Iraq

[Pinball]

Colonel Gaddaffi is, of course, a good dictator, because he allows US corporations in to make money. The US will consequently leave him alone, however many planes he blew up.  I wonder what % of Libyan oil money goes to Libya? In the case of Iran, before they nationalised their oil industry (post-Shah of Iran 'friendly dictator' overthrow), approx. 16p in the pound of Iranian oil wealth went to Iran (source: BBCR4 programme 'Analysis' (I think) that I recorded). This is the level of exploitation that the West (= US) expects from their oil-rich client States.

And really, that's it. It's as simple as that IMO. Objective: US uplift of oil wealth and control of oil supply, achieved before China gets powerful enough to stop them. The latter is the reason for the indecent rush of US forces into oil-rich countries, with 911 providing the opportunity. With such high stakes, I would not be surprised if Bush allowed 911 to happen, however I would state that I find it hard to believe he would do this knowingly. I prefer some facts to back up my little paranoias, and 911 is a step too far for me currently!

[Circusfire]

There is a lot of information which the US does not want Saddam to 'share' with the broader world, such as his training by the CIA, US corporate contracts (carefully extracted by the US from the Oil Ministry), and US involvement with WMD, Iran-Iraq war, their false promise that he could safely invade Kuwait etc. etc.  This is why, for example, that the prison guards guarding Saddam are all CIA. They do not want him talking to anyone. This is also why the kangaroo court proceedings have been highly edited, with a delay before broadcast so the US can censor it. It is a complete charade.

If these things are such shocking secrets how come one can buy books about them, read about them in newspapers etc? I haven't seen the Guardians printing press being smashed up by the feds just yet.
Personally I don't think he's being hanged as they want to "silence" him, it appears to have been a shoddy rushed job of a trial, possibly in an attempt to stabilise the country which will go horridly wrong as usual.  

As despicable as he is, I would prefer Saddam to describe in detail how the USA supported him over many years, and how he was used as a pawn in their broader long-term power game.

Why? Everyone knows all about this stuff already. You just want to feel good inside that the US will be made look like shits.
You're right though, the Hague would have been a much better place for the trial.

[Ciarán2]

He shouldn't be executed. That's my tuppance. Cheerio!

[Still Not George]

With such high stakes, I would not be surprised if Bush allowed 911 to happen, however I would state that I find it hard to believe he would do this knowingly. I prefer some facts to back up my little paranoias, and 911 is a step too far for me currently!

Bush didn't allow 9/11 to happen. I'm 99.9999% sure of that.

But...

Let's say for a moment you're a right-wing businessman, and a member of the neo-con clique. You're one of the people that's involved in making policy decisions on the larger scale and then presenting them to Chief Monkey.
One day you recieve a communique telling you that there's a good chance that Muslim extremists might hijack planes and use them as weapons. Like all good authoritarians, you know that a disaster committed by foreign terrorists is a handy way to bring people behind your plans for the country (including the oil raids in the Middle East).
There's no absolute certainty in the report, only a good chance. From your point of view, either no-one will die, which is a good thing, or lots of people will die, in which case you get what you want. Both good options. So you do nothing.

It's much easier to throw away the chance of saving lies, to throw away lives in potentia, than to do so directly. People do it every day. That's why people dump chemicals, put nasty additives in food, and so on. They know there's a chance it will hurt someone, but given the choice between convenience and prudence, people go for convenience remarkably often.

Hence bullshit like The Path To 9/11. Once the chance of hurting someone becomes a reality, people start looking for others to blame. After all, a decent person wouldn't have done this deliberately, would they? It must have been that other guy.

The problem with right-wingers is that they have this habit of being venal, self-obsessed little jerks. And it's exactly that kind of person that makes the kind of decisions we're talking about here. So I can definitely think that the neocons are responsible, inasmuch as anyone in the US is responsible, for 9/11. But Bush? Nah.

If these things are such shocking secrets how come one can buy books about them, read about them in newspapers etc? I haven't seen the Guardians printing press being smashed up by the feds just yet.

Because if Saddam talks about them, then they become an issue. Right now no-one cares, there's an election coming and Kerry said something stupid and what's on Fox? But if Saddam gives an interview, if he speaks out and tells people the truth (which really is never given reference to in the public eye at all) then it becomes a matter of public debate. And that is something the hawks cannot afford.

[Sovereign]

Enjoying reading this, good stuff.

The thing about Saddam's trial, and once again I am shamefully plaigarising a Noam Chomsky article, is that if it were conducted at the Hague, under television coverage, with international law being there, he could rightly call Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Bush senior, Richard Perle and a whole host of the Reagen/Bush axis to his defence at the trial. After all, during the early 80's when these crimes were being committed, it was Reagen's people who were funding him, selling him the weapons, turning the blind eye and so on. Aren't they complicit? He would be in a position to cause a lot of damage to the reputations of the US government if he'd been allowed his day in court and in front of the world's media. Which is why it couldn't be allowed, which is why there was this farcical trial in Iraq.

We know that the USA supported and funded Saddam Hussein, but we don't know the full story. We know the tip of the iceberg. Can you imagine how much Saddam knew about US complicity in these crimes against humanity? Can you imagine how much detail he'd be able to go into about the support he recieved from the United States? He could've told all about the secret US pacts that said he'd be allowed to invade Kuwait, about American (and British) corporations selling him the parts for WMD's, the American involvement in the Oil for Food scandal, the fact the CIA was paying him as an agent since the mid 60's, the whole damn story. With a proper legal team, and with a proper judicial process, Saddam could've got up there in The Hague and given every republican involved with Iraq for the last 25 years their worst nightmare.

We do not know everything about this, not by a long shot. Saddam Hussein was someone who did, and he has been silenced. Job done as far as the US is concerned.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

To be fair Iraq received a lot more arms from the Soviet Union and business contracts from France and Germany than it did from the US and UK. You can't heap it all on the US.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

For the Conservatives, shadow foreign secretary William Hague said: "We congratulate the Iraqi courts on reaching a verdict in such difficult circumstances, and the bravery shown by judges and witnesses in the face of severe violence and intimidation."

He would not be drawn on whether he agreed with the death penalty decision.

Presumably that means he either supports it or doesn't care. Not a particularly Cameron-style Tory response. They've been trying to worm out of looking like they supported this hugely unpopular war for quite a while. I don't think I could've resisted asking The Hague whether he thought the trial should've happened in The Hague.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Well I was watching BBC News 24 last night and Will '14 Pints' Hague said he was in favour of the death penalty "in extreme circumstances".

[Mister Cairo]

So he wants to kill hillwalkers and hangliders? What a wanker!

[Pinball]

To be fair Iraq received a lot more arms from the Soviet Union and business contracts from France and Germany than it did from the US and UK. You can't heap it all on the US.

I agree completely, but notably it was the Russian and French oil contracts that were 'found' in the Oil Ministry, not US. Funny that.

For all his evil, Saddam Hussein was the leader of a country, with huge resources at his call. He knows a lot of interesting stuff that the US authorities don't want to get out. This is why he has 24/7 US guards around him. It must be challenging for the US hawks - they want to kill him to silence him, yet also have to allow 'due process' to create the illusion of stability and the rule of law in Iraq. Quite a humdinger for them.

[Brutus Beefcake]

Maybe he'll suffer a Milošević.

[Pinball]

They'll have to hurry up...

[Deadman97]

Saddam in Court for Second Trial. A bit pointless, surely? I know he has to stand and everything, but what are they going to do? Re-hang the corpse?

[sproggy]

Perhaps He'll go to the gallows with the awful stigma of having two death sentences.

Just reiterating the pointlessness of trying a dead man.

[butnut]

Well if they find him sentence him to death three times, perhaps they'll bring back everyone's favourite form of execution: Hung, drawn and quartered.

[Almost Yearly]

I just heard someone on the wireless saying 9-11 cost something between $300k and $500k to carry out. First time I've heard a figure and it's cheap, I think, when you run it though in your mind. Costs do tend to spiral so on any project.


(This thread was at the top already - I know it isn't the most relevant. Unlike Bush, nyeh.)

[sproggy]

You forgot to factor in loyalty of the workforce and unlimited free overtime which would have driven the project cost down considerably.

[Tits McGee]

In the meantime, Americans are being told the war is over.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2626032&page=1

"Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?" one student asks a recruiter.

"No, we're bringing people back," he replies.

"We're not at war. War ended a long time ago," another recruiter says.

[Brutus Beefcake]

Er, it did, it's not even an occupation any more as the troops are now there at the request of the Iraqi goverment.

[Tits McGee]

But they are still sending troops to Iraq surely? And the Iraqi government isn't stupid enough to annoy the coalition, it will NEVER call for troops out. Only by going out onto the streets will troops be removed. Fuck STWC,lets organize ourselves.

In other news, Labour MP's including former left-wing firebrand, now appeaser Dennis Skinner, have voted down an inquirey into the Iraq War. What a fool Dennis Skinner is. I was thirty paces away from his when he stood on a platform shouting "I never believed there were WMD's in Iraqq.

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/_Current/Parl31Oct06.htm#VotingWithGovernment

Heavily biased source, but even they can't lie about this!

[Blumf]

"Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?" one student asks a recruiter.

"No, we're bringing people back," he replies.

"We're not at war. War ended a long time ago," another recruiter says.

Perhaps the student should have asked about Afghanistan.

[Wilbur]

6pm
US soldier pleads guilty to raping Iraqi teenager


An Iraqi ID card issued in 1993 to Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. US specialist soldier James Barker has pleaded guilty to taking part in her rape and the murder of her family in March this year, when she was 14
An Iraqi ID card issued in 1993 to Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. US specialist soldier James Barker has pleaded guilty to taking part in her rape and the murder of her family in March this year, when she was 14. Photograph: Reuters


A US soldier today pleaded guilty to taking part in the rape of an Iraqi teenage girl and the murder of her family.

Specialist James Barker, being tried at a military court in Kentucky, entered the plea to avoid the death penalty, his civilian lawyer, David Sheldon, said.

A criminal investigation into the killing of the family of four at their home in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in March 2006, started in June.

Barker is one of four US soldiers charged with premeditated murder over the rape and killing of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, her parents and her five-year-old sister,

He has agreed to co-operate with prosecutors and testify against his fellow accused - Private Jesse Spielman, Private Bryan Howard, Sergeant Paul Cortez and former Private Stephen Green - Mr Sheldon said.

His civilian lawyer, David Sheldon, said his client's guilty plea was in exchange for a sentence lighter than the death penalty.

The soldiers are also accused of burning Abeer's body in an effort to conceal evidence.

Barker is the first soldier to plead guilty to the crimes. Sergeant Cortez, who faces the death penalty, has deferred entering a plea.

Mr Green has pleaded not guilty to the charges in a federal court, while Private Spielman will not enter a plea until December.

At a preliminary hearing at a military court in Baghdad in August, Barker provided evidence about the rape and murders in a written statement.

It is alleged that Mr Green, claimed to have been the ringleader, had repeatedly told comrades he wanted to kill some Iraqis.

On the day of the attack, Barker and his fellow accused played cards, drank Iraqi whisky mixed with an energy drink and played golf.

At some stage, they decided to go to the house of a girl they had seen passing by their checkpoint.

When they arrived at the home, former Private Green dragged the father, mother and younger sister into a bedroom, while Abeer was left in the living room.

In the statement, Barker said Cortez appeared to rape the girl, and he followed. He said he heard gunshots and Mr Green came out of the bedroom, saying he had killed the family, before raping the girl and shooting her with an AK-47.

Barker said he poured kerosene on the girl's body, and she was set alight. It was not clear who started the fire.

So he is plea bargaining (which is worthy of its own topic). So presumably he is guilty as hell , actually it does not work like that in the US does it ?

LAWYER  "You are going to fry boy"

SOLDIER "But it wasn't me"

LAWYER  " Tough shit, you are going to fry, but we could get you off."


Is that  "really" how it works in the US?

[Purple Tentacle]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6177356.stm

Bang. 132 people killed in Baghdad, a further 200 injured.

[Tits McGee]

Didn't 6000 or so people die in Iraq in October.

What % are left?

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

I read that it was around 3700 in October. But still. Fuck.

[Beagle 2]

Christ. Did the usual quick scan over the news, Iraq bombings death, yeah but what's going on with the UEFA cup... then a double take as I digested the numbers. Looks like 150 is my official death threshold for taking any notice of this mess any more then. I hate myself for my apathy, but there's nothing makes me feel as powerless and irrelevent.

At least parts of Vietnam looked like a bit of a laugh from the movies, as long as you avoided Robin WiIliams. Nobody's loving anybody for a "long time" here before getting their crabby cock blown off. As it were.

[Wilbur]

One in 40 of the population dead figure has been thrown around. Escalating daily. As far as I can see we could not have fucked this up more if we had a committee dedicated to "fucking up Iraq".

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

There just looks like there is so much hate flying around that it's going to take a generation of two to sort itself out. But  at least Saddam isn't in power anymore.