BBC (Monday): HRW says Ousting Saddam 'no cause for war'

From the BBC Online
Dated Monday January 26 13;32 GMT (5:32 am PST)

Ousting Saddam "no cause for war"

A leading human rights group has said the US and UK are wrong to use the toppling of a brutal regime in Baghdad to justify going to war against Iraq.
The group, Human Rights Watch asked why George Bush and Tony Blair did not try remove Saddam Hussein much earlier.
Its report comes as the former US chief weapons inspector questioned the CIA's assessment of the threat from Iraq . . . .
Human Rights Watch said Mr Bush and Mr Blair should not try to justify the war retrospectively as an effort to save human life.

Read more.

"Human rights are deteriorating in Afghanistan due to a reliance by US-led forces on warlords to defeat Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters..."

This was a bullet point from the article. Where was their concern for human rights in Afghanistan when women couldn't go to school, couldn't leave home without a male escort, were beaten if a glimpse of flesh was shown even by accident...in fact, they had no rights whatsoever.

"Only mass slaughter might permit the deliberate taking of life in using military force for humanitarian purposes," it said.

"Brutal as Saddam Hussein's reign had been, the scope of the Iraq Government's killing in March 2003, was not of the exceptional and dire magnitude that would justify humanitarian intervention."

This is ridiculous. They object because not enough people were killed in March of 2003 to justify getting rid of Saddam. Who cares about the previous 25 years of his rule?

Obviously going to war over WMDs was a sham, but at least it got rid of a brutal dictator. For a group named Human Rights Watch to pose these types of points is quite ironic.

Where was their concern for human rights in Afghanistan when women couldn't go to school, couldn't leave home without a male escort, were beaten if a glimpse of flesh was shown even by accident...in fact, they had no rights whatsoever.

A report by HRW published in October 2001 documents human rights abuses of women by the Taliban. If you look in HRW's archives, you can find more documentation of human rights abuses by the Taliban of women and just generally.

As for stating that Saddam's brutality was not a justification for war, they are correct. Moreover, he was a contained threat as of last spring, whereas his overthrow has unleashed chaotic forces in Iraq that may lead to civil war.

Also, they are correct to point out that the reasons given to overthrow Saddam on humanitarian grounds were just as valid for the last several years as last spring. The Halabja massacre occurred in 1988; Saddam was defeated in a war in 1991. If the Halabja massacre was sufficient reason to depose Saddam by force from without, why was he allowed to remain in power then?

You might also consider that, in reality, the brutal nature of Saddam's regime had no more to do with the invasion than did his phantom WMDs or his equally phantom association with al Qaida. It was carried out to place Iraq in the hands of a colonial regime that would sell the country's resources out from under the people. The only difference is that Saddam's brutality was well documented and beyond dispute.

For further views on this subject, pleas click here.

I'm not saying it's okay to try to retroactively justify the war in terms of protecting human rights. My point is that in the end the war did in fact protect the human rights of Iraqis by removing Saddam. Why was he not removed earlier, following his 1991 invasion of Kuwait? This was due in large part to the weakness of the American public. Once CNN started beaming back pictures of the infamous Highway of Death the U.S. public suddenly realized that people get killed in war and lost their will. Additionally, George H.W. Bush had stated that the reason for war was to liberate Kuwait, not remove Saddam. The international coalition was not supportive of anything beyond the stated goal of liberating Kuwait.

"Moreover, he was a contained threat as of last spring..."

Unless you were an Iraqi citizen. Then he was very much a threat. My main point is that Human Rights Watch should focus on human rights. While there is plenty to criticize about the current Iraq situation, it is indisputable that the vast majority of Iraqis are now assured of their most basic human rights.

Women are now afraid to go out after dark.

There is no power, no water, no electricity and no jobs. Gangsterism and kidnapping rule the day, and fundamentalism is making a big come back.

Intentionally or not you are echoing the * Administration line.

another country that is very wealthy and that is very rich but that cares for it's citizens, in the form of health care, say for one example, decides that 40 million people in the US that do not have access to health care, is an egresious crime against these unfortunates, by their own government.

That they cannot access necessary health care is an abonimation to those in that very rich country whose entire citizenry is not denied health care and who do have access to every means at their disposal.

So, seeing that this country is lacking the energy and the will to provide health care to these 40 million who cannot afford it, they invade us and bomb our most famous capital of all cities--Washington DC. They then take over this country because of it's ihumanity to it's citizens in denying millions ot them adequate health care.

Well, that certainly is commendable is it not?

And who is the threat here--the one trying to liberate those millions who cannot access health care for their familes, or the evil people in the government who would rather have their rich cronies in the pharma industry and the hospital HMO industry or the hundreds of fringe industries that capitalize on the payouts of the sick and infirm and rob them blind and leave them virtually nothing with which to buy food?

Is this not a despicable human rights violation?> Is this not coming from the USA? IS this not a problem in ONLY the USA? The denial of health care to 40 million people in a rich, powerful country?

If you can afford it,you will live and if you are poor you will die and your children will die if you cannot afford the hundreds of dollars necessary to insure their health and care!

What the hell is that?

Is that not criminal? Is that not an evil exploitation in order to facilitate the profit of the phara and the drug and the hospital and all related medical industry?

It is criminal to not have every single memeber of this society allocated the same amount of access to health care. That is criminal! :-(

"My point is that in the end the war did in fact protect the human rights of Iraqis by removing Saddam. "

Ask the women of Iraq -- you know, the gals who are about to be placed under partial Sharia law? -- about that.

:grr:

....who died because of american demanded sanctions. That alone would justify saddam's hatred of us.

And it was quite a bargain at only $100 billion (so far...)

Where was their concern for women living under the Taliban, you ask? Their reports during the late '90s were extremely critical of the Taliban. Where were you?

So they were critical of the Taliban. What did HRW propose the world community do about it? What did HRW do to improve the situation? Absolutely nothing. Regimes of that nature couldn't care less about a bunch of reports. Apparently the U.N. didn't care either because they took no steps to do anything about it. I'm sure HRW has published reports critical of North Korea as well. What are they doing about that? What's the U.N. doing about it?

What would you do about it? The role of HRW is to educate the world community about human rights. The role of the UN is to try to unite the world community to find answers to world problems through communication and diplomatic means.

Yes, it's a shame NGOs can't impose their will on the world, thereby impressing you. I could have some fun with you, but I think I'll just let you fight it out inside your own head.

But yes, thank god we took down that awful dictator! The ends justify the means, after all.

You keep parroting the same line about "but yes, thank god....". You could have fun with me? I'm not sure exactly what that means. And at what point did I say the end justified the means? I merely expressed the sentiment that the human rights situation in Iraq is now vastly improved.

kidnapping your idea of a great time? How about a desert filled with depleted uranium dust?

Because please feel free to move to Iraq to enjoy the fruits of our 250 billion dollar destruction-fest.

Remember that. We used to accuse the communists of using this kind of retro justification. We are supposed to be better than that -- we are supposed to be a nation govern by the rule of law, not the jungle wherein might makes right! US OUT OF IRAQ! End the Occupation!

My whole point is that HRW was a little slow in condemning the state of human rights in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It's been noted in subsequent posts that HRW published reports regarding poor human rights records under both the Taliban and Saddam. That's great, point taken, but in their most recent report the insinuation is that the persons in the aforementioned countries would be better off if the former regimes were still in power. I strongly disagree. Does that justify the war in Iraq? No, but at least some good came from the whole debacle.

This could interest you:

Roth believed, however, that the toppling of Saddam had improved conditions for Iraqis.

and:

"For the moment I would say that Iraq is better off, but (that) alone doesn't justify an intervention of a humanitarian kind," he told a news conference. He expressed fears that the security situation could deteriorate, leading to chaos and civil war that would leave Iraqis worse off than before.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/061E2DDF-D836-4E95-97D3-5CCD7FADD205.htm

"He expressed fears that the security situation could deteriorate, leading to chaos and civil war that would leave Iraqis worse off than before."

It could, then again it could not.

"For the moment I would say that Iraq is better off..."

He agrees this is the case...so long as his "fears" are not manifested.

Rape and murder have SKYROCKETTED in Iraq since Saddam was overthrown, worse than before, under Saddam.

Jobs are virtually non-existant, and Iraqis who were protesting for jobs a few months ago have gone to begging US forces for food, water, and fuel just to survive. Worse than before under Saddam.

The rights of women are about to be pushed back CENTURIES by a law change backed by Lt. Paul Bremer, putting women who used to have the most freedom of any Muslim country, close to the freedom women in the US have, into burkas just like the women in Afghanistan are forced to wear. Worse than before, under Saddam.

We've killed between 20,000-50,000 Iraqis since invading, and the number grows every day. Not an improvement.

And when a civil war rips through the region (something I sadly would bet money on) tell us how much better off the Iraqis will be.

I direct you to post number 24, containing a link to the HRW report. As you see, the report in no way says that anybody would be better off under Saddam than if he were still in power.

However (this is my own view), overthrowing Saddam is a purely negative goal, even if it seems worthwhile in itself. Nevertheless, the questions of what comes after him must be addressed. Celebrating his demise can only go so far. The fact is that human rights are still being violated in Iraq, although now it is a different set of human rights.

The Iraqi people have a natural right to govern themselves and determine how their resources are to be used. Mr. Bush, Mr. Bremer and their friends on the IGC will do what they can to frustrate the people from exercising those rights.

In my view, the HRW judgment is correct. Saddam's demise by itself does not justify the blood spilled.

Also in my view, all we have done is replace a gang of murderers with a gang of thieves. Was that worth all that blood? I don't think so.

Add this thread to the continuing discussion on DU's increasing rightward tendancies.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1049438

because the election is so near, and BushCo is unravelling.

"Human rights are deteriorating in Afghanistan due to a reliance by US-led forces on warlords to defeat Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters..."

This was a bullet point from the article. Where was their concern for human rights in Afghanistan when women couldn't go to school, couldn't leave home without a male escort, were beaten if a glimpse of flesh was shown even by accident...in fact, they had no rights whatsoever.

If you knew anything about Human Rights Watch, you'd realize that they were among the most vocal critics of the Taliban regime. And if you knew anything about the internal politics of Afghanistan, you'd realize that the foremost organization fighting for the rights of Afghan women -- the group that bravely risked life and limb to record Taliban atrocities -- the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, opposed the U.S. invasion.

Since the U.S. invasion, the country has been turned into Somalia. Women still largely don't have any rights, and the situation of other groups is deteriorating as well. The U.S. has allied itself with the Northern Alliance, a terrorist group with a record just as bloody as that of the Taliban.

"Only mass slaughter might permit the deliberate taking of life in using military force for humanitarian purposes," it said.

"Brutal as Saddam Hussein's reign had been, the scope of the Iraq Government's killing in March 2003, was not of the exceptional and dire magnitude that would justify humanitarian intervention."

This is ridiculous. They object because not enough people were killed in March of 2003 to justify getting rid of Saddam. Who cares about the previous 25 years of his rule?

Obviously going to war over WMDs was a sham, but at least it got rid of a brutal dictator. For a group named Human Rights Watch to pose these types of points is quite ironic.

Why Iraq? Why not Saudi Arabia or China? Is the suffering of Saudis and Chinese less important? Are they less human than Iraqis?

But the really absurd thing is that you seem to be suggesting that the U.S. should enforce human rights standards. The simple fact is that the U.S. can't be trusted to do such a thing. The U.S. isn't interested in human rights -- the U.S. is interested in protecting the interests of the American ruling class. I don't have a lot of time to go into detail, but this conclusion is so well-established that it's hardly debatable. Listen to yourself. You're honestly suggesting trusting the same people who propped up Saddam Hussein and supported him until the early 1990s can be trusted to create some bastion of human dignity in Iraq.

After the first Gulf War in 1991, the CIA agents the US had in Northern and Southern Iraq in the no-fly zones were instructed to urge the Iraqis living there to rise up and overthrow Saddam. They promised them air support against Saddam's forces if the Iraqis themselves would do the dirty work of a ground assault. When the Iraqi's attacked, the US turned on them and refused to provide the promised air support. Saddam slaughtered the Iraqi uprisers by the tens of thousands. Some estimates put the kill at over 100,000.

And I'm supposed to believe the US went in there to save the Iraqis from Saddam?

comments about women's place in the new Iraq.

http://www.riverbendblog.com

nation can launch a pre-emptive war on another sovereign nation for whatever he and he alone wants?

From the Human Rights Watch World Report 2004
Dated Monday January 26

War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention
By Ken Roth

Unusual among human rights groups, Human Rights Watch has a longstanding policy on humanitarian intervention. War often carries enormous human costs, but we recognize that the imperative of stopping or preventing genocide or other systematic slaughter can sometimes justify the use of military force. For that reason, Human Rights Watch has on rare occasion advocated humanitarian intervention—for example, to stop ongoing genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia.
Yet military action should not be taken lightly, even for humanitarian purposes. One might use military force more readily when a government facing serious abuses on its territory invites military assistance from others—as in the cases of the three recent African interventions. But military intervention on asserted humanitarian grounds without the government’s consent should be used with extreme caution. In arriving at the standards that we believe should govern such nonconsensual military action, we draw on the principles underlying our own policy on humanitarian intervention and on our experiences in applying them. We also take into account other relevant literature, including the report of the Canadian government-sponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty.
In our view, as a threshold matter, humanitarian intervention that occurs without the consent of the relevant government can be justified only in the face of ongoing or imminent genocide, or comparable mass slaughter or loss of life. To state the obvious, war is dangerous. In theory it can be surgical, but the reality is often highly destructive, with a risk of enormous bloodshed. Only large-scale murder, we believe, can justify the death, destruction, and disorder that so often are inherent in war and its aftermath. Other forms of tyranny are deplorable and worth working intensively to end, but they do not in our view rise to the level that would justify the extraordinary response of military force. Only mass slaughter might permit the deliberate taking of life involved in using military force for humanitarian purposes . . . .
If this high threshold is met, we then look to five other factors to determine whether the use of military force can be characterized as humanitarian.

• First, military action must be the last reasonable option to halt or prevent slaughter; military force should not be used for humanitarian purposes if effective alternatives are available.
• Second, the intervention must be guided primarily by a humanitarian purpose; we do not expect purity of motive, but humanitarianism should be the dominant reason for military action.
• Third, every effort should be made to ensure that the means used to intervene themselves respect international human rights and humanitarian law; we do not subscribe to the view that some abuses can be countenanced in the name of stopping others.
• Fourth, it must be reasonably likely that military action will do more good than harm; humanitarian intervention should not be tried if it seems likely to produce a wider conflagration or significantly more suffering.
• Finally, we prefer endorsement of humanitarian intervention by the U.N. Security Council or other bodies with significant multilateral authority. However, in light of the imperfect nature of international governance today, we would not require multilateral approval in an emergency context.

. . . . In considering the criteria that would justify humanitarian intervention, the most important, as noted, is the level of killing: was genocide or comparable mass slaughter underway or imminent? Brutal as Saddam Hussein’s reign had been, the scope of the Iraqi government’s killing in March 2003 was not of the exceptional and dire magnitude that would justify humanitarian intervention. We have no illusions about Saddam Hussein’s vicious inhumanity. Having devoted extensive time and effort to documenting his atrocities, we estimate that in the last twenty-five years of Ba`th Party rule the Iraqi government murdered or “disappeared” some quarter of a million Iraqis, if not more. In addition, one must consider such abuses as Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers. However, by the time of the March 2003 invasion, Saddam Hussein’s killing had ebbed.
There were times in the past when the killing was so intense that humanitarian intervention would have been justified—for example, during the 1988 Anfal genocide, in which the Iraqi government slaughtered some 100,000 Kurds. Indeed, Human Rights Watch, though still in its infancy and not yet working in the Middle East in 1988, did advocate a form of military intervention in 1991 after we had begun addressing Iraq. As Iraqi Kurds fleeing Saddam Hussein’s brutal repression of the post-Gulf War uprising were stranded and dying in harsh winter weather on Turkey’s mountainous border, we advocated the creation of a no-fly zone in northern Iraq so they could return home without facing renewed genocide. There were other moments of intense killing as well, such as the suppression of the uprisings in 1991. But on the eve of the latest Iraq war, no one contends that the Iraqi government was engaged in killing of anywhere near this magnitude, or had been for some time. “Better late than never” is not a justification for humanitarian intervention, which should be countenanced only to stop mass murder, not to punish its perpetrators, desirable as punishment is in such circumstances.
But if Saddam Hussein committed mass atrocities in the past, wasn’t his overthrow justified to prevent his resumption of such atrocities in the future? No. Human Rights Watch accepts that military intervention may be necessary not only to stop ongoing slaughter but also to prevent future slaughter, but the future slaughter must be imminent. To justify the extraordinary remedy of military force for preventive humanitarian purposes, there must be evidence that large-scale slaughter is in preparation and about to begin unless militarily stopped. But no one seriously claimed before the war that the Saddam Hussein government was planning imminent mass killing, and no evidence has emerged that it was. There were claims that Saddam Hussein, with a history of gassing Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds, was planning to deliver weapons of mass destruction through terrorist networks, but these allegations were entirely speculative; no substantial evidence has yet emerged. There were also fears that the Iraqi government might respond to an invasion with the use of chemical or biological weapons, perhaps even against its own people, but no one seriously suggested such use as an imminent possibility in the absence of an invasion . . . .
The lack of ongoing or imminent mass slaughter was itself sufficient to disqualify the invasion of Iraq as a humanitarian intervention. Nonetheless, particularly in light of the ruthlessness of Saddam Hussein’s rule, it is useful to examine the other criteria for humanitarian intervention. For the most part, these too were not met.

Read more.

It seems I've angered a few people on here! You people did notice my name, didn't you? It's my obligation to pose the questions & make the points I do. That said, here's more:

"Rape and murder have SKYROCKETTED in Iraq since Saddam was overthrown, worse than before, under Saddam."

I have to question the validity of this statement. My guess is that the Saddam-era equivalent of the Iraqi Justice Department didn't keep accurate records regarding the level of these crimes. Even if they did, were the crimes committed by the government included in the counts? Who's comparing the statistics?

Re: Afghanistan: "Women still largely don't have any rights, and the situation of other groups is deteriorating as well."

You seem to have forgotten that of the 400+ people on the panel that drew up Afghanistan's recently ratified constitution, 1/3 were women. Women returned to school last year for the first time in almost a decade. In addition, women are guaranteed a certain number of seats in gov't by the constitution.

We should appreciate Devil's Advocates. I might add that I believe some of the response to your posts was unnecessarily rude.

To answer some of you objections:

Street crime has risen in the wake of the invasion. Women are being kidnapped and raped in broad daylight. This has been documented in the press outside the US, although it gets little attention here.

While Saddam-era equivalent of a justice system was undoubtedly designed to serve the whims of tyrants, your implication that crime was just as bad then is mere speculation and that a high level of crime during the Saddam era would be due to activities of Saddam and his favorites is unprovable at best.

The panel that drew up the recent Afghan constitution was chosen by a US-backed government that has little power outside the capital. They don't call Hamid Karzai "the Mayor of Kabul" for nothing. While the liberal features of the Afghan constitution are laudable, they are worthless unless war lords beyond Kabul are willing to enforce them. That is a dicey proposition.

The fraction of US puppets that were women is besides the point, and shouldn't it be 1/2, not 1/3?

The life of women in Afghanistan, not Kabul (where the US actually has some control) is little better, and sometimes considerably worse, then it was under the Taliban. At least under the Taliban there was security.

The US doesn't care about Afghanistan. The invasion was done for purely political purposes, to create the impression that bush was actually doing something for security. Afghanistan does not have much of interest to the Bushies, so now it has drifted from the screen.

"The life of women in Afghanistan, not Kabul (where the US actually has some control) is little better, and sometimes considerably worse, then it was under the Taliban. At least under the Taliban there was security."

By this logic, prostitutes are better off with a pimp who beats them repeatedly than going it alone. After all, at least they have some security from rough johns.

And lest we forget, we gave Afghanistan more control over their constitution than we did Japan after WW2. And if I recall, the reason we went into Afghanistan was to get bin Laden (not accomplished) and root out the terrorist training camps that were allowed to operate by the Taliban (accomplished). Purely political? Maybe so. But if we hadn't gone after Al Queda in Afghanistan we would've invited more attacks. You show those type of people weakness and they will come back twice as hard the next time.

Yes, and the taliban have been bombing the schools with girls in them. Boy what a nice place to defend.

BTW, has anyone alerted on this bozo?

Ok, I will.

I should be alerted because I bring up questions that force people to look at an issue from more than one angle? My original point simply states that, while the war and following situation in Iraq is pretty much a debacle, one good thing came out of it: removing Saddam from power. Does that justify the war? No. But regardless of your views on the war, I think we can all agree that Saddam was a piece of s**t. Let me offer an analogy. Hitler is in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He is killed along with nearly 3,000 other people. It is a good thing Hitler is dead, right? Just because we are not happy with the means that resulted in this end does not mean that Hitler being killed was not a good thing.

worse, seeing the track record of the folks caring out the plans on both sides. To stop a force you always need a greater or equal force it's simple arithmetic that even works in the Human field.

Put it this way, do you envision the Iraqi's getting together their school children to write personal letters to * and cabal, pleading to him to stop his nastiness?

of the US Armed Forces to overthrow every nasty dictator on the planet? If so there's lots of work ahead...

Sudan
Nigeria
Congo
Thailand
Burkina Faso
Equatorial Guinea
Syria
Sri Lanka
Guyana
Bangladesh
Iran
North Korea
China
Uzekistan
Burma

Wouldn't the people of these nations be better off with a regime change? Why doesn't Bush help these oppressed peoples?

Of course, the way this administration is going, that may very well be the plan. They had to start somewhere.