Sep 2nd 2010, 6:06:43
Oh, I get it. So we're gonna compare clan politics to violent dictators, and then give it a bleeding heart liberal spin to make the big guys look bad, eh?
Well, the average person will see right off the bat what an idiotic comparison this is, but just for giggles let's see if you caught any of these much older headlines during Saddam's trial for war crimes......
1958 - The Iraqi monarchy is overthrown in a coup on 14 July and a republic is declared. The country remains unstable, however, as the Iraqi Communist Party struggles with the Baath Party and other nationalist groups for dominance.
Saddam is recruited by his uncle to assassinate a prominent communist in Tikrit. He kills his victim, a distant cousin, with a single shot to the head. Saddam, who is still a secondary student, is arrested and imprisoned for six months before being released for lack of evidence.
***personal note - if you do a little more research, you will find that several people SAW him kill the man, but were threatened by Saddam's party members to the point that they refused to testify. Guess by your logic this means he's not guilty***
_______________________________________________
1959 - Saddam is recruited for another assassination plot, this time by his cousin and a Baath Party leader, General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. The target is Brigadier Abdul Karim Qasim, the communist-sympathising head of the Iraqi Government. A team of gunmen make the attempt on 7 October but fail, reputedly because Saddam opens fire too soon. Qasim survives with injuries.
Saddam, who has been wounded in the leg during the assassination bid, flees to Syria then Egypt, where he completes his secondary school studies. Others in the Baath Party are arrested and tried for treason.
________________________________________________
1971 - Saddam obtains a degree in law from the University of Baghdad.
Iraq begins a program to develop chemical weapons, setting up a small research facility at Rashad, to the northeast of Baghdad.
________________________________________________
1974 - Iraq's chemical weapons program is formalised with the establishment of a dedicated organisation called al-Hasan Ibn al-Haitham. During the 1970s Iraq also begins to research the production of biological weapons.
Late in 1974 Iraq begins to negotiate with France over the purchase of a nuclear reactor. The reactor deal goes through but the facility is destroyed by Israel before it is fully operational.
________________________________________________
1975 - In the wake of the Algiers Agreement Kurds are forcibly relocated from their heartland in the north. All Kurdish villages along a 1,300 kilometre stretch of the border with Iran are razed.
Assyrians living in northern Iraq are also targeted. In 1976-77 over 200 Assyrian villages in the region are razed and their occupants relocated to urban areas, primarily in and around Baghdad. During the operation many churches are destroyed, including some that are over 1,000 years old.
________________________________________________
1979 - On 22 July Saddam summons all the members of the Revolutionary Command Council and hundreds of other Baath Party leaders to a conference hall in Baghdad and announces that a coup plot had been uncovered involving members of the audience. Sixty-six "traitors" are identified on the spot, arrested and removed.
Among those arrested are five members of the Revolutionary Command Council. They and 17 others are publicly executed.
The purge of the party, government and military continues for the next few weeks. Hundreds are killed.
________________________________________________
1987 - Saddam launches the so-called Anfal (spoils of war) campaign against Kurdish dissidents who have aided the Iranians during the war. It is reported that thousands of Kurds are indiscriminately killed when villages are attacked with poisonous gas. The international humanitarian organisation Human Rights Watch estimates that at least 40 such chemical attacks take place.
The most notorious attack occurs at the village of Halabjah on 16 March 1988 when mustard gas and nerve agents are used to kill up to 5,000 and injure up to 10,000 more.
Overall an estimated Kurdish 4,000 villages and towns are razed and hundreds of thousands of Kurds are "cleansed" from the region by forced deportation. Many Kurds flee across the borders with Turkey and Iran. More than 100,000 Kurdish civilians are reported as killed or "disappeared". By the end of 1989 the Kurdish resistance has been crushed.
________________________________________________
Meanwhile, Iraq begins to produce biological agents. Large-scale production commences in 1989 at four facilities near Baghdad. Iraq's conventional military forces are also rebuilt and by 1990 will be the world's fourth largest.
_______________________________________________
In the south Saddam launches a campaign against the Shias, including Shia Marsh Arabs. Much of the marshland is drained. Villages are razed and their occupants deported. Up to 200,000 Marsh Arabs flee. As many as 150,000 are killed. The Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala are attacked and over 100 Shia clerics disappear. Beginning in March chemical weapons filled with sarin gas and CS (tear) gas are dropped from helicopters onto targets in and around Najaf and Karbala. A no fly zone is subsequently also imposed on Iraq's southern regions.
_______________________________________________
1995 - On 9 August Lieutenant-general Hussein Kamel al-Majid, the head of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program and a close confidant of Saddam, defects to neighbouring Jordan along with his brother Saddam Kamel. Al-Majid's subsequent confirmation of the existence of a biological weapons program forces Iraq to admit that it had imported at least 39 tonnes of growth media for biological agents.
_______________________________________________
The weapons inspections carried out since the end of the Gulf War have discovered and destroyed 40,000 munitions for chemical weapons, 2,610 tonnes of chemical precursors and 411 tonnes of chemical agents. All infrastructure and facilities capable of being used for the production of biological and nuclear weapons, and most of the missile delivery systems, have also been identified and destroyed.
_______________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...Halabja_poison_gas_attack
________________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal_Campaign
______________________________________________
Kill tally: Approaching two million, including between 150,000 and 340,000 Iraqi and between 450,000 and 730,000 Iranian combatants killed during the Iran-Iraq War. An estimated 1,000 Kuwaiti nationals killed following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. No conclusive figures for the number of Iraqis killed during the Gulf War, with estimates varying from as few as 1,500 to as many as 200,000. Over 100,000 Kurds killed or "disappeared". No reliable figures for the number of Iraqi dissidents and Shia Muslims killed during Saddam's reign, though estimates put the figure between 60,000 and 150,000. (Mass graves discovered following the US occupation of Iraq in 2003 suggest that the total combined figure for Kurds, Shias and dissidents killed could be as high as 300,000). Approximately 500,000 Iraqi children dead because of international trade sanctions introduced following the Gulf War.
I'm not even going to go into the gender oppression, supporting of extremist leadership, and brutal enforcement of misinterpreted islamic law to support his own dictatorship, because if you haven't gotten the point by now, you likely never will.
Gosh....that poor ol' Saddam really did get the short end of the stick. I mean, other than 2 verified assassination attempts, the death of nearly 2,000,000 ethnic Kurds and displacement of more than 4,000,000 others, having more than 400 tons of biological weapons located and destroyed in production facilities throughout Iraq, and razing 100's of villages, what did he ever do to anyone???
Don't get me wrong here folks, I'm all for fair trials and justice prevailing....but in this case, just because he didn't receive a fair trial for his most recent actions doesn't mean he wasn't a terrible and cruel human being who used his power to hurt those around him.
And this is the character you want to bring into the picture to demonstrate why LaE SHOULDN'T pre-emptively kill people who we have a history of acting recklessly, and show similar signs of doing it again in the near future????
R....O.....F.....L
This comparison is petty, uninformed, and leftist....and that's the nicest I can come up to say about it.
Well, the average person will see right off the bat what an idiotic comparison this is, but just for giggles let's see if you caught any of these much older headlines during Saddam's trial for war crimes......
1958 - The Iraqi monarchy is overthrown in a coup on 14 July and a republic is declared. The country remains unstable, however, as the Iraqi Communist Party struggles with the Baath Party and other nationalist groups for dominance.
Saddam is recruited by his uncle to assassinate a prominent communist in Tikrit. He kills his victim, a distant cousin, with a single shot to the head. Saddam, who is still a secondary student, is arrested and imprisoned for six months before being released for lack of evidence.
***personal note - if you do a little more research, you will find that several people SAW him kill the man, but were threatened by Saddam's party members to the point that they refused to testify. Guess by your logic this means he's not guilty***
_______________________________________________
1959 - Saddam is recruited for another assassination plot, this time by his cousin and a Baath Party leader, General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. The target is Brigadier Abdul Karim Qasim, the communist-sympathising head of the Iraqi Government. A team of gunmen make the attempt on 7 October but fail, reputedly because Saddam opens fire too soon. Qasim survives with injuries.
Saddam, who has been wounded in the leg during the assassination bid, flees to Syria then Egypt, where he completes his secondary school studies. Others in the Baath Party are arrested and tried for treason.
________________________________________________
1971 - Saddam obtains a degree in law from the University of Baghdad.
Iraq begins a program to develop chemical weapons, setting up a small research facility at Rashad, to the northeast of Baghdad.
________________________________________________
1974 - Iraq's chemical weapons program is formalised with the establishment of a dedicated organisation called al-Hasan Ibn al-Haitham. During the 1970s Iraq also begins to research the production of biological weapons.
Late in 1974 Iraq begins to negotiate with France over the purchase of a nuclear reactor. The reactor deal goes through but the facility is destroyed by Israel before it is fully operational.
________________________________________________
1975 - In the wake of the Algiers Agreement Kurds are forcibly relocated from their heartland in the north. All Kurdish villages along a 1,300 kilometre stretch of the border with Iran are razed.
Assyrians living in northern Iraq are also targeted. In 1976-77 over 200 Assyrian villages in the region are razed and their occupants relocated to urban areas, primarily in and around Baghdad. During the operation many churches are destroyed, including some that are over 1,000 years old.
________________________________________________
1979 - On 22 July Saddam summons all the members of the Revolutionary Command Council and hundreds of other Baath Party leaders to a conference hall in Baghdad and announces that a coup plot had been uncovered involving members of the audience. Sixty-six "traitors" are identified on the spot, arrested and removed.
Among those arrested are five members of the Revolutionary Command Council. They and 17 others are publicly executed.
The purge of the party, government and military continues for the next few weeks. Hundreds are killed.
________________________________________________
1987 - Saddam launches the so-called Anfal (spoils of war) campaign against Kurdish dissidents who have aided the Iranians during the war. It is reported that thousands of Kurds are indiscriminately killed when villages are attacked with poisonous gas. The international humanitarian organisation Human Rights Watch estimates that at least 40 such chemical attacks take place.
The most notorious attack occurs at the village of Halabjah on 16 March 1988 when mustard gas and nerve agents are used to kill up to 5,000 and injure up to 10,000 more.
Overall an estimated Kurdish 4,000 villages and towns are razed and hundreds of thousands of Kurds are "cleansed" from the region by forced deportation. Many Kurds flee across the borders with Turkey and Iran. More than 100,000 Kurdish civilians are reported as killed or "disappeared". By the end of 1989 the Kurdish resistance has been crushed.
________________________________________________
Meanwhile, Iraq begins to produce biological agents. Large-scale production commences in 1989 at four facilities near Baghdad. Iraq's conventional military forces are also rebuilt and by 1990 will be the world's fourth largest.
_______________________________________________
In the south Saddam launches a campaign against the Shias, including Shia Marsh Arabs. Much of the marshland is drained. Villages are razed and their occupants deported. Up to 200,000 Marsh Arabs flee. As many as 150,000 are killed. The Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala are attacked and over 100 Shia clerics disappear. Beginning in March chemical weapons filled with sarin gas and CS (tear) gas are dropped from helicopters onto targets in and around Najaf and Karbala. A no fly zone is subsequently also imposed on Iraq's southern regions.
_______________________________________________
1995 - On 9 August Lieutenant-general Hussein Kamel al-Majid, the head of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program and a close confidant of Saddam, defects to neighbouring Jordan along with his brother Saddam Kamel. Al-Majid's subsequent confirmation of the existence of a biological weapons program forces Iraq to admit that it had imported at least 39 tonnes of growth media for biological agents.
_______________________________________________
The weapons inspections carried out since the end of the Gulf War have discovered and destroyed 40,000 munitions for chemical weapons, 2,610 tonnes of chemical precursors and 411 tonnes of chemical agents. All infrastructure and facilities capable of being used for the production of biological and nuclear weapons, and most of the missile delivery systems, have also been identified and destroyed.
_______________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...Halabja_poison_gas_attack
________________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal_Campaign
______________________________________________
Kill tally: Approaching two million, including between 150,000 and 340,000 Iraqi and between 450,000 and 730,000 Iranian combatants killed during the Iran-Iraq War. An estimated 1,000 Kuwaiti nationals killed following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. No conclusive figures for the number of Iraqis killed during the Gulf War, with estimates varying from as few as 1,500 to as many as 200,000. Over 100,000 Kurds killed or "disappeared". No reliable figures for the number of Iraqi dissidents and Shia Muslims killed during Saddam's reign, though estimates put the figure between 60,000 and 150,000. (Mass graves discovered following the US occupation of Iraq in 2003 suggest that the total combined figure for Kurds, Shias and dissidents killed could be as high as 300,000). Approximately 500,000 Iraqi children dead because of international trade sanctions introduced following the Gulf War.
I'm not even going to go into the gender oppression, supporting of extremist leadership, and brutal enforcement of misinterpreted islamic law to support his own dictatorship, because if you haven't gotten the point by now, you likely never will.
Gosh....that poor ol' Saddam really did get the short end of the stick. I mean, other than 2 verified assassination attempts, the death of nearly 2,000,000 ethnic Kurds and displacement of more than 4,000,000 others, having more than 400 tons of biological weapons located and destroyed in production facilities throughout Iraq, and razing 100's of villages, what did he ever do to anyone???
Don't get me wrong here folks, I'm all for fair trials and justice prevailing....but in this case, just because he didn't receive a fair trial for his most recent actions doesn't mean he wasn't a terrible and cruel human being who used his power to hurt those around him.
And this is the character you want to bring into the picture to demonstrate why LaE SHOULDN'T pre-emptively kill people who we have a history of acting recklessly, and show similar signs of doing it again in the near future????
R....O.....F.....L
This comparison is petty, uninformed, and leftist....and that's the nicest I can come up to say about it.
