little bit more protecting the traditions and cultures of their own countries like the Saudis protect theirs we would have a bit less friction in our societies,

[bullseyebarb]

Originally Posted by steeljack

maybe if Bush and Blair did a little bit more protecting the traditions and cultures of their own countries like the Saudis protect theirs we would have a bit less friction in our societies,

Amen to that!

[WillowTheWhisp]

There's irony in there somewhere but it's a bit too late at night for my brain to be fully active now.