Tim, sorry it was unclear from my post whom I was referring to. It was "James A. Donald". I did put his message id in a reply-to header. Jim Dixon wrote:
Hitler, you mean? Or did you have Milosevic in mind?
No what I meant was what IF somehow Bush or Blaire or some other high ranking coalition politician were captured by Iraq during the war and was treated in the same way. I can only presume you would support Saddam's soldiers checking Bush for lice then. You are also utterly missing the point and you are one pretty good example of how "the mob" are thinking. EVERYONE, including Saddam, Pol Pot or whattever should be treated in accordance with the laws by us who call ourselves the free democratic part of the world. Then they shall stand trial. A fair trial and being represented by lawyers. What would be more satisfying for the critics of U.S. than to see U.S. not being able to get its act together and instead conducting itself in a manner inconsistent with international law during this rather criticl phase of the Iraqi campaign. Mark my words, U.S. will be in regret later. Jim Dixon, you also wrote some half trouths on the subject of Palestinians and the support they received. You should read up on this subject. Saddam also has a history of building up edicational institutions and so on. He recived awards by U.N. earlier on for his wellfare programs and the development Iraq was gaining. Anyone can check this up, just call U.N. in NY and you'll receive a few references I'm sure. What I mean by this is not to defend him in any way but I feel that this rewriting of history and propaganda is serving noone in the long run. If you believe that 100% of the arab world in their harts and minds hate Saddam you're wring. Very wrong. Steve Schear: thanks for your interesting post! Some people need to learn more of that. I also noticed on the news that CIA was conducting the questioning of Saddam. (Did anyone expect anything else?!) I guess this also means that U.S. now will join all dicatators and awful beasts in performing various forms of abuse and torture on him. Iraq formally removed the death penalty just a few weeks ago. Regardless of what you feel about that in general, I think it's embarrasing once again to see U.S. almost "lobbying" against the Iraqis to have them not honouring their own laws to satisfy Bush on this specific issue! Remember there's only one reason for Bush wanting to see Saddam dead and that he does. And that is the fact that "Saddam tried to kill my papa" as Bush put it, I've seen it in interviews myself. Jim Dixon, going through your post again I see yet another half trough, you write
The people on this list are less.. public humiliation and hanging of Americans..
And you seem to forget that U.S. was in bed with Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war era and that there was a friendly tone then. U.S. officials met with Iraqi, I think that Tareq Azis met with Reagan even? Your whole post is based on the feeling that we're gonna do what they did to us. In doing so you have manifested what has been written here about "gasing into the abyss" and so on. You have become what you hunt. Be ware. It is my opinion that we shall distinguish ourselves from these bastards by not committing their deeds ourselves. You seem not to agree on that. And that is a major mistake.