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Saddam Hussein captured...

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12:55 / 15.12.03

MJ-12 - no they don't - they give the impression of improving their economies...

GreenMann, sometimes I think you lack a little perspective on some matters...

12:59 / 15.12.03

By which I meant that a tendency to humiliate one's enemies and betes noires in public is not as barbaric as bombing, mutilating, keeping in custody without trial, torturing, etc. and all the other ghastly things done by governments and others all over the world... and I don't think Europeans are in any position to crow over American barbarities.

Tryphena Absent

13:29 / 15.12.03

That's more than a little unfair. Typically, fascists improve their economies

I'm sorry but improving the economy wasn't one of the 10 major rules given out in 'I want to be a Fascist'.

13:43 / 15.12.03

I just want everyone to realize how much restraint I'm having to excercise in not taking a lack of recognition of sarcasm and running with it. Really.

13:45 / 15.12.03

Oh dear - how very gauche of me - nerves must be frayed. My apologies.

13:47 / 15.12.03

...and one can admit that if anyone deserves to be prodded by a redneck and humiliated, it's Saddam Hussein... it's not even close to what he deserves...

14:38 / 15.12.03

I really don't see that this makes a lot of difference.

The only thing I'll be interested to see is exactly what the show trial in Iraq will look like. I don't think they'll be dumb enough to let him grandstand like Milosevic, but they may not have an option if it's going to look at all real.

14:54 / 15.12.03

The only thing I'll be interested to see is exactly what the show trial in Iraq will look like.

Assuming of course the trial does go ahead in Iraq. The international criminal court statute states that war criminals should be put on trial in local courts if possible, however the US - rather predictably - doesn't recognise the authority of the international criminal court. And then we have Iran, which is currently preparing a case with regards to Saddam's war crimes, and which hopes to bring him to trial at an international court.

15:55 / 15.12.03

Oh, I'm fairly sure that it will take place in Iraq. They have, after all, only just announced that they are setting up a court to try former Ba'ath party officials etc. I would be immensely surprised if it takes place under any sort of international body.

It'll be a "great day for the people of Iraq" thing. To be fair, I think if anyone puts Hussein on trial it *should* be the people of Iraq - it's just that it won't be them, it'll be the US, who will also get to decide the rules of the show, as well as disown any responsibility for them and any "irregularities".

16:33 / 15.12.03

well, we couldnt have a bunch of arabs in charge of their own emancipation, they need to be led by clever white people. i mean, they'll only try and instill some kind of state by and for the people, wont they? i'll bet they'd even be so crass as to bring up the american involvement in sadams growth as a dictator. it's unnecessary and will only upset people. people with money and nice suits.

17:26 / 15.12.03

It seems many of you are really upset that Saddam was captured. It also seems that many of you have a strong passive aggressive side when it comes to the USA. Boy, I hate those bastards, but boy do I love watching consuming the entertainment goods they fill me up with!

sdv (non-human)

20:13 / 15.12.03

Given that the USA (Bush/Blair allaince) will probably accept the hysterical demands for the death penalty, which are being reproduced in the media today, We should all demand that he is tried in Brussels at the court of human rights or not at all.

sdv

21:45 / 15.12.03

Blair will sidestep the death penalty issue by saying that it is "up to the Iraqi people" to decide what happens, and he couldn't possibly interfere with their judgement. Because of course, as we all know, it is now The Iraqi People that are running Iraq, not the US at all. Bush, of course, doesn't need to sidestep anything.

Oh look, I wrote that then did a quick Google:

Mr Straw says the Iraqi people will have to decide the former dictator's fate. (article)

05:03 / 16.12.03

Well, Bush has his trophy 'kill' now. I was pretty disgusted at the Vietnam-reminiscent photos of Saddam's sons being plastered all over the news, and it remains to be seen what will happen here.

NPR has been saying that, according to US officials, any 'trial' is a "long ways off"... probably about 9 months or so, if I don't miss my guess. With all the blabber about this being an Iraqi affair, I'm sure Dubya will want to have his claws in it somehow. I imagine the immediate push to have him tried in Iraq, as opposed to, say, the Hague, probably does have something to do with the Hague not being able to hand out the death penalty, and they don't want the possibility of his going to an international court to even come up.

As for this cementing Bush's chances next year, I doubt it. This, combined with the economy, will probably give his popularity ratings a temporary pop, but unless Iraq looks like heaven on earth come November 2004, I could see this being more of a detriment to his chances than an advantage. Iraqi citizen: "Yes, Mr. Bush, it's nice to have Hussein gone and all, but I haven't showered in a year..."

For some reason, I immediately pictured Bush, right after he heard the news, hopping around the oval office like a jacked-up monkey, shooting streams of jism all over the american flag... of course, I picture him like that on a regular day, too.

Tryphena Absent

08:12 / 16.12.03

We should all demand that he is tried in Brussels at the court of human rights or not at all

The problem is that there's no way to demand something like that. You're basically looking at a situation that's even more divorced from the general public than the original decision to start the war. Bush and the North American government aren't going to hear or see any objection to this at all, not because they can't but because no one's going to be arsed to scream loud enough about this... well, the general public won't.

Blair's a sick little puppy, a lawyer and the husband of a Judge, who is publicly saying nothing in response to the illegal acts of the US govt with regards to Guatanamo. Somehow I doubt he's going to worry his head about something as complicated as the type of trial Saddam Hussein gets. He should be demanding that we take the man to the international court but he won't. The more I consider the Prime Minister's background the sicker he makes me feel... he knows about this stuff and the only conclusion that I can get from this is that he's actually aware that he's doing the wrong thing through and through.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

09:37 / 16.12.03

Originally posted by Number Nun

"It seems many of you are really upset that Saddam was captured. It also seems that many of you have a strong passive aggressive side when it comes to the USA. Boy, I hate those bastards, but boy do I love watching consuming the entertainment goods they fill me up with!"

We're cynical about the whole thing, I don't think anyone's shedding tears for Hussein. And we know the differance between America, Americans and the Bush regime. It's the regime and the apparatus supporting it many are not to fond of and speaking as a Brit if anything we're more ashamed of our own govt., personally I think Blair should be charged with treason.

09:51 / 16.12.03

Blair will sidestep the death penalty issue by saying that it is "up to the Iraqi people" to decide what happens, and he couldn't possibly interfere with their judgement.

%Yeah, cos god knows, the last thing he'd ever want to do is interfere in the affairs of the Iraqi people..%

Yet another level on the big hypocrisy Tower of Babel..

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:55 / 16.12.03

Of course, on a closer look at the photos...

they got the wrong man. That's quite blatantly Castro.

"Sarge! You'll never guess where we found the fucker- he was hiding out in Cuba! Who'da thunk it?"

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:02 / 16.12.03

Yet another level on the big hypocrisy Tower of Babel..

except that the Tower of Babel was at least built with the intent of helping communication between cultures...

Gah. This whole thing fucks me off. Not his capture- yeah, the guy's a bastard, let's bring him to justice.

But somehow this has now become proof that us anti-war campaigners were WRONG? Come on...

I never doubted for a minute that Mr Hussein existed. All they've done is prove that he does. And that means my moral concerns over the whole rest of the circus are somehow unfounded?

Sorry, a night of reading the papers has made me angry. One day, I'm gonna meet Richard Littlejohn (or Peter Hitchens, or... insert right-wing hate figure here) down a dark alley, and me and my gang of gay asylum-seeking Muslims (some of whom may even be FEMINISTS!!! and ON THE FUCKING DOLE!!!) are gonna kick his fat ass all the way up through his intestines and out through that smug mouth of his so fast his teeth won't even know what it was that reduced them to a fine powder.

Honestly, you couldn't make it up.

11:29 / 16.12.03

Number Nun -- Europe is always prone to projecting its own self-loathing and guilt onto the USA and over the last couple of years, perhaps prompted by 9-11 schadenfreude, it's gone into overdrive. A quick look at some of the more fanciful allegations on this board (and much worse on others) will confirm this to you. There are, I'm afraid, quite a few people who do regret the capture of Saddam -- it's a your-enemy-is-my-friend kind of thing. And, while I certainly don't include Reidcourchie or many other 'Lithers in this, most people who claim that they are not anti-American but anti-war, anti-Bush, whatever, are full of shit.

Tryphena Absent

11:56 / 16.12.03

Hmm... of course people are anti-American, you can't take on the role of dominant world power and than expect anything less. I personally resent the fact that the US sets so much foreign policy (social and economic) in Britain but doesn't allow me a vote and I have a right to resent that because Bush is affecting my life but I will not have the slightest chance to rid my life of him. I resent the fact that the dominant nation has people who are stupid enough to swear someone in as their president when they're not even certain that it is him. Yes I perceive America as stupid, not all Americans but a helluva lot of them must be stupid to believe this is all okay. I perceive this majority of Americans as stupid just as I perceive the majority of British people as stupid (in fact only around two million British are okay and most of them have gone back to their closeted little lives in the last few months and thus are stupid).

Most people don't regret the capture of Saddam, they regret the fact that the media and the government(s) are going to use his capture in a deplorable way. It just appears to be clad in regret of the event rather than its manipulation.

12:09 / 16.12.03

Sorry, a night of reading the papers has made me angry. One day, I'm gonna meet Richard Littlejohn (or Peter Hitchens, or... insert right-wing hate figure here) down a dark alley, and me and my gang of gay asylum-seeking Muslims (some of whom may even be FEMINISTS!!! and ON THE FUCKING DOLE!!!) are gonna kick his fat ass all the way up through his intestines and out through that smug mouth of his so fast his teeth won't even know what it was that reduced them to a fine powder.

Oh, you should let him know, at least.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

12:15 / 16.12.03

Originally posted by Stoatie

"I never doubted for a minute that Mr Hussein existed."

Are you sure? I have been able to tell truth from lie for a couple of years now. If he didn't exist and all that....

I think I'm still joking.

I love America and Americans, other than my own perception that in general they tend to be more uncritically patriaotic (which is probably as much my own prejudices than an actual fact) and way too many guns I don't see how their any better or worse than us, the French or anyone else, just more powerful. The American govt., largely a bunch of arseholes, may have a disproportionate amount of influence on our lives but much of that is because our whoarish elected officials keep on fucking handing it to them. You can't blame Americans for it anymore than you can blame Brits.

12:45 / 16.12.03

Before I left for work, I thought I heard Richard Armitage (the Lawrence Tierneyesque Undersecretary of Defense) talking about Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. He was Hussein's number two, and is believed to be coordinating the attacks against troops, so they've actually been concentrating on finding him rather than Saddam.

With all our surveillance technology, satellites, UAVs, special ops, etc etc....

We can't find the Iraqi with the big red moustache!!!

12:55 / 16.12.03

Europe is always prone to projecting its own self-loathing and guilt onto the USA and over the last couple of years, perhaps prompted by 9-11 schadenfreude, it's gone into overdrive... most people who claim that they are not anti-American but anti-war, anti-Bush, whatever, are full of shit.

Is that so, Mr Krauthammer?

I'm sorry but this looks like the sort of pop psychology that commonly passes for argument in the media these days, and usually comes along with "criticism of the Israeli government is down to anti-Semitism". From right-wing intellectuals passing down their supposed intimate knowledge of Europe, to Mr Bush and "they hate freedom", the American media shakes its head sadly at the poor Europeans/Arabs/everyone, poisoned by their own hate and unable to see it, and resolves to quietly ignore the children until they can grow up.

Applying the psychoanalytic concept conveniently sidesteps debate and allows dissent to be explained away as pathology. Let's not mention the fact that it has no real-world basis apart from a few Vanity Fair columns, unless you think all those surveys across the world where the overwhelming opinion seems to be "I love American things but I hate American foreign policy" were just put there to confuse.

It annoys the fuck out of me, being basically patronising bullshit that not only perverts psychiatry like Social Darwinism perverts evolutionary theory but also provides a fake answer to the quite reasonable question "why does everyone disagree with our government?"

12:58 / 16.12.03

Tryphena -- so Americans are stupid? What about the French? Or the Irish? Russians? How about the Jews? The Arabs? What, do you think, are the stupidity quotients of the various nations and how can we present them without being accused of racism?

Maybe the "stupid" Britons you refer to have not closeted themselves from anything but outrageous violence on one side and sheer bloody hypocrisy on the other.

Maybe, given that the US has historically and proveably erred on the side of isolationism, what you see as an active takeover was actually handed them on a plate by the incompetence of the former Soviet Union, and it continues, aided solely by the repeated failure of our own, whiny, self-serving, two-faced, mendacious excuse for a continent to spend five minutes trying to unite without fucking each other over.

Anyway, this is complete thread-rot and a lesson in why not to post when you're trying to give up ciggies.

13:09 / 16.12.03

Let's not mention the fact that it has no real-world basis apart from a few Vanity Fair columns

Yeah, whatever, here are some keywords: Germany, psychosis, World War One, World War Two. I can't be arsed.

Tryphena Absent

13:24 / 16.12.03

Yes Ignatius, let us sit here and sip tea and completely ignore the dying people everywhere and then when a rugby team wins a game we can get excited about that. After all closeting gets you everywhere in this world and it's lovely to simply care for yourself and all of our soldiers, some of them our brothers and sisters, let them face the harsh reality of war while we sit safe. Let us also ignore the notion, that I was trying to suggest in using the people of my own nation as an example, that individuals are the stupid ones because they consistently roll in their own muddy ignorance. Let us ignore it all because nothing bad ever happens in this world because it's perfect or at least that's all we care to know or care about.

You're not the only one having a bad day.

Tryphena Absent

13:31 / 16.12.03

Oh and in response to this:

Europe is always prone to projecting its own self-loathing and guilt onto the USA

here are some keywords: Germany, psychosis, World War One, World War Two

Obviously that has nothing to do with the fact that quite a number of US residents were refugees after the Second World War because America couldn't possibly possess it's very own connection to the invasion of half of Europe by the Nazis. Oh no, it's got to be European self loathing and guilt, nothing to do with American citizens at all.

13:40 / 16.12.03

What, the Nazis were American too? Is there no end to the evil!

13:48 / 16.12.03

This is threadrot, but...

One can make a reasonable case that the Germans have felt a good deal of collective self loathing after the holocaust. The impact of this, as far as I can see, is that Germany has been quite unassertive in foreign affairs. Partly because the victors gave themselves the choice political roles globally, but not just that. Germany is, after all, Europe's economic heavyweight. In fact, the Iraq war probably marked a significant turning point for Germany in a new found global voice.

I can't see how that supports IJ's point (or the point I assume he would like to make). The "self loathing" of Europeans is a good line for people who don't distinguish between Germany and the UK. In any case, the effect has been more one of inaction than opposition.

13:53 / 16.12.03

Germany, psychosis, World War One, World War Two

Biting back the sarcasm, that is supposed to be an argument that European criticism of the USG is projected self-loathing? And what is "psychosis"? And what, for that matter, is the European mentality that can be so easily diagnosed by the DSM IV? Is there a big brain somewhere in Poland? And what about everywhere else in the world, what's the explanation for the fact that they disagree as well - perhaps some other medical condition, maybe Central and South America have syphilis...

Okay, I'm not doing very well at biting back the sarcasm so I will just stop.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:17 / 16.12.03

What, the Nazis were American too? Is there no end to the evil!

I believe Tryphena is referring to American commercial trade with Nazi Germany prior to Pearl Harbour, or perhaps even to the immigration policies of the USA during said period. You're the big fan of Google, Ignatius, you look it up (although I suspect you don't need to and are being, dare I say it, disingenuous). On reading many of your posts I am reminded of something Noam Chomsky said regarding how those who support the dominant ideology treat the arguments of those who differ:

'You can't deal with the arguments, that's plain; for one thing you have to know something, and most of these people don't know anything. Second, you would not be able to answer the arguments because they're correct. Therefore what you have to do is somehow dismiss it. One technique [is to say] "It's just emotional, it's irresponsible, it's angry".'

14:30 / 16.12.03

Coming in late, but as the thread’s all over the shop, I’m sure I’ll be welcome.
Right, cynical trousers on, pun pants to speed.

I think the wretched-looking Saddam deserves to be paraded on TV, after the way he so cruelly and shamelessly used captives for propaganda purposes. God, that was SO inhumane of him. I suppose we should be vaguely thankful that he didn’t show footage of dead people to make a point or something too, that would be a clear sign of an evil leader with no sense of morality and no respect for democracy. Oh, hang on a mo.

I like the self-congratulatory tone of the press conferences, as well. Took eight months (shocking and awesomely fast!), for all the much-vaunted 'intelligence'. Heh. Still, that'll teach him for what he did to the Twin Towe- oh, no, that was the other chap. The one GWB's Daddy paid to train. The one who's still free.

And I’m really enjoying the media repeating the claim that he was found in a ‘hole’. If you can fit a bed and books and stuff in it as he seems to have, it’s not a ‘hole’. It might be a cellar or whatever, but unless you’re trying to make a political point (what we used to call ‘lying’ in the old days, when ‘sleaze’ was known by its original name, ‘corruption’), don’t call it a hole. In fact, in London, we’d call it a studio flat and charge £125 a week rent for it.

14:30 / 16.12.03

Well then stop saying Americans are stupid, evil etc. and making up "crimes" where they don't exist. What difference will it really make who tries Saddam? It's going to be on TV. And how, given that the Iraqi people don't have a "real" government, are they served by an international court? God knows the US commit do enough in real life, you don't need to make stuff up on the back of tenuous "they deserve it" connections and speculation.

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