Dick Cheney; Saddam Hussein; George W. bUsh. What difference?

Cheney Was Key in Clearing CIA Interrogation Tactics
The vice president says that the use of waterboarding was appropriate
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-cheney16-2008dec16,0,4343941.story

Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War; US Senate unanimously ratified in 1955; waterboarding is torture and illegal.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Senate ratified in 1992; waterboarding is torture and illegal.

United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, which the Senate ratified in 1994; waterboarding is torture and illegal.

US laws: Torture Act, the War Crimes Act, the laws entitled “Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons Under Custody or Control of the United States Government” and “Additional Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”; waterboarding is torture and illegal.

In Jordan, for example, the US State Department observes that “the most frequently alleged methods of torture are sleep deprivation, beatings, and extended solitary confinement.” In State Department reports on other countries, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, forced standing, hypothermia, blindfolding, and deprivation of food and water are specifically referred to as torture.
http://lawreview.wustl.edu/slip-opinions/waterboarding-is-illegal/

Waterboarding was used for interrogation at least as early as the Spanish Inquisition to obtain information, coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. It is considered to be torture by a wide range of authorities, including legal experts, politicians, war veterans, intelligence officials, military judges, and human rights organizations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

US official admits waterboarding presently illegal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/14/terrorism.usa

Dick Cheney; George W. bUsh; Saddam Hussein.

No difference.

I am so fucking angry that AMERICA TORTURES PEOPLE. The AMERICAN GOVERNMENT APPROVES OF TORTURE.

What the fucking FUCK!!! Oh yeah we're so fucking better than everyone else. Yeah let's keep lying to ourselves.

FUCK that MFing bUsh regime!!!

and so much destruction

Bush is just overly idealistic in who he thought could survive.

This is true especially after we attacked in 1991. Aside from US administration claims, there is scant evidence to support this story of Hitler-like atrocities.

Certainly we did far more damage than Saddam ever thought of...

And he murdered and killed his own people in order to continue with his political power and rule with an iron fist. Surely, Bush should probably be thrown in jail if this society wasn't so determined to protect our elite, but the contrast is still very stark, and the reasons for their needing to be punished pretty different.

The massacre @ Halabja was 1988. Who was running the country then? Same guys- Cheney, Bush Sr., etc...
We literally sold him the weapons he used, and then authorized the atrocities while Saddam was on the CIA payroll. This much is clear and well known.

If you think that Bush was just being optimistic when he attacked Iraq in 2003, I cant help but call you terribly naive.

There is no question that he knew exactly what was going to happen. It just didnt matter.

Simply vengeance on Saddam?

The simple fact is that securing the remaining oil resources on Earth is the number one priority for US leadership and State dept planners- always has been.
Not only does this ensure that profits flow to US based energy companies, it also gives the US tremendous power over rivals like China, Russia, etc...

Here are a few things that I think Bush has proven time and again.

Oil is the highest priority.
Human rights mean nothing.
The domestic population is the enemy.
Hatred of democracy.
Lust for corporate profits.

I could go on here but I think you get the point.

President Bush threw away the realist policy when he invaded Iraq. His foreign policy became dominated by neo-conservatives in his cabinet and among the leading voices included Paul Wolfowitz. Bill Crystal also had a hand in advising the administration and in 2001, many of the main architects of this Iraq war signed the Project For A New American Century agreement, which argued that the United States needs to take drastic measures and a humanitarian role by overthrowing the leaders of suppressed populations.

President Bush wavered on many things in the leadoff to the Iraq war: That is WMD, Hussein being a threat, Uranium purchases from Niger, etc etc. But one thing that he claimed over and over and continues to claim is that God lead him to do this, that is the right thing, and that he believes in his heart that it's the right thing. Blah blah blah...

Neoconservatives dominated the agenda, Neo conservatives wanted nation building, and so did Rumsfeld. Problem is, Rumsfeld thought we could rebuild a nation with minimum resources and less than 100,000 troops. He was seriously wrong. Now we have an international crisis.

Obviously I think the Iraq war was deadly stupid, I think if we followed the neoconservatives plan and used substantial amounts of troops from the get go it would have spread out our forces in the world too thin, and wasted trillions of dollars in resources the same way it's doing now. Nonetheless, I don't believe Bush was doing this entirely for the oil although it was a plus. There were many ways that we could have secured the oil reserves without destabilizing the country and making those reserves harder to secure.

The fact is for the first time neoconservatives dominated our foreign policy for at least the first 4 years of Bush's presidency, and for the first time our country invaded another country entirely with the rationale of altruism and freeing a population. This is nothing like Kissinger's doctrine of Realism(which you roughly described above) that was followed all the way up to Clinton, but entirely about trying out something new, experimental and in the end bringing us a catastrophic reality.

You actually believe that altruism played a role here? You actually believe this spreading democracy crap?
Here is a question: Have these same neo-conservatives been in power before, and if so, what did they do?

Well, of course the answer is yes, they have been in power during the Reagan and Bush 1 administrations and they did exactly the same thing, except then they destroyed Latin America. In fact, the Reagan administration was condemned for what amounts to war crimes by the World Court in 1986. Bush then invaded Kuwait after making up lies about the reasons.

The scenario you describe above does have some validity: PNAC had been heavily involved in shaping policy;Rumsfield wanted fewer troops, etc...
The proof that any of that is the actual reason for what is happening is this- they say so. Thats it- nothing more.

Since I dont believe a word these guys say, I can safely dismiss their claims of altruism and democracy promotion as a way to justify killing for profit.

I would suggest you do a little bit of research into American interventions since WW2. You will likely find that the US has a pattern of attacking anyone it chooses, while using excuses which later turn out to be "misguided". Some amazing coincidence, time after time...

And you misinterpreted my post somehow to think that I agree with those idiotic neocons. No I don't agree with them, but I understand their ideology is entirely different from the Reagan-esque ideology that gave us what happened in South America.

"Attacking anyone it chooses" was motivated by a different ideology than recently. I think you're right about that, but I don't think you know exactly where these policies are coming from entirely.

I didn't imply that you agreed with the neo-cons. Their ideology as expressed in their rhetoric has been generally the same going back to at least 1980.

Again-

It is ALL the same people. Why do you think they are somehow motivated differently? Same policies, same people- different ideology? Probably not.

I would strongly suggest that you look into our actual history and the public record of these men. Oh, and try not to use books that they write as evidence. :)

Would you mind explaining what exactly I am wrong about? I'm quite curious about my possible mistakes.

My original post was that Saddam Hussein's intention before killing the Kurds was to kill the Kurds, and even you have admitted that the many innocent killed in the Iraq war was essentially collateral damage. And the difference between Bush and Hussein is that Hussein intentionally gassed thousands of people to maintain power. Now if Bush was in that situation he may have done far worse, but he is not a dictator, and he does not come from a country that essentially needs a dictator to stay together. There are a million things that keep contrast Hussein and Bush and much of that is that oen comes from a long precedented consitutional republic with political stability and a military might to keep foregin forces from constantly mettling in it's affairs. The other essentially needs to kill people to stay in power, because that's sort of how things have been left with a combination of our mettling in things and others mettling in things.

I'm not meaning to imply the neocons are right, nor helping people but I do think that they honestly think* they are helping people while at the same time helping themselves. Obviously they are delusional, far more delusional in my mind than the Political Realists that dominated the policy before.

Keep in mind that while neo-conservatives had influence prior to W, they did not have any active role in policymaking, and were even quoted by HW as being "the wacko's in the basement." W's the only one who actually gave them solid roles in foreign policy.

You are wrong about neoconservatives dominating foreign policy for fifty years, wrong about there being no difference between Bush and Saddam and I would suggest you look up the difference between political realism and neo-conservatism in order to put things in better perspective.

That was the original point. It would have never happened without US approval. Nothing that happened in Iraq happened without our approval. Ever. Would you agree to that?
If so, it isnt just "basically collateral damage" but rather mass murder.

(I cant believe that you are actually suggesting that murder "just happens" and that people in power dont understand that large scale death and suffering always accompanies wars of aggression.)

Your assertion that Iraq "needs a dictator to stay together" is totally inaccurate. Iraq has been a part of the civilized world for thousands of years before we ever decided to slaughter 10,000,000 Native Americans.
We helped put Saddam in power, and helped keep him there for 30 years.

Look, I understand your perspective. It seems like you are very well informed of "official" western history of the last 15 years.
Unfortunately, you can count in nanoseconds how long those assertions hold up when exposed to such insidious commie dirty tricks as the application of logic or the examination of empirical history.

In fact the only thing I am really disagreeing with you on is the claim Bush and Saddam are exactly the same, and the claim that Neo-conservativism has been in power for 50 years. No. That was something called "Political Realism," which actually makes the case we need to go the lengths of enabling massacres, and using dictators in order to establish resources through power poliics and military might.

Neoconservatism, while it uses many aspects of Political realism, comes to similar conclusion but in a more convoluted perspective.

And any way you look at it, Saddam Hussein was a dictator of an oil rich state at significant interest to the US. Bush was president of a country whose interests in said state has lasted half a century or more. One thing you also failed to mention is that the US actually helped overthrow a democratically elected leader in the Baathist revolution during the 50's. But I said it before and I'll say it again, neoconservatism is different from what was in play during that time.

Look em up yourself if you don't believe me. Either way, the US has been at the center of maneuvering resources and manipulating dictators for half a century abusing it's military power and exploiting oil rich nations, and it has always been political realism at the center of it.

Look. Kissinger had the decency to admit we're using dictators to fuck people over, exploit their relationships wit arab nations and outright said it. These PNAC guys don't even have the decency to admit who they're fucking over. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they did know exactly what was going to happen with Iraq, and maybe they didn't care. Either way, they won't admit it. Kissinger, would and he has, but he still claims it's right.

And there in lies the convoluted difference between Neoconservatism and Political Realism. Realism admits who this state is failing, and neoconservatism lives in something of an intellectual vacuum. Both nefarious in their ends, but one more pragmatic in it's application.

Almost any examination of the political impact of 'Western' interference in the Middle East will bear this out, including national boundaries that don't align with ethnic group territorial integrity.

All should have gone/will go to The Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity; torturous bastards.

By virtually any measure, Bush and Cheney are far far worse than Saddam.

Just have a look at the blood on Cheney's hands in Latin America in the 1980's.

Add to that Cheney's full backing of Saddam in the 1980's while Hussein committed his worst atrocities.

And then we can look at the latest wars.

Saddam seems like a real amateur in this company.

Really, there is simply no comparison.

That's the difference. Basically. And he didn't tolerate religious fanatics.

Saddam is not.

Don

marched out of the house or senate and shot. cheney and bush were to wimpy to watch people be tortured to death. other than that i can`t think of anything that`s different.

shit i forgot..saddam built iraq into the most advanced country in the arab world. the united state`s 16+ years of war against iraq reduced iraq to a third world country.

it took bush 8 years to plunge this country into a coming depression

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

2001 anthrax attacks

The letters

The anthrax letters are believed to have been mailed from Princeton, New Jersey. In August 2002, investigators found anthrax spores in a city street mailbox located at 10 Nassau Street near the Princeton University campus. About 600 mailboxes that could have been used to mail the letters were tested for anthrax. The box on Nassau Street was the only one to test positive.

The notes

The New York Post and NBC News letters contained the following note:

09-11-01
THIS IS NEXT
TAKE PENACILIN NOW
DEATH TO AMERICA
DEATH TO ISRAEL
ALLAH IS GREAT

The second note that was addressed to Senators Daschle and Leahy read:

09-11-01
YOU CAN NOT STOP US.
WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX.
YOU DIE NOW.
ARE YOU AFRAID?
DEATH TO AMERICA.
DEATH TO ISRAEL.
ALLAH IS GREAT.

The return address
The letters addressed to Senators Daschle and Leahy have the return address:

4th Grade
Greendale School
Franklin Park NJ 08852
The address is fictitious. Franklin Park, New Jersey, exists, but the ZIP code 08852 is for nearby Monmouth Junction, New Jersey. There is no Greendale School in Franklin Park or Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, though there is a Greenbrook Elementary School in adjacent South Brunswick Township, New Jersey, of which Monmouth Junction is a part.



http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2004/06/09/1128433.htm

Allawi ran CIA-backed bombing campaigns: report

Posted Wed Jun 9, 2004 11:36pm AEST

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi ran an organisation that carried out a bombing campaign in Iraq in the 1990s aimed at toppling dictator Saddam Hussein, The New York Times reports.

The campaign of sabotage against Government facilities, was run in conjunction with the CIA.

Former CIA officials say it did not topple Saddam and there are conflicting reports on whether it caused any casualties.

The officials say they could not remember exactly when the bombing campaign took place.

The daily estimates from their interviews that it was between 1992 and 1995.

Iraq WAS the most advanced country in the region just shy of Israel. That made the other nations quite nervous. The next step for Iraq was even more freedom and that would have spread. Iraq was hated by the elites, kings, and royalty. So they basically hired the US to come in and get rid of the problem. Now Iraq is chaos.

Not only did the oil quit flowing out of Iraq, but the freedom of the people was damn near killed. Could be that if left alone by the US troops, in 20 years or so Iraq just may become a land of the free in the midst of elites, kings, mullahs and royalty.