U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?

[Michael Kalus]

James A. Donald wrote:

>    --
>On 17 Dec 2003 at 22:54, Michael Kalus wrote:
>  
>
>>No, but it is very interresting that all of this didn't 
>>matter while Saddam was the "good guy" for our causes (and by 
>>that I mean the Western world general).
>>    
>>
>
>You are making up your own history. 
>
Am I? The west traded heavily with him, be it the US, France, Germany, 
the UK. Nobody was left out. All dealt with Saddam and made a lot of 
money off of him.


>When Saddam came to power, 
>he seized western property and murdered westerners, especially 
>Americans, and you lot cheered him to an echo.
>
Who is "you lot"?

[...]

So in September 1980, Hussein's troops crossed the border into Iran. At 
first the war went well for Iraq, but eventually Iranian forces pushed 
the invaders out of their country. By spring 1982, the Iranians had gone 
on the offensive. And that greatly worried the Reagan White House, 
knowing that an Iranian victory could have a disastrous effect on 
America's power base in the oil-rich Middle East.

Before long the Reagan administration began openly courting Saddam 
Hussein. In 1982, the United States removed Iraq from its list of 
countries that supported state-sponsored terrorism. In December 1983, 
President Reagan sent to Baghdad none other than Donald Rumsfeld, then 
special envoy to the Middle East and today one of Hussein's harshest 
critics as U.S. secretary of defense. Rumsfeld's visit opened up 
America's relations with Iraq for the first time since the Arab-Israeli 
war in 1967. Later, Rumsfeld said that "it struck us as useful to have a 
relationship" and revealed that Hussein had indicated he wasn't 
interested in causing problems in the world.

[...]

http://tlc.discovery.com/convergence/iraqwar/timeline/timeline_03.html

> Saddam was 
>always an enemy of the west, he was never a good guy. 
>
Does the " mean anything to you? He was our "good guy" as long as we 
though we could use him.


> He was 
>at times an ally, in the sense that Stalin and Pol Pot were at 
>times temporary allies, yet somehow I never see you fans of 
>slavery and mass murder criticizing the west for allying with 
>Stalin.
>  
>

I think the circumstances where a bit different at this point in time. 
Besides. Nobody (at least not I) said anything about "supporting" him or 
"cheering" for Saddam. The Question here is not if he is a bad man or a 
good man. It is not if he did or did not do what they accuse him of. But 
it is about the double morale that the west has been advocating for the 
past 50 years. Especially when it comes to Oil.

It is astonishing that it was okay for Saddam to be as evil as be and we 
(as a society) turned a blind eye to it, until WE (for whatever reason) 
felt threatened by him and than dragged it all out again, just to proof 
how bad he is. Face it. If the West didn't want Saddam in Power they 
could have removed him a long time ago. The matter of fact is, we are as 
much to blame for what happened to the people in Iraq as is Saddam, if 
not more so.


>Evil men, by their nature, find themselves in conflict with 
>other evil men for the same reasons as good men do. 
>
So where do your enlightened Western Politicians fit in? Good or Evil?


> Thus evil 
>men and good men will often find themselves in a temporary 
>alliance of convenience against a common enemy, an alliance
>that both sides know will end in war or near war fairly soon.
>  
>

I suggest you read Chomsky's new book, and if only as a reference to the 
sources he lists.

>This however seldom leads good men to mistake evil men for
>'good guys" 
>  
>
No, but it leads good men to become evil. If you ally with the enemy 
than you are giving up what makes you good. Turning away when someone is 
abused doesn't make the abuse stop and it makes you just as guilty as 
the one who commits the abuse.

Ignorance might be bliss for most people, but from an ethical and moral 
standpoint it is not.

Parading Saddam around and humiliating him just shows how low we really 
are, despite the fact that we don't want to acknowledge it ourselves.

Michael