James A. Donald wrote:

Firstly, the US army has not violated the Geneva convention: Saddam was eligible for being shot on sight.

That might have been. But he was not, and he is shown and "paraded" on TV (and don't tell me he wasn't because showing a man in his state, showing how he gets examined is clearly an attempt to "break the morale").

Secondly; It is being overly sensitive about the feelings of those poor fragile souls that hate us and seek to murder us, that got us into these trouble. Our enemies take it for weakness, reasonably enough. We should make it obvious that nothing will stop us from striking at our enemies, that we will cheerfully wade knee deep through blood and the body parts of innocents to destroy those that threaten us, as the crusaders waded to the holy sepulchre.

Most people outside of the US are blissfully aware of this. After all they had bombs dropped on them for the last 50 years, being shot at by people that were founded by the US Government (have a look at South America) and so forth. It is almost astonishing to hear arguments like these. You (and people who make these arguments) sound like the kid who gets smacked after burning down the house and then starting to cry and call foul.

As Bin laden said slaughtering the occupants of the twin towers made them look strong: : : "when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by : : nature, they will like the strong horse. This is : : only one goal; those who want people to worship the : : lord of the people, without following that doctrine, : : will be following the doctrine of Muhammad, peace be : : upon him"

So you advocate to "follow Bin Ladin"? If you (as in the US Government) consider him evil, then following him and do the same way he does makes you evil as well. Having said that: What makes you the "good guy"?

To the best of my knowledge, the UN only grants those awards to those who inflict quite extraordinary ruin and horrible destruction on their subjects -- such awards are as infamous and perverse as the UN human rights commission, headed by Libya las time I heard.

Of course Libya is evil when it doesn't fit into the US foreign policy, but is a "good friend' when you can send someone there to get "vital information". If that involves torture than this is none of your business. It is sort of ironic that a state like the US can claim no interrest in how the information was obtained and cheerfully extorts people to countries where they know very clearly that those people will be tortured. It seems not even another passport (like say, Canadian) is protecting those people from the wrath and zeal of the US Administration and their henchman. If the Henchman happens to wear a turban while doing his deed, it is fine, as long as it is done under US Supervision, which can be denied if need be.

The UN is a cartel of governments against their subjects. Just as a cartel of ordinary businesses requires its members to charge high prices and supply low quality, and grants honor and recognition to those members that charge remarkably high prices and unusually low quality, in the same way the UN grants honor and recognition to unusually destructive episodes of looting and pillaging against formerly prosperous law abiding peaceful subjects.

The UN is a meeting chamber. The UN is an ability for countries to meet and try to find solutions that do not involve dropping heavy explosives on other peoples head. The UN also fails regularly because heavy weights like the US use it to throw their weight around. If there would be a proportional (as in number of people living in a country) representation the tables would turn very very quickly. The UN security council should be dropped in it's current form and instead should be re-created without any permanent members or any countries power to veto the decisions.

The UN was established to protect against direct military conflict, but in ordinary day to day life, peaceful competition is a greater threat to the rulers, for example "harmful tax competition". One of the major goals of the EU is to restrain 'harmful tax competition". Similarly one of the major goals of the WTO is to prevent what cypherpunks call regulatory arbitrage.

It is not the leaders of most countries I am afraid of. It is the leaders of a handful of countries which possess the most power and have no problem in abusing it to further their own agenda. Michael

James A, Donald writes:

I see: So when the US army is so unkind as to film Saddam acting submissive, this is a shocking violation of his human rights, and your bleeding heart feels for him deeply.

But when, however, people fly a plainload of passengers into two tall buildings and murder thousands, those dreadful Americans had it coming, were justly smacked like a naughty child, and have no right to get indignant.

The two events are completely unrelated, except for the fact that 9/11 gave the US the additional hubris it needed to launch an unprovoked war of agression against another sovereign nation, in violation of international law and the wishes of the world community. Saddam's capture is the poisoned fruit of an illegal occupation, which is itself the poisoned fruit of an illegal invasion, whose clear purpose, despite the lies about Saddam's ready to launch nuclear weapons, was to control Iraq's oil, and eliminate support for the oppressed Palestinians. Bush knew that as long as he managed to attack Iraq, using any pretense, he would never be forced to leave once the excuses were revealed as lies, because if there's two things America is structurally incapable of doing, it's accepting blame and apologizing. Every American soldier in Iraq right now is a war criminal. Every dead Iraqi is a murder victim. As one writer so aptly put it... "For months we have wanted to get our hands on the warmonger who terrorized the world with weapons of mass destruction. But, as we couldn't get George Bush, we had to make do with Saddam Hussein." -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"