Did The Chinese Violate Any Treaties?

Rand Simberg wrote:
You don't really know almost anything about what happened in America's
history, do you?


Actually, I'm quite conversant, thanks.


And so when exactly did American forces invade Tunis? :-D

Pat


Pat

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_d...d_str=20061122

Saddam for hero role in India drama

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is poised to win folk hero status
in a communist-ruled corner of India thanks to a local theater group.

"We are trying to portray the character of Saddam as a warrior, a
freedom fighter who sacrifices his life for his motherland," said the
director of Uttam Opera, Haradhan Roy.

The open-air play, called Phasir Manjhe Saddam (Saddam at the Gallows),
will feature the drama of Saddam's trial and impending execution.

It is set to shock audiences in the West Bengal capital Kolkata,
formerly known as Calcutta, beginning December 2.

"The play will be exciting for its special effects of lights and
shadow," said Roy at his office, situated in a narrow, dusty street in
the northern part of the city.

"The play will show atrocities against the Iraqi people by the US
soldiers during the war, which was waged on a false pretext," he added,
explaining the main thrust of the plot was how "US leaders have
conspired against" Saddam.

The spectacle, which glosses over Saddam's blood-soaked reign, has
already received 31 bookings in West Bengal state and Roy said he has
received requests "from clubs and organizations across the country."

High-decibel open air theatre performances, known locally as jatras,
have been common in the region since medieval times.

They remain hugely popular in rural areas despite the growing reach of
satellite television and cinema.

Uttam Opera already has one Saddam play under its belt: Hero Saddam is
held by America was performed following the former dictator's arrest in
2003. An Iraqi court sentenced Saddam, ousted in a US-led invasion in
2003, to hang November 5 for the deaths of 148 Shiites in an Iraqi
village in 1982, after an attempt to assassinate him.

Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he expects Saddam to be
hanged before the end of the year.

Oil-hungry India enjoyed cosy ties with Iraq during the Cold War.

New Delhi kept its diplomatic channels open with Saddam's all- powerful
Baath party after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=39905

Saddam: a lesson for Third World leaders
By Anil Datta

Saddam's hanging, ghastly as it may have been, certainly was nothing
unexpected. Despite the totally unconvincing US denials, Washington's
role in the whole sordid affair could never be denied when we consider
the fact that the people of Iraq had nothing to do with Saddam's
trial and subsequent hanging. Paul Bremer, the former US administrator
of occupied Iraq, handpicked the jury. The judges had been briefed and
trained in the US. Of course, Washington had the quisling government of
Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki to do the hangman's job. The US' role
in the execution could be gauged from George Bush's laudatory
statement immediately after the hanging to the effect that the event
was an important milestone on the road to democracy. The question that
comes to mind on hearing Bush's hailer is: is democracy really a
system worth striving for if it entails such unmitigated savagery?

Perhaps even a moron would not have a problem seeing through the very
thinly veiled excuses for the rape of Iraq. First it was the WMDs,
weapons of mass destruction (or, to be more precise, the weapons of
mass delusion) that were cited as the justification for riding
roughshod over the sovereignty of a defenceless country. Then it was
Iraq's "Al-Qaeda connection" and the US determination to win the
"war on terror", a mere euphemism for the US' war of loot and
plunder, a naked drive to establish a stranglehold over Iraq's oil
and get its virtual ownership for US-based multinationals, many of
which have ownership interests of the Bush and Cheney families.

This is borne out by the recent US move to throw Iraq's oil wealth up
for grabs and Washington is reported to be drawing up a bill which
would give US-based oil giants like Exxon 30-year contracts to extract
Iraqi Crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil
interests in the country since the oil business in Iraq was
nationalised in 1972. And the cruel irony of it all--hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis, even children as young as five, had to fall victim
to the wrath of the occupying US GIs, all for the bonanza to be reaped
by a handful of oil tycoon families in the US. The next-of-kin of the
over-three-thousand US troops who have laid down their lives in this
war of aggression will not even remotely be the beneficiaries of the
pillage and plunder. It will be just a handful of oil tycoon families,
including those on Capitol Hill.

The most comically cruel irony of it all is the inherent hypocrisy.
Saddam has been punished for "crimes against humanity", in that he
presided over the killing of 148 Shias in Dujail in 1982. Saddam has
been hanged for the killing of 148 Shias. So it is really mind-boggling
to imagine what the punishment for those responsible for the killing of
6,55,000 Iraqis since March 2003, should be. The difference between 148
and 6,55,000 is simply astronomical.

Besides, Saddam is said to have had these people killed in 1982, a
point in time when he was the darling of the US State Department. He
was an indispensable ally in the US machinations against Iran. That is
the point in time when he was given a blank cheque for the latest arms
and chemical weapons by none other than the US, all to humble Iran.
Saddam was a proxy in the US campaign against Khomeini. This reflects
so deplorably on the mental state of the US authorities, implying that
it took them twenty-four long years to realise that Saddam was guilty
of the crime.

The defects in the trial could be gauged from the fact that so many
witnesses to the purported crimes and those who were eyewitness to what
really happened would have slipped into the past over the course of
more than two decades, as would those who also must be privy to the US
role in her secret war against Khomeini. Besides, three judges of
Saddam's defence team had been murdered. The US occupation
authorities handpicked the jury. How could one ever expect a neutral
trial under the shadow of the occupying jackboot? History does not come
up with a single example where the verdict of a trial court has gone
against the wishes of the occupation authorities.

Bush and all the president's men on Capitol Hill time and again
remind us that the US had nothing to do with the trial or the death
verdict, that it was all an Iraqi affair. One may well ask here why, if
it was all an Iraqi affair, was Saddam in the possession of the US
occupation forces and delivered to the Iraqis only at the time of the
hanging. Had it been a purely Iraqi affair, then according to the Iraqi
law and constitution there should have been a one-month period for an
appeal against the trial and then for a clemency plea to the head of
state, a formality that never was observed. The US-prodded Iraqi
authorities were in a desperate hurry to eliminate him. Saddam's
execution was extreme travesty of justice. The manner wherein the
execution was carried out, hurriedly, secretively, in the dead of the
night, speaks volumes for the stampeding of justice.

The question that begs an answer is: why this hurry? On a little
searching, the answer is not hard to come by. There could be no two
opinions about it that it was because Saddam knew a bit too much. In
case of another trial, he could well have let the cat out of the bag
and spilt the beans on the US. Obviously he knew more than the US could
have liked him to know about the innermost workings of the US
Intelligence establishment.

We saw this earlier in 1989 when Panamanian President Manuel Noriega
was one fine morning accused of being a drug racketeer and arrested by
invading US GIs. The obvious reason that comes to mind is that Noriega
had been a CIA operative when former US President George Bush Sr was
the head of the Intelligence agency. He knew too much and could at some
juncture have been a real embarrassment to Bush Sr. Therefore, he had
to be silenced.

This was also seen during the Vietnam War when US' favourite
Vietnamese leaders were handpicked and then removed within a short time
and silenced so very often because they had been working in close
tandem with the inner establishment in Washington.

Apart from other things, this is a very timely lesson to all those
Third World leaders who maintain a very close liaison with the US for
personal reasons, who implement US foreign policy across the globe,
utterly oblivious to national interests and those of their masses.
Post-1945 history is replete with examples where the US has shown scant
regard for the loyalty and services rendered by Third World leaders.

The writer is a staff member.

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

:In article om,
: wrote:
: You start a draft when your country is under attack, not when you decide
: to invade another country.
:
:September 11, 2001.
:
:The Sept. 11th attacks were conducted by a small band of criminals,
:loosely backed by one government which no longer exists (the Taliban
:regime of Afghanistan). They can't reasonably be used as an excuse to
:impose conscription for any purpose you please, 5+ years later.
:
Of course, the secret motto of the Department of Fatherland Security is
:"we have to destroy freedom to save it" :-), but this seems a trifle
:excessive even so.)
:
:There might be some sense to it if the proposed draft were for the purpose
f pacifying *Afghanistan* and finally stamping the Taliban out once and
:for all -- and heaven knows, that could use doing. But Iraq is an
:unrelated side show.

The only people proposing a draft are left-wing Democrats.

:
: ...and if the
: President tries to start a draft, he's going to impeached inside of 48
: hours...and rightfully so.
:
:Why impeached? Doesn't Congress have to authorize conscription? Surely
:all they have to do is laugh at him, not impeach him.
:
:If he asked for something so stupid, they might feel that the process of
:regime change couldn't reasonably wait another two years.

Again, the only people proposing a draft are left-wing Democrats
(usually Rangel, D-NY).

--
"You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of
your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear."
-- Mark Twain

Henry Spencer wrote:
In article om,
wrote:
You start a draft when your country is under attack, not when you decide
to invade another country.
September 11, 2001.

The Sept. 11th attacks were conducted by a small band of criminals,
loosely backed by one government which no longer exists (the Taliban
regime of Afghanistan). They can't reasonably be used as an excuse to
impose conscription for any purpose you please, 5+ years later.

Generally, I would agree, but not here. The rationale isn't the
Taliban or even directly Iraq. The simple fact of the matter is that
the US is overcommitted and we do not have sufficient reserves to
handle any new threats or emergencies. We've been losing strength
for the past few years. We've already lost about a division's worth
of casualties as well as declining enlistments to backfill those
slots. We're losing a disproportionate amount of second term enlistees
who normally decide to re-enlist. (Generally, the people who complete
their second enlistment tend to retire in the military after 20. Leaving
at the end of 8 or 12 years is a huge red flag). The Army and Marines
have reduced standards to below that of the Carter Administration's
level of requirements. They have then also been publishing overly
optimistic re-enlistment news based upon meeting ever decreasing quotas
rather than hard requirements for maintaining combat effectiveness.

We've had peacetime drafts before. There is a solid requirement now
to maintain certain levels of force and there is no real expectation
of maintaining that level with the current situation and qualified
people are even more noticable in their absence than their volunteering.
(Doubly true of upper income war supporters).

The truth of the matter is quite simple. The Bush administration
has tried to do this on the cheap from day 1. They opposes increasing
the size of the military in the 2003 budget when this started and
Congress overrode that objection. They have consistently opposed any
other increase in military spending or budget since then[1].

When you push through tax cuts and fight a war on credit, you're
really not big on the whole sacrifice concept.


(Of course, the secret motto of the Department of Fatherland Security is
"we have to destroy freedom to save it" :-), but this seems a trifle
excessive even so.)

There might be some sense to it if the proposed draft were for the purpose
of pacifying *Afghanistan* and finally stamping the Taliban out once and
for all -- and heaven knows, that could use doing. But Iraq is an
unrelated side show.


We're likely to be in a shooting war with either Syria or Iran soon.
Side show, or not, that does not decrease the risk of having no reserves
and the potential loss of a lot of qualified military personnel.

...and if the
President tries to start a draft, he's going to impeached inside of 48
hours...and rightfully so.
Why impeached? Doesn't Congress have to authorize conscription? Surely
all they have to do is laugh at him, not impeach him.

If he asked for something so stupid, they might feel that the process of
regime change couldn't reasonably wait another two years.

I am not sure about that. The democrats have been the ones who have
been pushing for the increase in the size of the military and they
have been the ones who have pushed draft legislation. Personally,
I would be shocked and pleasantly surprised if anyone near the
administration actually did *any* contingency planning[2],
much less took any steps towards meeting the possible requirements.

Now, if Bush's current hostile stance towards Iran leads to a
shooting war, then there will be some serious doubts as to
the provocation of such a war. His current rules of engagement
are almost designed to lead to an escalation incident. An outright
bombing of Iranian oil platforms or other targets would be very
questionable.


[1] http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1203/121003cdpm1.htm



[2]
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/election...ity_of_failure

"It's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails
when you're trying to make a plan work."

-- Condoleezza Rice, quoted in The Washington Post speaking at today's
hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (special thanks
to TPM Reader SW for the tip)

On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 01:56:04 -0700, in a place far, far away, Charles
Buckley made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:


Now, if Bush's current hostile stance towards Iran

What planet are you posting this from, and what color is the sky
there?

On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 04:26:42 GMT, in a place far, far away, Fred J.
McCall made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

:In article om,
: wrote:
: You start a draft when your country is under attack, not when you decide
: to invade another country.
:
:September 11, 2001.
:
:The Sept. 11th attacks were conducted by a small band of criminals,
:loosely backed by one government which no longer exists (the Taliban
:regime of Afghanistan).

That "gang of criminals" still exists, and continues to be funded in
the same manner as it was on 911, from a lot of Saudi oil money, and
protected by tribal leaders in the anarchy of Waziristan.

Rand Simberg wrote:
That "gang of criminals" still exists, and continues to be funded in
the same manner as it was on 911, from a lot of Saudi oil money, and
protected by tribal leaders in the anarchy of Waziristan.


Okay.. what the **** is "Waziristan"?

Pat

On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 08:17:04 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Rand Simberg wrote:
That "gang of criminals" still exists, and continues to be funded in
the same manner as it was on 911, from a lot of Saudi oil money, and
protected by tribal leaders in the anarchy of Waziristan.


Okay.. what the **** is "Waziristan"?

You want to argue about Bush's evil war, and be taken seriously, and
don't know what Waziristan is?

Rand Simberg wrote:

no minority is being exterminated in Iraq. Even if all the Sunnis or
Shia there were killed (unlikely), there'd be millions of others
elsewhere.

So because there were Jews elsewhere, the Holocaust doesn't count as
genocide?


No. The intent was to wipe out the Jews. If Hitler had achieved his
ultimate ambition of world domination he would have done so.

So those killing Sunnis are restricting their efforts to Iraqi Sunnis?