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Maybe an early beer too.

:toast:

Rumsfield, Cheney, Poppy, and Reagan should be put on trial beside Hussein!

That leaves anyone not in country out and Bremer too he was surely busy justifying $2.64 gallons of Halliburton gas.

and that fact cannot be forgotten.

Reagan and Bush I administrations actively supported Saddam in the 1980s, provided him with chemical weapons, precursors to biological weapons, prevented the US Senate from denouncing him for using chemical weapons, forced the State Dept to take him off the list of supporters of terrorism, pressured the UN not to denounce him, etc.

For full details see U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980 - 2 August 1990 http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html

This info should be well publicized in any trial of Saddam.

accessory to the fact. Saddam Hussein was a murderous thug before the U.S. install him to power. And those chemical weapons to commit murder with, where'd they come from, 'eh?

Like Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rice...

Insofar as this probably means four more years of Bush, I'll pass on the celebration.

You'd rather have more dead troops than bush?

Inhuman.

"You'd rather have more dead troops than bush?"

To me, it's obvious that Bush is far more dangerous than Saddam Hussein, especially if he has another four years to destroy my country by trying to transform the republic into an empire.

The benefits of capturing Saddam seem vastly outweighed by the increased danger posed by Bush insofar as Bush's reelection chances are enhanced by the capture.

In my view, what is good for GW Bush politically is almost necessarily bad for America and the world.

I also think that it is absurd to allow one's feelings for the troops -- who voluntarily chose to join America's hyper-aggressive war-machine -- to determine one's analysis of policy.

My sentiments exactly. Thank you.

"Hey! This is fun! What OTHER countries can we pre-emptively attack?" George thinks to himself when he realizes that people no longer CARE about how this war came to be in the first place.

Pathetic.

-- Allen

But only those horrible dictators who no longer are our FRIENDS!!

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that's EXACTLY what this administration wants us to do now. They would prefer that we forget about all the lives that were lost and they hope that we focus entirely (and at great length) on this "isolated" success.

I prefer to not wear blinders and to look at the WHOLE picture. I prefer to be realistic.

I know you didn't say anything about the war being justified. I'm sorry if that's the impression my reply left. Indeed you did NOT say that the war was justified.

But you also did NOT say that it WAS NOT justified either. What you just did, and what I now see happening is exactly what this administration wants. Selective amnesia. Focusing ONLY on this minor but symbolic event while totally glossing over the lies that brought us here in the first place.

Someone please read off the names and ages of the DEAD again. Was it worth it? Have we forgotten those folks too?

All this whoo-hoo and whoop-de-doo celebration makes me ill.

-- Allen

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That's an assumption that given the way the Bushies operate, might not work out the way one would hope. I'm glad he was "captured" and not killed, but it remains to be seen what "Justice" Saddam will have, when Bush all along wanted him DEAD. Firing Squad? Torture?

Maybe that would be his Jutice? Maybe that's what he deserves? I don't have an answer, but I'm sure Bush does.

Can't we just be glad that this means a possible lessening in the loss of life over there?

For God's sake people...

I share your concern that this may lead to this moronic administration figuring they can start another war for private profit, public loss, but can't you see that this IS good news?

Additionally, you have to be glad that it happened NOW, because this won't have much mileage come November.

And hope for the end of our soldiers being killed.

Saddam caught alive for photo ops...but that's fine. No other admin in history has manipulated the media so well...but I am so happy Saddam is caught and mybe now our soldiers can come home.Bush has a lot of work to do just the same. I will not forget the republicans are the ones who created this guy....in the trial it better be mentioned who was shaking his hand after he gassed the Kurds....there is blame all around - sadly.

I trust this will result in fewer attacks in Iraq. Hopefully things will settle down and we can make some real progress for both our troops' and the Iraqi's sake!

The fear of Sadaam returning was the main thing that prevented more Iraqis from resisting. Now that he's been captured they can really push forward for self determination/freedom and crank it up against our troops.

I think it's is imperative that we get them out of there immediately and get the UN in.

especially since they went in with bad intelligence all around.

"You will be welcomed as liberators."

"It will only take a few weeks."


"Mission Accomplished! Whoops! I guess not."



now let's get our people home damn fast.
or do we have to wait for an October surprise photo op?

We still have to ensure that Iraq is rebuilt. If we don't start doing that in a sane way, we could still be there for years.

in the white house.

http://www.deanforamerica.com/
http://www.clark04.com/
http://www.kucinich.us
http://www.sharpton2004.org/

But we can sure start honing in on attacking him on his miserable failure of a domestic agenda, as opposed to his miserable failure of the liberation of Iraq. :)

Good for them, they executed this particular mission admirably. They have reason to be proud of themselves today.

:toast:

The ends do not justify the means but ... there is no denying this is a good thing.

give me a break

or torture of his dissenters.

I'll give credit where credit is due. Kudos to those who turned him over, kudos to those who brought him in.

One less, brutal, bloodthirsty dictator is a good thing; I don't care how much we despise Bushit.

I have thoroughly read AI reports on Iraq as well as reports on other countries in the region. Saddam was brutal but not the most brutal or the biggest human rights violator, that dubious distinction would go to the house of Saud or North Korea. My problem is that he has been made out to be the worst when in fact by all accounts he was not. So Saddam joins the list with Charles Taylor, Idi Amin, Pol Pot. I would be more comfortable with this if I knew there was going to be something done with US allies who are major human rights violators as well, there are two on the top of my list and no, I don't mean to imply NK is one of them.
So cheers to the troops for a job well done.

I'd heard that several times on DU this morning. So far, that thought had not been discredited.

The troops should get kudos for... NOTHING. They pulled off... NOTHING. They would have continued looking for ages, and finding... NOTHING.

Now it's Bush's* turn.

ship him off to the Hague...

Funny how its always "coalition troops" till something goes right then its US troops.

...commend? The people who turned Saddam in for cash, or the U.S. troops for taking Saddam into custody? What "raid" are you talking about?

One last question...do you think this is going to affect the current situation in Iraq? Do you think the killings will stop? Do you think the Iraqis will stop trying to get the "coalition" forces to leave Iraq?

And, since you claim to be a member of Amnesty International, when did you plan to mention all of the Iraqis killed during Desert Storm, the UN sanctions, and the current Iraqi conflict? Just curious.

in a phony war about oil...

a war that is making life even worse for iraqis and adding to the long list of suffering the iraqi people have to endure largely due to our greed and lust for their oil?

i'll pass.

peace

We've set the world on fire because Bush wanted a few oil fields and the allies who fabricated most of the intelligence wanted Iraq subdued and the entire Middle-East re-arranged.

What exactly should I be celebrating here? An obscene war that lasted 14 years? An illegal war because we were determined to wage even though Sadaam offered to surrender before the war? 450 US dead? Millions of Iraqi dead? 12 years of sanctions and starvation? Depleted uranium littered all over the country? Birth deformities for decades to come? Captured oil fields?

While Saddaam was a tyrant, he was not the only one and this was no liberation. This is a huge day for those who sought to justify this illegal war- an "enchanted day" is what Bush called it.

I support our troops and want them the hell out of there, especially considering I have close friends over there, but I can't celebrate. Sadaam's capture means literally nothing to me. Sadaam is nothing more than a little dictator that they turned into a mouse hiding in a cave. Se burnt down the entire field, destroyed an entire civilization, spent an obscene amount of money for which we had better use, to capture a manufactured field mouse?

When I protested this war, I wasn't protesting because Sadaam was still on the loose and our mission was a failure; I protested because of its obscenity and that hasn't changed. No matter how many field mice we capture. No matter how cheap our gas gets. No matter how much stronger we think we are now to dictate that the OPEC currency be the dollar versus the Euro.

My only prayer is that our troops come home immediately because now the Iraqi people have no reason not to resist. Now they know that Sadaam won't come back and that the only thing standing between them and freedom/self-determination are the occupation forces.

Your kind sentiment to our troops is appreciated. Especially for all the DUers who have loved ones over there and the DUers who were activated.

for the return of the troops - Bush couldn't bring them back before he could say 'the old regime has gone', both to save his own face, and because a free Saddam would pose a genuine threat to any Iraq after the departure of American troops.

So be thankful this goes a little way to your prayer.

The trooops were never over there to hunt for Sadaam, they were over there to secure the oil pipe-lines and to subjugate a people.
Sadaam being caught doesn't change the necessity for having all those troops there because the pipelines still need to be secured and the people still need to be subjugated. Now the people have nothing holding them back from rising up against the Anglos because there's no fear of Sadaam coming back. If they fail, the worst scenario is that they'll still live under an occupation that's not going away anyway and if they succeed, they'll have self-determination and control of their resources for their people.

So Bush will bring home a few thousand with big fan-fare and flashy parades initially giving the impression that all the boys are on their way home... Give him and us a few months for the truth to come out, that they can't come home because we've turned Iraq into one huge Gaza Strip and Bush is toast! He's mis-handled this so badly.

None of my prayers stand a chance of being answered until Bush is out of office because until then, there is no good news. Until then, it's all just one surreal night-mare- whatever little looks good is just another charade- like that Thanksgiving turkey.

I think Sadaam's capture is actually a huge inconvenience for Bush. Seems it was the Kurds who captured him and imprisoned him in that cave (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=269401 paying attention to post 14 and on but they all tie in) which further explains that dishevelled look, the set-up phone calls with his wife, the rats, mice, money, gun, disorientation from the sensory deprivation, all calculated for max media effect to show everyone just how much Bush had crushed him (going as far as to make sure the entire world knew we had to check his head for lice). He's apparently been captive for weeks, months (is this why Bush went to Bagdhad?) but it's not until now that finally had to "find him" and alive at that (which I think is another huge inconvenience to Bush).

I really don't think Bush is that thrilled about this because now, unless he manufactures a really good excuse (hence the list of insurgents conveniently found on Sadaam (I mean really- how transparent!)) he'll be expected to bring the boys home but he needs them over there otherwise he might lose his precious oil fields to the rightful owners.

As DoYouEverWonder pointed out "Now W is stuck with a living, breathing Saddam that he has to figure out what to do with."

Thanks

I wonder when we will see any action on other evildoers, such as President Karimov of Uzbekistan. Ooops, I forgot President Karimov is an ally in the war on terror and has offered up his country to be an obediant colony in the new American Empire, so what if he boils his own people. Certainly I won't hold my breath for a mulit-billion dollar military campaign to free Uzbeks from the fear of being boiled alive. In fact even diplomatic pressure applied by a naive British diplomat to stop torturers boiling people to death is apparently a no-no if it embarasses Tony's and Dubya's new best friend.


06/26/03: Let me introduce you to our presidents new best friend, President Karimov of Uzbekistan.

President Karimov government was awarded $500m in aid from the Bush administration in 2002. The SNB (Uzbekistan's security service) received $79m of this sum.

The U.S. State Department web site states "Uzbekistan is not a democracy and does not have a free press. Many opponents of the government have fled, and others have been arrested." and "The police force and the intelligence service use torture as a routine investigation technique."

Now I would like to introduce you to Muzafar Avazov, a 35-year old father of four. Mr Avazov had a visit from our presidents friends security force (SNB), the photographs below detail the brutality and inhuman treatment our tax dollars subsidize, with the full knowledge of our president and his administration.

<snip>

Human Rights Watch has learned that the body of Muzafar Avazov, a 35-year old father of four, showed signs of burns on the legs, buttocks, lower back and arms. Sixty to seventy percent of the body was burnt, according to official sources. Doctors who saw the body reported that such burns could only have been caused by immersing Avazov in boiling water. Those who saw the body also reported that there was a large, bloody wound on the back of the head, heavy bruising on the forehead and side of the neck, and that his hands had no fingernails.


www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3943.htm

Inquiries by the Guardian have discovered that Craig Murray, one of Britain's youngest ambassadors, was subsequently called back from his Uzbekistan post, threatened with the loss of his job, and accused of a miscellaneous string of diplomatic shortcomings in what his friends say is a wholly unfair way.

The accusations against him included:

· Supporting the visa application of the daughter of an Uzbek family friend who overstayed in England;

· Drinking too convivially with Uzbek locals;

· Allowing an embassy Land Rover to be driven down steps.

Mr Murray's subsequent episode of depression, for which he had medical treatment, was preceded by what one Foreign Office source calls "a campaign of systematic undermining".

A senior source said the former ambassador had been put under pressure to stop his repeated criticisms of the brutal Karimov regime, accused among other things of boiling prisoners to death. The source said the pressure was partly "exercised on the orders of No 10", which found his outspokenness about the compromises Washington was prepared to make in its "war on terror" increasingly embarrassing in the lead up to the Iraq war.

Guardian:Ambassador accused after criticising US

...but the U.S. is still supporting them, so I guess they'll be killing and torturing thousands of their own citizens until some U.S. president needs them to boost his political agenda (and poll numbers). I don't know much about this--no tv and all. I just came here a few minutes ago and read that Saddam is captured, and I am reading panic in many of the posts.

So one of the more high-profile bastards in the world was captured just in time for Christmas? After we completely destroyed a nation and its people, no less? Are we really surprised that Bush pulled this, because many people here predicted it, but closer to the next election. I guess the Bushies have a bigger surprise in store for us then. Am I glad that Saddam was captured? I really don't fucking care. He should have been put out of business about 30 years ago, but he was Reagan's ally then. This is just one more carefully staged political manuever by the Bush administration.

BTW, are there actual pictures of Sadam in captivity? After the OBL stuff and everything else done by this administration, I'm inclined not to believe a word I hear coming from the White House until there is actual, documented proof.

"This is just one more carefully staged political manuever by the Bush administration."

Yep. No cheering in this house. It's shameful to treat this like winning the big football game. I fail to understand why every other sentence out of our mouth has to be "But he was SUCH a bad man!" Wonder who the new villain du jour will be...

nt

Now to capture GW and the world will surely be a much safer place.

situation better.
:yourock:

Peace loving people (like myself) can celebrate that one more of the horrible people in the world are gone or captured. We must continue to condemn Bush for being one of that group.