Ok, i've asked a few people i know about this and no one seems to know. Why is it that Saddam Hussein can "boycott" going to court? Hes accused of all sorts of ****, we go all the way to Iraq to grab him and then he can just not show up to court if he pleases.

If you don't show up to court the police normally get a bloody warrant and come get you at your house.

Picked up a random link about it on google if anyone didn't already know

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060212/NEWS06/602120418/1012

I think its ****ing stupid, unless i've seriously misunderstood something here...

It's not like he's free to leave and go home when the court day is over, but yeah, they should make him go, regardless of what he wants.

The world does not make sense to normal people (you and I) because many of the inhabitants are, in fact, idiots (they).

In the US, at least for lesser crimes, you are automatically guilty if you don't show up (although you can appeal it if you can come up with some silly excuse, but if you don't show up for your appeal...?).

I don't even get why they're buggering about giving him a trial. For one I don't think he deserves one, for another, he's committed more crimes than we could ever feasibly charge him for and thus, thirdly, he should just be done away with now so the US can turn to the next country it wants to invade.

For once, I can't say I really give a **** either way.

The problem is, he's being tried in an Iraqi Court, not an International Court. Sadam is actually right, the whole thing is a mockery. Not just because they are putting him on trial for stuff that, while he was President, were actions within his right to carry out, but because it's a slap in the face to any rational and logical jurdicial system to date.

To make the Iraq government seem fair and legit to the International Community

There really is no international law. Some countries may agree to some things, but basically it's the rule of the strongest. The Iraqi's are trying him for crimes against his own citizens where he really had no right to commit. Just because you have power doesn't mean you can do anything you want with it.

*Edited for disturbing lack of grammar and spelling*

Right... So it's his right to murder hundreds of people because he's the president? I don't think so.

I say we drop him in a pit of leeches so they slowly suck the life out of him, the dirty *******.

I'm not saying there is such as thing as international law. I'm saying that, as has happend in the past, he could have been tried by a court with respect to the international community. Where by, the said crimes he's being held for, are actually crimes.



Er...that's not exactly the point. The point isn't rather what he did was right or wrong in our culture. The point is rather or not he had the right to do it in his country where it IS acceptable as part of the culture. The fact remains that he was acting within his official capacity AND duty as President of Iraq which includes meeting cultural expectations.

Did Saddam do anything wrong within the cultural expectations and boundries of Iraq? Not to my knowledge (as with anything, there could be stuff that hasn't surfaced yet that could say other wise and may be attributed to neglagence on his part or the part of his asignees). Did Saddam do anything wrong, in my personal opinion? Absolutely, but my opinion is completely irrelavent to the situation that Saddam is currently in.

For instance, we would not condone cutting someone's hand off for stealing. Yet in many places, it is the punishment for theft.

Also, understand that, a lot of what Saddam was supposedly responsible for has been grossly over exagerated by the U.S. to build support against Saddam. I mean, 20yrs or so ago we didn't have a problem with him being in power. He was just as much of a "killer" (by our cultural stadards) then, then he was the rest of the time. Why the sudden change of heart?

That's political "spin" for you...

To answer your question generally, however, YES being the supreme ruler of a body of people gives you the right to murder hundreds of people if you so choose. I AM NOT SAYING, HOWEVER, THAT I AGREE WITH THAT! I am mearly stating the facts. Saddam wasn't the first (by far) and I highly doubt he'll be the last. You have to understand that there are cultures within other jurisdictions that have cultural standards that differ greatly from their own. We may not agree with them, but as long as they don't affect us directly, we do NOT have the right to interfere with them and we MUST honor and allow those difference to continue.



How ignorant.

Ignorant how? He deprived other people of their right to live peaceful lives. He committed genocide on his own country, why should his human rights be upheld? You're the ignorant one if you disreguard that simple point.

It is not culturally expected to randomly kidnap people and stick electric wires up their *** and shock them.



Yes.



Get more knowledge.



Again, you are either ignorant of the extent of Saddam's doings or you have a ****ed up view of Iraqi culture.



Not really. There is so much that Saddam did that was never on the news, that was never mentione by president Bush, and doesn't come up unless you dig, dobule check sources, and work. I don't know why the sudden change of heart.

[/quote]To answer your question generally, however, YES being the supreme ruler of a body of people gives you the right to murder hundreds of people if you so choose. I AM NOT SAYING, HOWEVER, THAT I AGREE WITH THAT! I am mearly stating the facts. Saddam wasn't the first (by far) and I highly doubt he'll be the last. You have to understand that there are cultures within other jurisdictions that have cultural standards that differ greatly from their own. We may not agree with them, but as long as they don't affect us directly, we do NOT have the right to interfere with them and we MUST honor and allow those difference to continue.[/quote]

Well, in MY culture, it is not acceptable for me to let people be murdered like that. I am going to go with my culture, and I seemingly have your support. Or do I? Make up your mind, your logic has a hole in it. It is part of US culture to babysit other people.




lolz.

CaptBevvil has a point. Leave him the **** alone. Debate him, but don't say ****ing **** *** **** like "Get more knowledge." That's ****ing idiotic.

Obviously you don't understand the concept of "human rights" if you don't think every human should have them. If that's not ignorant, I don't know what is.

I understand the concept of human rights perfectly. I just don't believe that people that take millions of others human rights away should be protected.

With no disrespect intended, this was the only comment I felt worth responding to as the others we could debate forever and accomplish nothing. Please read the following with an open mind and a knowledge that I completely understand where you are coming from our take on "right" and "wrong" are not all that different. There's simply many levels of complexity that apply and are often times overlooked and should be addressed.



Actually, you are quite wrong on this point. What you have just stated is a Federal Foreign Policy. A policy that did not start until after WWII. In other words, prior to 60 years ago, the U.S. people didn't give a flip about the rest of the world. It's call isolationism and you ask any history proffesor when the U.S. era of isolationism ended. They will all tell you after WWII. After WWII we officially became a world super power. The Federal government then decided that it would make everyone else's business their business. Why? Because they realized the economic potential in strategically helping some countries while keeping other countries at bay. You can ask any Economics Professor about that one. It's called Macroeconomics. However, if you were to go out onto the streets and ask the U.S. Pulic if we should be less or more involved in foreign policy, the majority would say "less." And I would have to agree.

Our country has it's own problems. Who are we to dictate or mitigate in other countries affairs when we can not solve our own problems? We're like a 13 yr old prancing around all like \/\/3 4r3 1337 3xp3r75! 1i573/\/ 70 u5! So tell me, sir, by what expert auhority derived from years of verified experienced proof do we have on solving all of our own problems by which we can or should act upon other countries under the prediposition of said expertise? Let me give you an analogy. Would you give a scalpel to a 13yr old and say "here, operate on me."? I know I wouldn't. The legal term for someone performing a service for which they are not qualified to perform but for which they claim to be qualifed for, is called Fraudulent Malpractice. And that is precisely what the U.S. Federal and (currently) Executive government bodies are doing to the rest of the world. Has any good come out of it? Sure, the humanitarian acts are all non-evasive and, for the most part, are independant of the U.S. Federal Government. Has harm come from it? Absolutely. More Iraqies have died in "Freeing" them in the past couple of years then have ever died under Saddam's presidency! We turned a country that was vacant of Al-Quida and other terrorist organizations into a breeding ground for them! Oh yeah, weren't we friends with Bin Ladin at one time...well, at least until we pissed him off because he no longer served "U.S. Interest."

This brings me to another point. You remember above when you said you didn't know why there was a change of heart. Well, recall that Bush used the phrase that Saddam threatened 'U.S. Interest.' When your talking to an Economic Professor about Macroeconomics, be sure to ask Him/Her if it's in any way related to that phrase...

Wake up! The U.S. isn't the goody good humanitarian country you thought it was. They take up allies, regardless of cultural differences, until they no longer server "U.S. Interest" any longer and then they are a "threat" to those interest.

Pop Quiz, what's the only country to vote down an international ban on PVC's? Yep, good old humanitarian, concerned for the health and well being of the world, United States of America. Of course, a complete ban of PVC's would not only allow the damaged O-Zone layer to replinish itself within 10 years, it would also help calm the rapid increase in extreme weather conditions contributed to O-Zone depletion.

What country consumes more natural resources then any other country in the world? Yep, the good old "we're working to bring the U.S. people hybrid hydrogen cars" United States of America. Consuming somewhere around 70%+ of the world's natural resources each year.

Who turned down Iraqi revolutionaries who wanted to over throw Saddam after Desert Storm? Yep, you guessed it, President George H. Bush of the United States of America.

Who sent in CIA operatives disguised as UN Inspectors in a vien attempt to find WMD's in Iraq shortly before the recent Invasion of Iraq and then got pissed off when the Iraqies figured out who they were and denied them access to various, non-store house, military facilities (such as office buildings and the like) for which was exposed by the Director of UN Inspectors I forget his name off-hand) who resigned shortly before the invasion? Yep, no big surprise, the United States of America.

Yes, we set a prime example to lead the rest of the world.

Look, I know where you are coming from. And, from our singular point of view, it's easy to sit here and say "This is right" and "This is wrong." The reality of which is layered in such compexity that it would take professional analyst decades to sort through. There are cultural standards, religious standards (not always identical to cultural), and other issues which differ greatly by our own. It simply is not as cut and dry as we'd like it to be.

I grew up on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Gene Rodenberry was years ahead of his time. He had an understanding of the world, including cultural differences, that is well beyond the average understanding of such things. He recognized that, while our cultural conditioning may dislike certain parts of another's culture, we should still have an obligation to respect and honor it so long as it does not affect our own culture. With the underlying point of 'we do not have to like it, but we do have to tolerate it...just as they tolerate what they do not like of our culture.' It's a mutural respect for those differences that allows the cultures to coexist peacefully...even if they do not agree with all of the policies and aspects of the other culture. Which hits the bottom line point that it is essential, considering we have no choice but to coexist with other cultures, that we respect the sovereingty and differences of other countries and cultures in the name of peace.

-Monoxide-, Protected and Tolerated, are two different things. See above.

What does culture have to due with it? If a culture demands that you kill innocent people, the culture is wrong.

...wait...what?

Oh and guys, don't mind Friend14. I've had him on ignore since the first thread I saw him post in. He's really not worth paying attention too.

He brings up many good points in his last post which are worth reading.

But I would like him to clear up the incident with the CIA he was talking about. I haven't heard about that. Do you have any trustworthy links about that?

Haha, yeah.

Sack of wet mice, et al.

This is the best I could do on a whim. I first heard him speak out about this back in October of last year on one of the C-SPAN channels.

http://www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=11309

[edit]

Ah, this is what I saw in October:

In this edited transcript of an October 19 public conversation sponsored by The Nation Institute at the New York Ethical Culture Society, legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh and former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter discuss how the CIA manipulated and sabotaged the work of UN departments to achieve a hidden foreign policy agenda in the Middle East. The conversation was based on revelations in Ritter's new book, Iraq Confidential, published by Nation Books. Hersh's most recent book is Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, published by HarperCollins.

The transcript can be found here:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051114/ritter

Here's another link from 2002
http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A627_0_2_0_C/

That charge was confirmed when it was disclosed in early 1999 by the Washington Post and the Boston Globe that U.N. activities in Iraq were used as a cover for CIA operations. Ritter says the CIA had planted spies on the inspection team since 1992. Ritter's 1999 book, Endgame, devotes several pages to this. He concludes the CIA was using the cover of weapons inspections to develop plans for a coup against Saddam Hussein. As Americans we can cheer such a plot – except for the fact that the Iraqis discovered it. This was yet another CIA failure.

More:
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/11/int05045.html
The foundation of our involvement in Iraq is corrupt. You can't build anything positive from this corrupt foundation. If you want to speak of solving the Iraq problem, we have to go back to how we got into this mess to begin with. … The same people who deceived us getting into Iraq are deceiving us on a daily basis about what's going on in Iraq, and we can't ignore this.

[...]

... By this time in 1996, the Iraqis had put together a fairly sophisticated matrix of who the inspectors were and who they ultimately worked for. So whenever we submitted a roster of inspectors to the Iraqis, they were pretty locked in on what kind of inspection it would be, and what kind of emphasis there would be, and who on the inspection team they should be concerned about. So they have a good feel for that. But the Mukhabarat also had to deal with aspects of protecting Saddam Hussein that had nothing to do with UNSCOM, such as the CIA's own efforts to recruit people inside Iraq to target Saddam. And what the Mukhabarat did is they were tracking these two separate issues and found that there was crossover – that the CIA was using the inspection process to facilitate a coup d'etat by another group of Iraqis that was being handled by the CIA outside the framework of the weapons inspections.

And the Iraqis tracked this. They infiltrated the coup and they pulled the plug on it, executed the plotters and terminated the CIA's effort. But in the process, they got definitive proof that the CIA was using the inspection process as a vehicle not only to gather intelligence, but to trigger a coup d'etat. And it destroyed the integrity of the inspection process...

And this...this is just incredibly disturbing:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2005/241005weaponsinspector.htm
Ritter compared the atmosphere within the administration to that during the time of Watergate, where Nixon considered utilizing America's nuclear arsenal to create a devastating diversion from domestic calamity.

[...]

Ritter's claims have continually been proven to be accurate even in the face of numerous establishment media and government attempts to defame his character.

Ritter is the latest of a rash of credible people both inside and outside of government to voice concerns that a staged terror attack blamed on Iran or Syria could be used as the pretext to instigate pre-planned invasions and further entrench a police state in the US.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]
Oh and guys, don't mind Friend14. I've had him on ignore since the first thread I saw him post in. He's really not worth paying attention too.[/QUOTE]

Er, except that you respond to my posts on a regular basis???
BTW, thanks for "poisoning the well". How both very mature and open minded of you to do so.

Thank you Freelancer for keeping an open mind and deffending my view point (rather you support it or not).

Bevvil, you bring up a lot of good points, and they're very well argued. However, your whole argument is based on the predisposition that if you take a bunch of beliefs and throw them together under the title of "culture" then they're sanctioned. I personally don't think everything is as grey as that. Wrong is wrong whether it's your "culture" or not. I know that's a subjective viewpoint, and I don't hold it against you if you don't believe that way. I'm just saying that there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam was wrong to do what he did, no matter what his "culture" may dictate.

Now as to whether or not the US has a right to step in and make things right is an entirely different issue. Naturally, I understand that the US government is some benevolant organization that does things for the good of mankind. They're in this business to get some kind of gain. But then, the job of a government is to preserve the way of life for its citizens. When our government failed to stop the Al Quida (sp) terrorists from hijacking two planes and flying them into buildings, they failed to preserve our US American way of life. However, by rooting out the terrorists, cutting off their resources, and destroying their havens, they are preventing the terrorists from interfering in our way of life in the future, not just by restricting them from the resources to do so, but also by demonstrating that it won't be tolorated (which if done correctly will promote fear in the terrorists which is the only thing they seem to understand).

Do I know if there is a deffinitive Right and Wrong? No...I hope there is, but I do not know that. I like to believe...as do most people...that their view point of right is indeed "right" and their view point on what is wrong is indeed "wrong." I also agree that, what Saddam did was wrong and could have been handled differently (with respect to the Kurds), which goes back the first point I made in this thread with regards to the topic. The trial should have been done with respect to the international community.

In saying that, there is some conflicting information out there about exactly who or what kind of people were tortured and killed. Some of which has pointed to the possiblity that the majority of people were Kurds...not Iraqis. The Iraqi public opion of Kurds were such that they wanted them out of Iraq prior to Saddam coming into power. This would tend to agree with the entire basis around Desert Storm. I do know that, in the majority of the cases, the local authorities were given orders to conduct torturings and executions with little to no guidelines. This could be due to the negative impact such guidelines might have been received by the Iraqi citizens (considering the cultural and religous differences between the Kurds and the Iraqis).

Again, just to be clear, this is a bit of a grey area and there is a lot of conflicting information out there. So don't quote me on any of it. I'm just putting it out there to be considered.



The problem with that is that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with those attacks. The Bush Administration FAILED to sucessfully connect Terroist with Iraq. In fact, it was a well known fact that Saddam had been conducting his own search for Bin Laden to seek out and kill him. So Iraq was completely independant of the Terroist attacks against the U.S. Furthermore, Iraq did not have a missle program capable of threatening us OR our allies. To beat it all, the U.S. CREATED a festering haven in Iraq for terroist. Kind of counter productive, don't you think?