Saddam: no evidence of Genocide

segovious, would you FedEx me a couple of pounds of whatever you're smoking?

An evidence should have been :
- 1) an executive order of gassing signed by SH
- 2) direct testimony.

1) Even if such evidences where found in Staline case. ( a list of 700 people to be killed, with the following handwrite comment of Staline himself: kill 3000), I doubt that SH signed such documents. His orals order where more than sufficiant. Perhaps he did not even give such orders, and just said to his army : kill the rebellion by any way.

2)The problem with direct testimony, is that the generals involved with this genocide are :
- dead
- will not cooperate (their case is desesperate, they can't save their ass, just by saying SH ordered this).

you want to let satan bugger your lungs too?

i thought the cia already knew the gas was ogf iranian origin anyway, havn't we already had this topic?

The Halabjah thing is complicated. I'll explain it in detail sometime today when I have a chance.

That's a good point, though, segovius. It hadn't occured to me that they might try to revive it to demonize Iran.

@segovius

Mind answering a question for us that's to lazy to google? (It's late, ok) If you can on top of your head that is, no use in making other people do googling for you.

Is the genocide charges pressed against him only tied to the gassing of the Kurds in Hallabja?

After looking into this once before, My understanding is that there was some evidence that it was Iran rather than Iraq. But it seems pretty murky.

edit:

Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the controversy. I'd be willing to bet that Iraq did it, but since they did it when they were under the wing of the US, we denied it and falsely blamed it on Iran. But who knows.

That wikipedia article is and has been WRONG for a long time. It is very important to remember that wikipedia, as invaluable as it is, is totally useless for anything that has been recently at the forefront of political consciousness. The only reason I haven't changed it is because after writing a long paper on this for the heads of some of the large NGOs I basically became sick of the subject. If someone would please correct the wikipedia entry, it would be a great service for people looking for factual information (take as much of this post as you want). I will give you some of the info here.

First, it obviously totally mischaracterizes Pelletiere's position, even though he explicitly states it in the third paragraph of his NYT editorial.

Pelletiere was the senior analyst in the CIA on the war. As he notes in the three sources I am providing for him, the CIA's conclusion of Iranian culpability was simply a retelling of the DIA's conclusion. His position has consistently been not that the DIA conclusion was 100% accurate, but that the DIA came to the conclusion, making it into the official CIA report and becoming the official CIA position, and yet the Bush administration has tried to pretend otherwise.

NYT Editorial
Video of Pelletiere Lecture pt 1
Pelletiere Lecture pt 2

Next, we have the Glen Rangwala's analysis posted to the CASI listserv referencing most of the studies done. Glen Rangwala also compiled Claims and Evaluations of Iraq's Proscribed Weapons. His analysis in the CASI post is the best public one to date and touches on a lot of the various issues and provides some good background.

However, he does not accurately charaterize Pelletiere (apparently was not aware that he was the CIA's top analyst on the war) and his claim that the war was not closely examined by the authors is subsequently very false. Another possible problem is the explanation of the presence of cyanide through tabun decomposition, since decomposition could take far longer. For these reasons, while I am swayed by Rangwala's argument, it does have those weak points which have not been addressed and likely will not be since it would require examining classified information the CIA has on the battle.

What is not open for discussion is the fact that it was part of a battle, in fact one of the major battles of the Iran-Iraq war.

This fact is not disputed by anyone, so claiming that this was just part of a genocidal campaign is just wrong by all accounts, and everyone knows this. At the same time, al-obaidi, in his aljazeera article and the note linked in segovius' post, is making leaps without evidence to back it up, and he's ignoring (or unaware of) rangwala's analysis and the work cited in his post. If the US did decide to avoid touching on halabja, it's likely because of what's been cited here.

Read Rangwala's post. It's a weath of information.

Ranwala on Halabjah

Also, the army war college report can be found on FAS:

Lessons Learned: Iran-Iraq War

The important mention is on page 2 of appendix b

The links I've mentioned here ecompasses basically everything online that's of importance.

As you can see, it's a very complicated issue.

Edited for spelling and clarity

Still waiting on Scott, SDW, NaplesX and Common Man to rebut this.

*drums fingers on desk*.....

Sorry SJO for my tardy reply. I was out of town for the holiday of the genocidal christians. Don't worry, I gave my sister in law a tongue lashing for her crimes against the world as a member of the catholic church. She was suicidal when I got done. You'd be proud.


Anyway, yea! Saddam is innocent. I stated that many months ago. If Kofi Annan had any balls the UN army would invade the US and force Bush to pull out of Iraq and put Saddam back in charge. That would be the proper thing under international law.

So when there's no real response, a serious issue is responded to with sarcasm. I'm sorry, but this is a typical reaction of a right winger.

I'm sorry. Was there a serious issue being discussed?

Actually Scott, no, there is not a serious topic being discussed. Not at all.

The topic title "Saddam: No evidence of Genocide" is wholly unsupported by anything posted here. Linking to several scholarly articles/postings and websites that are the purveyors of opinion does not prove the topic's premise.

All we really have is giant's assertion that the wikipedia.org account is all wrong. That shouldn't surprise anyone, since the wikipedia account is actually balanced and provides ample support for the notion that Iraq was responsible.

So if the 'serious' topic that we are discussing is, in fact true - I mean, can anyone here actually believe that SH is not guilty of genocide? - what, pray tell is the solution?

It would seem the topic is yet another attempt at throwing mud at this administration. You are actually accusing it of conspiring to overlook the worst dictator since Hitler to promote another war with Iran.

You have assumed a lot (as usual) and placed the blame for the prosecutors inability to find evidence against SH, squarely on the shoulders of GWB. You then take that leap of hate and profess the belief that GWB is behind the supposed deception. All this assumption and conjecture to bolster the point that GWB and Co. are warmongers.

It seems that you want everyone to consider your irresponsible rhetoric and incessant conjecture seriously. Surely you knew that fairy tale of a premise would be dismissed wholesale, except for the usual "progressives", didn't you?

So I ask you once again, what is your solution, other than slinging mud at this president?

That's what I thought.

Maybe the prosecutors could look at these websites for some help:

http://massgraves.info/
http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/legacyofterror.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3738368.stm
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0503/

Just a suggestion.

As a side note, maybe someone can tell us who the prosecution team is.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2063934/

Yep.

Well if it's true or not why were we involved? This sort of thing happens around the world all the time. Not that I have a blind eye to it. But to be honest and fair we would have to go to all these places and oust their dictator.All the time from now on!

This administration throws mud on itself. No one has to do it for them.

Fine. But to follow your own way of thinking, then those dictators that we oust would have to first:

1. Tally up countless UN resolutions or 13 years of reprehensable behavior, whichever comes first.

2. In the process invade and threaten all of it;s neighbors and anyone else that doesn't agree with the,

3. Pay terrorists in other countries for killing innocents.

3. Have shady alliances with known terrorist groups that have attacked US interests.

If they can meat with those criteria, I am totally cool with your your "all the time from now on" mantra.

Is that going to be your new tag-line at the end of every post now?

Yes but we had to be involved for all those things to have any kind of personal impact.

As to the other things Saddam isn't the first or last to act this way.

As to the UN why do you even care? Bush thumbed his nose at the UN over this war issue so why keep bringing up this aspect? Obviously Bush didn't care for the UN anymore than Saddam did.

That was before my time.

I'm a musician, we can't count past 4 anyway.

Test 1...2...3...3

I love your liberalness in meaning of words, very uncharacteristic of you.

Well yeah, it is widely known that SH supported the Palestinian suicide bombers/terrorists.

Israel's relationship with the UN is hardly comparable to Iraq's.

What terrorists does the us pay to kill innocent civilians?

And despite me having 3 come after 3, neither the US or Israel meet all requirements.

" Israel's relationship with the UN is hardly comparable to Iraq's. "

How about the U.S.'s .

You and your silly definitions.

The talaban were used to defeat the soviets, remember that. They were not employed to continue to help terrorists. There is a point of disconnect that you are unwilling to accept, it would seem.

Ditto for Hamas and Israel. Your premise is a lie.

I count 76 resolutions since 1990 and 90 or so altogether.

http://www.casi.org.uk/info/scriraq.html

please don't post a link to a geocities site when you and your progressive buddies vehemently attack anyone of opposite view from yours that does.

I hope you progressives will admonish seggy for his use of such questionable sources... I know the rule only applies to your opponents.

Carry on.

There you go with that " UN " thing again. Why is that even relevant after what Bush did?

You keep clinging to that idea that it was wrong for Saddam to have ignored the UN but it's ok for our president to do that.

Lame, lame, lame

The UN did not have resolutions against the US . They did have resolutions against SH. Big difference.

CM ( sigh ) haven't you read the rest of the thread???????

I was refering to the fact that why should the UN be a concern to consevatives in this matter since Bush thumbed his nose at the UN over starting this war. And yes it's a fact!

Read the rest of the thread before commenting next time.