ID:188874
 Dec 14 2003, 1:20 am
|
|
Well, for whatever reason I've been up all night, and was watching the news when this story broke about an hour ago. The press conference is in 45 minutes, but it has all but been totally confirmed that Saddam Hussein has in been captured alive and unharmed in Tikrit. Reports just came in that DNA tests and scars on his body prove that it is him. If this is all true, it is absolutely amazing that they got him alive.
| |
|
Dec 14 2003, 1:29 am
|
|
Maz
 |
Wow, thats pretty good news :)
|
They need to bring him here, And poke him rapidly till he dies..
| |
After the war in Iraq, they've seemed to forgotten about Osama. Why was Saddam captured first and we basicly hear nothing on the progress for the hunt of Osama? I don't know it seems a little odd to me. But whatever, maybe Saddam has some information on Osama?
Ð | |
"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," L. Paul Bremer (search), the U.S. administrator in Iraq, announced.
 That doesn't look a whole lot like a happy man. Oh, well, can't say I feel especially bad. | |
I don't think it's so surprising. Saddam Hussein is a megalomaniac who uses religion as an excuse, he's not an actual religious zealot... if he knew the net was tightening, he wouldn't martyr himself if he saw a chance to continue his own existence.
As for information about Osama... the American public really needs to wise up on that score. They aren't buddies, they aren't friends, and they aren't allies. Osama is a religious zealot and he knows that Hussein isn't, to say nothing of the fact that Hussein professes a different flavor of religion than Osama does. Amongst zealots, "the enemy of enemy is my friend" does not ring true. I'm not saying that Saddam's not a bad guy, but he's not our bad guy. Bush is probably going to ride this thing to re-election now because people can't remember who our bad guy is. | |
Saddam was a public figure, we knew (more or less) where he was... Osama's a guerilla leader. Saddam had a nation we could declare war on, Osama has an increasingly underground organization spread thinner than paper throughout much of the world. Faced with two enemies the public equally hates, Bush picked the easier target.
Not only have we seemingly forgotten about Osama, we've also forgotten that the alleged point of invading Iraq was not to depose and capture Saddam... having deposed him, it is imperative to make sure he can't return to power, yes, but the story on CNN doesn't bother to mention that we have yet to find appreciable evidence of weapons of mass destructions that were the reason this man was a threat to us to begin with. I think it's pretty clear what happened... Saddam, a shifty opportunist, had disarmed long ago but was hedging his bets by resisting arms inspectors and avoiding providing evidence of either weapons or their destruction. Why? He wanted to be safe from both sets of enemies... the western world would be kept at bay because they couldn't prove he had WMD.... his closer neighbors and oppressed subjects would behave because they couldn't prove that he didn't. | |
Hedgemistress! I couldn't agree more. Not the Americans Must realize the true enemy, but WE, yes we BYOND'ers must take up this task, this obligation to the American people to know who the true enemy is and not be fooled by Bush's publicity.
I seriously have a small spot of worry /pity for Saddam, because he was targeted falsely by Bush, soley for Bush's image as a 'terrorism fighter'...Its Ironic, because one 'big man' was taken down by another 'big man'...Yet there could have been many different solutions to the war on Iraq, Like The Mistress said, Bush is gonna ride this little fact all the way to re election. It is our civic duty to know who the real enemy is, and why this all started. BYONDers of all ages, we must have s sense of responsibility to watch different news sources, not just one, and Talk about the subject and how you think about it with your parents, because if they dont see past the publicity and lies, then Bush is surely to be re elected. I myself just turned 18 and will be voting just intime for the next election. For all of you in my age group, who just Turned 18 or 19, Dont sit idle by, our generation is next and we need to start getting our opinions out there so the world is ready for us. (watch out world lol) | |
Hedgemistress wrote:
As for information about Osama... the American public really needs to wise up on that score. They aren't buddies, they aren't friends, and they aren't allies. Exactly. I'm not saying that Saddam's not a bad guy, but he's not our bad guy. Bush is probably going to ride this thing to re-election now because people can't remember who our bad guy is. The sad thing is that we don't even know who the bad guys are. Or, we are too afraid to name the enemy. Terrorism is a tactic, and the last time I checked, waging war on a tactic was kinda hard. It makes just as much sense as us waging war on Kamikazes rather than Japan during WWII. It's about time we name the enemy: islamic fundamentalists. | |
The sad thing is that we don't even know who the bad guys are. Or, we are too afraid to name the enemy. Terrorism is a tactic, and the last time I checked, waging war on a tactic was kinda hard. thing is we used Terrorism Tactics in WWII and our american revolution we where the first true guerillas we invented the tactic so if we balme someone blame our fore fathers | |
Hedgemistress wrote:
I'm not saying that Saddam's not a bad guy, but he's not our bad guy. Bush is probably going to ride this thing to re-election now because people can't remember who our bad guy is. Of course Saddam killed thousands of times more people than Osama has ever managed to, started wars that resulted in a million+ deaths, ran a torture regime, used chemical weapons, allowed his sons to go around raping and murdering at will. I support going after Saddam, and never even gave the WMDs or his alleged direct threat to the US any consideration. Frequently when I point any of this out, people respond "But what about X country that does Y? See we are hypocrites!" Of course if we actually went after X country, they'd say "What about Iraq that has used chemical weapons and broken international law, why aren't we going after them instead!" Fact is, you can't go after everybody. And some people you don't like are in positions that you can't do much about. North Korea is very different from Iraq, for example -- we can't go after North Korea without ensuring the instant death of a chunk of South Korea. So we must treat the situation differently, as we have no choice. Iraq, however, we could go after. People can debate the reasons Bush chose to do this, but we took out an extremely murderous war-mongering dictator and we have a chance to change that country for the better. We may well fail, but I hope we succeed. This is the main difference I've noticed in many people I argue this with. They hope we fail. They hope Iraq is a complete mess and Bush is embarrassed. That this would mean doom for millions of people doesn't appear to enter into their consideration. | |
Islamic fundamentalists are not the enemy. Terrorists are the enemy. It's just that a number of them try to pass themselves off as such.
| |
Jon88 wrote:
Islamic fundamentalists are not the enemy. Terrorists are the enemy. It's just that a number of them try to pass themselves off as such. No, islamic fundamentalists hate Israel and everything that the US stands for. One of the tactics that they employ to defeat/deter us is terrorism. | |
Bardock732 wrote:
thing is we used Terrorism Tactics in WWII and our american revolution we where the first true guerillas we invented the tactic so if we balme someone blame our fore fathers The point of war is to kill the enemy. Every tactic you could possibly name could be called terrorism. Of course, we don't like what we refer to as modern day Terrorism because it usually victimizes civillians. | |
SilkWizard wrote:
Bardock732 wrote: If any one wants to kill saddam now, lets get are kantas and kill him! hahahahahahahahahahaha! i hate that moron. Almost as dum a s Bush he is... | |
YAY for fox news!
Even though I hate it, my Dad and I watch Fox news all the time. He's turned me into quite the little...smart politiciain dude thingy :-P I've been watching it for a couple of hours today, seeing where he was hiding, in that damned spider hole. It's really a miracle they found him. Anyway, this guy is now PATHETIC. He didn't even try to fight back. He'll crack after a bit of metallica ;-) <-Airjoe-> | |
You say you don't care what Bush's reasons were since the end result is worth striving for. I can't believe that you would be one to subscribe to "the ends justifies the means," so I ask you to consider the fact that Bush's purported reasons were nothing more than a means of getting the American people behind his efforts.
Bush didn't say, "We're going to liberate an oppressed people and better the lot of millions!" He said, "This guy's a threat to us. He has weapons of mass destruction and intends to use them against us. It's him or us. Him or us." So... if our leader knows that someone's a bad guy... if we all know the world would be a better place without this person... then it's okay to lie and fabricate evidence and do whatever we have to do to get them out of power, even target them for death? We don't allow the use of "secret evidence" in criminal trials, and if the governments demands the death penalty for an accused murderer, we hold the government to a pretty high standard of proof (although there have been some disturbing moves away from these practices in recent years).... if a district attorney "knows" that someone is guilty of something but can't prove it so invents another, equally heinous (and perhaps more galvanizing) charge, we don't say, "Well, all's well that end's well!", do we? This is a complex issue... I think it's possible to be glad Saddam's out of power and no longer a threat, while at the same time making sure that the man who'll want to take responsibility for it, gets responsibility for everything, the good and the bad. | |
Hedgemistress wrote:
You say you don't care what Bush's reasons were since the end result is worth striving for. I can't believe that you would be one to subscribe to "the ends justifies the means," so I ask you to consider the fact that Bush's purported reasons were nothing more than a means of getting the American people behind his efforts. My assumption (and at least my own reasoning) is that Bush's real reasons were along the lines of: Here is an evil guy who has violated international law and the post-war agreements. He openly sends money to Palestinian terrorists. He may well have been back to building up a huge arsenal (which he was...the press doesn't report much on the vast non-biological weapon caches we found). So he's bad, he's a dictator who rules by blood, he's violated agreements, he's had nuclear weapons programs and is known to be looking for nuclear material once again, he's had no inspectors for years. If we can kick him out and establish a real government in the country, it's our best chance to begin to change the Middle East equation. And allowing Iraq to sell oil again reduces the power of Saudi Arabia, which may allow us to finally stop dealing with *that* set of evil people. This is complicated. Bush chose to push the WMD issue, because it is simpler. Pretty much every President who has gone to war has simplified the issue and pointed to factors that were not in fact the most important to their mind (certainly FDR did for WWII). I think it was a mistake, though I also believe that Bush and the administration (and pretty much every knowledgable person I ever talked to) completely believed that Saddam in fact had a large store of WMDs. We know that he had them for the first gulf war and that his army had instructions to use them under certain circumstances. So he probably pushed it a bit more than he believed it, but in the (mistaken as it turns out) belief that this was an actual issue. Something to keep in mind here is that Clinton, under the same reasoning, was preparing to go to war with Iraq. No one recalls now, but Madelyn Albright was doing the circuit trying to get support, and letting everyone know that if we didn't get support we would go in alone and take him out. In the middle of this, Clinton got into his sex scandal and lost any ability to wage war. I agree with Clinton and Bush on this, and have no regrets for us taking Saddam out. It wasn't random, it wasn't for no reason. This is a complex issue... I think it's possible to be glad Saddam's out of power and no longer a threat, while at the same time making sure that the man who'll want to take responsibility for it, gets responsibility for everything, the good and the bad. Yes, and Bush may pay the political price for pushing for war on a basis that turned out to be not completely accurate. I have no problem with that. (And, as I'm sure you know, Bush is *not* getting any credit for the good aspects of this...a practically bloodless war by any standard, sticking to our commitment even when our own people are dying, etc). Personally, I just find it way more offensive how many people wish we'd failed, wish that both Iraq and Afghanistan were under their former rulers, and literally root for these people to win over the US. It sickens me. | |
Fox News... heh. The Simpsons(produced by Fox) made a little spoof about Fox News(also produced by Fox) and Fox News almost sued them before their parent company(Fox) made 'em stop.
| |