Saddam's suspended sentence

Let's be clear in the preliminary. Those that opposed the war were accused of supporting Saddam's desire to develop WMD. We are no friends of Saddam and shed no tears on hearing of his death.

What is a shame is that the CIA man who was killed by pro-Iranian Shia factions was not tried for more deaths than the 148 people of Dujail in 1982. After all, remember what Tony Blair said in his speech to the Labour Party conference in Glasgow on 15 February 2003 - that historic day when two million took to the streets in protest against the neocon war:

If there are 500,000 on the march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for. If there are one million, that is still less than the number of people who died in the wars he started.

As it was, he underestimated the numbers that actually turned up. And then he went on to ignore them and rival up to Saddam in the "number of people who died in the wars he started".

Much has already been written about regarding the obvious desire of the US and UK to avoid a wider trial where tales would include Donald Rumsfeld enjoying Quality Street with Saddam to supply the latter weapons used in, for example, the gassing of his own people in 1988 that we heard so much about before the war.

Saddam didn't get his day in court as far as this was concerned, but he had been under lock and key for three years. While not feeding birds and watering weeds, I speculate that he must have written some memoirs. I wonder what happened to them. Maybe the US or the Iraqis would release the papers under Freedom of Information.

Comments

[johnmellor77]

Whoops. Well, you got me there! Pesky remember personal info box!

Unfortunately, I'm not the one who claims his words are regularly twisted yet believes resists, desists and co-operates are interchangeble.

Similarly, poor Joe90's level of reading comprehension is so low I thought he might appreciate the help for future use. He tries so hard ye alsways comes up short. I'm full of pity for the wee tyke.

[johnmellor77]

"yet always."
I really am on fire tonight.

[joe90]

he is awash in a sea stuffed to the gunnels
- being 'stuffed to the gunnels' is a common expression used in lots of different situations

So I thought it would be a spiffing wheeze to use it to refer to the sea being 'stuffed to the gunnels', thus using this everyday common expression, but (and here's the really clever bit) keeping it in its original context, from whence it came, but inverting the normal relationship betwixt boat and water!

Thanks for the usual sound effect, and the tip on English language usage - but you're wasted on me.

The next time I ship land, and I'm sitting down with the salty old sea-dogs of Mallaig and KLB, splicin the mainbrace and drinkin rum with the land-lubbers and singing me sea-shanties, I'll always remember the peculiar orthographic ways of the sea, and how certain wandering souls lost to the waves can never rest if 'gunnel' isn't spelt proper - same with f'o'scle etc!

[joe90]

I really am on fire tonight.

Now there's a thought - if wishes were fishes!

[johnmellor77]

Indeed stuffed to the gunnels (sic) is a commonly used phrase but you still managed to use it incorrectly. Fantastic.

"Inverting the usual relationship between boat and water." You mean you used that phrase to suggest water floating on boats?

[joe90]

"Water, water, everywhere, n'or a drop to drink!"
- from 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6345.shtml>With the New Year, will Ha'aretz's op-ed page be any different?
Zachary Wales
The Electronic Intifada,
03 Jan 2007

There is a photo of a mini-bus filled with militanto arabo islamo extre-moists, just sitting back and watching the precious water of the ME region being deliberately wasted and squandered - no wonder they have to use camels to get about if this is how they treat their mini-buses!

Wasting the world's precious resources, who do these people think they are, us?

[joe90]

I do beg your indulgence,
I'm in a funny mood tonight but what about this -

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/78017.html>Nato admits to killing too many civilians in Afghanistan conflict
"The single thing that we have done wrong and we are striving extremely hard to improve on (in 2007) is killing innocent civilians," said Brigadier Richard Nugee, chief spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).
by
Jason Straziuso
The Herald
04 Jan 2007

As well as admitting to being a war criminal thug, does this depraved NATO beast mean he isn't killing enough innocent defenceless Afghanis, or too many?

How many murders is that Tony Blair, the new Butcher of Baghdad and Beruit, is responsible for, compared to Saddam?

[John Palubiski]

Damned lucky? Saddam's Iraq became one of the Arab world's most advanced industrial nations, and was becoming too independent, so they destroyed its infrastructure and put sanctions on him, killing millions because of lack of food/medicine, and then used the desperation to extort oil wealth out for meager crumbs in return.

You're quite right. Saddam did make some progress in modernising Iraq.

How can Saddam be a pure product of Islam when he was a secular nationalist, a Baathist, socialist, etc etc. He implemented many anti-Islamic things during his life,

Once again, I agree.

You've hit upon something important with those two statements, MonkeyZerg, but I don't think you realise just what that importance is.

Saddam was a secularist and a socialist, as you stated.

Saddam's Iraq, as you pointed out, made significant progress towards modernisation and isdustrialisation.

One can, thus, conclude that the more a muslim society de-emphasises Islam, the greater the chances are that that society will move into the modern age!

You stumbled upon a gold nugget and didn't even realist it!

As for America wanting to keep the M.E. supine? You're only partly right about that. America has nothing against the Middle East making significant ecomonic progress, but that progress, because America IS an imperial power, must take place within a framework that does not threaten the stability of the whole region.

And what's wrong with stability, exactly?

You see, so much of the Arabo/Muslim world has been so moribund for so long; it has remained in idle for such an extended period of time, that it is too far behind the rest of humanity to catch up unaided.

Civilisational groupings that abdicate progress, evolution, modernisation and intellectual inquiry must necessarily, at some point, be placed in a kind of foster home for their own good, and so that they can be rightly guided back onto the path of progress.

Power moves into a vacum, MonkeyZerg, and sucidice bombings and other "terrorist" stunts provide very, very little air pressure with which to fill that vacum......

The American "imperialism" you denounce, and about which no one can really do anything in any case, is a double-edged sword. It can be VERY beneficial or very oppressive, depending on how one reacts and on whether one has the smarts (maturity/humility?) to leverage its enormous potential.

America may well be little more than Allah's alarm-clock.

Ding,ding.

[joe90]

Civilisational groupings that abdicate progress, evolution, modernisation and intellectual inquiry must necessarily, at some point, be placed in a kind of foster home for their own good, and so that they can be rightly guided back onto the path of progress.
- I couldn't agree more,
put the world's leading war criminals, butchers and racist mass-murders, Bush, Blair and Olmert, into foster homes, although we in the UK like to refer to them as 'jails' - not for their own good, though, but to protect the rest of us from them.

The American "imperialism" you denounce, and about which no one can really do anything in any case,..
- try telling that to the Armed Iraqi Resistence Movement, and also the Iraqi People, whose non-violent civil resistence has forced the illegal yankee invaders into holding elections, for instance.

Meanwhile back in the real world,
90% of Iraqis say life was better under Saddam -
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m29531&hd=&size=1&l=e>Better Under Saddam, Says 90 Percent of Iraqis
Robert Dreyfuss
posted on uruknet 03 Jan 2006

- obviously, depsite all the noble efforts of mass-murdering war criminals like Bush and Blair, these Iraqis have yet again shown to the tabloid fraternity at the coal face of westerno-civilisationo, that they are nothing but a bunch of lazy, religious, recidivists and backsliding islamo, arabesque moribundists.

As these items show,
Iraqis just refuse to join the rest of the human race -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6230711.stm>No charges over Iraq video riots
BBC
04 Jan 2006

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-01-04T150123Z_01_L04363337_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-BRITAIN.xml>Troops will not face charges for Iraq assault
Reuters
04 Jan 2006

- Iraqis are found guilty of beating themselves up, as the video evidence clearly revealed to the hyper-advanced super-beings known as 'the British'.

This Iraqi self-harm is obviously part of their barbaric old Jihadi ways - typical! When will these water-starved sub-humans ever learn from their more advanced civilised betters, such as us British, for instance?

[MonkeyZerg]

John Palubiski, I find it interesting that out of all my rebuttals to your assertions, you don't refute any of mine, and actually end up agreeing to two of them. Why? To turn around and spew more anti-Islam drivel! You admitted being wrong on racist anti-Arab statements, but rather than apologize for the baselessness of your initial statements, you turn around and try to use that to spew anti-Islam bile. You put two of my statements (and ignore the rest of my arguments) to lash out one more time:

"One can, thus, conclude that the more a muslim society de-emphasises Islam, the greater the chances are that that society will move into the modern age!"

But this again is not supported by historical evidence. While it may be the case in Europe that the less control the Church had, the more science and human rights was able to progress (for Europeans, mind you, not the people they benevolently brought civilization to), it was the opposite case in the ME. The golden ages under Islamic rule were when the Muslims excelled in science, industry, civilization, and human rights, and as the Muslim world decayed, became superstitious, and left Islam, that's when they started going backwards, leading to their inferiority and colonization, then being ruled by corrupt dictators.

[ainelivia]

Could I just point you guys to "junglecitizen's" comment on "Is Blair pandering to Muslim sectarianism?" the analysis he puts forward, courtesy of Juan Cole? is clear and highly possible sceanario

[ainelivia]

Joe90 wrote - "You ask mellor for his own personal undiluted views and he can't help himself turning into a scholastic logic splitter, hair splitter and hardline logical positivist - replete with little sound effects."

Doing it again Jninety9000000, your "doing 90" as we say in Ireland. in other words talking at speed, too much information, all garbled, and spluttering, gosh, OH, isn't that what you are accusing others of doing? And when have you ever asked anyone for their undiluted views, or given them for that matter. All is projection with you 002.5.

Why don't you exist in the real world, why are your utterences confined only to this blog?
Who's Buffalo are you, dear?

[John Palubiski]

But this again is not supported by historical evidence. While it may be the case in Europe that the less control the Church had, the more science and human rights was able to progress (for Europeans, mind you, not the people they benevolently brought civilization to), it was the opposite case in the ME. The golden age under Islamic rule were when the Muslims excelled in science, industry, civilization, and human rights, and as the Muslim world decayed, became superstitious, and left Islam, that's when they started going backwards, leading to their inferiority and colonization, then being ruled by corrupt dictators.

When islam had its "golden" age the vast majority of people living in what is NOW considered Islam's heartland were Christian.

During the period of which you speak, MonkeyZerg, the Muslim world was not yet THE MUSLIM world by mere virtue of the fact the majority of its inhabitants were non-Muslim.

In fact, Christians remained the majority, albeit a very harrassed majority, until about the 11th century. Through various discriminatory laws and slanted taxation practices (something you refer to as human rights??!!) the community was slowly worn down. When their numbers fell below the critical limit necessary for the maintainence of a vibrant and "inquisitive" culture, the "Islamic" golden age imploded.

In other words, you *kited* your golden age off the brilliance, the initiative and the creativity of the native dwellers of the region at the time, the Christians and Jews. When Islam came to dominate, and to dominate completely, then, and only then, did the rot set in and the lights go out.

You have it all backwards.

Islam's predilection for acquisitiveness goes far beyond just riches, real-estate and Christian Basilicas; it preys upon and confiscates the intellectual property of others, as well. Hence its algebra, its medicine, its mathematics, its architecture and even the Arabo/Muslim currency, the dinar, ( the Roman/Byzantine denarii) have ALL been lifted from other cultures. In fact, even the much-touted "Arabic Numerals", the feather in every islamist's cap, are in reality Indo-Persian decimels, a number systeme that predates islam by several centuries.

Check it out.

Islam, then, actually invented very little; We mistakenly ascribe many intellectual achievements to the Muslim world merely because Islam acted as a vehicle for the dissemination of these previously expropriated intellectual discoveries.

There is, as we know, a world of difference between the singular brilliance necessary for truly novel inventions and the mundane necessity of disseminating pre-existing ideas. Don't confuse the two.

Are you even aware, MonkeyZerg, that the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Great Mosque of Cairo were designed, engineered and built by Christians?

Probably not.....

[MonkeyZerg]

Ok, John Palubiski, your latest reply has got to be the most absurd thing I've ever heard. It seems you don't mind contradicting yourself left and right as long as you keep slandering Islam and Muslims, denying everything positive about them, ascribing all evil to them, and do so even if it takes bare-faced lying.

So you assert in previous posts that the non-Muslims under Muslim rule were killed and converted. Now they conveniently survive for centuries to produce the Islamic world's brilliant achievements, and only when they were 'worn' out the Islamic state went into decline? Well, they're still there in the Muslim world, and they seem to be down and out just like all the Muslims. Also, they weren't 'worn out', many of them converted to Islam over time, and the fact that they converted over centuries, and still exist as significant minorities, should put to rest any future turn-arounds from you about Muslims supposedly killing them off and converting them by the sword.

And here's the biggest problem: How come did the Christians and Jews wait til they were occupied by the Muslims in the Middle East before they started to show their brilliance and achieve everything you ascribe to them? Off coarse there were many Christians who achieved much under Islam's rule, and contributed to the civilisation, but why was there no parallel development among the Christians of Europe? Aren't they all Christian? Or the Christians of Byzantine Syria/Palesine, why did they wait for Islam's rule?

I'll answer that, because they were in the European 'Dark Ages', learning was limited to clergy. Under Islam many became educated, produced many achievements, and when they learned to read, were able to read their own scriptures and compare it with Islamic books, leading many of them to convert. European Christians generally didn't have these luxuries til centuries later.

And while these Christians and Jews were flourishing under Islamic rule, so were the Muslims you claim did nothing. Do you deny the Muslim scholars who preserved the teachings of those before them, built upon it, added to it, innovated, and then passed this knowledge on? Islam "Confiscates intellectual property"??? Since when were ideas 'property'? What the Muslims did was LEARN, and then teach. What next, are you saying someone shouldn't learn something discovered by someone else? You can't even be honest and say that Islam made the ignorant Arabs get interested in education. You twist it into Muslims being evil confiscators of intellectual property. I don't even know why I bother with you.

So let me guess, you don't believe that such scholars like Al-Khawarizmi, ibn Nafis, Zahrawi, ibn Khaldun, etc, etc, ever produced anything. It wasn't Muslims that built hospitals, observatories, libraries, etc, etc, it was their oppressed Christians! They didn't write books of medicine and math that would become the foundation of modern European studies, it was their oppressed Christians! They didn't fund universities, give students scholarships, send explorers, it was their poor, overtaxxed Christians who did everything!

Islam did invent, produce, innovate, and achieve, at all levels. They didn't just preserve 'previously expropriated intellectual discoveries'. They learned from other cultures, guarded their knowledge, criticised or affirmed it, built upon it, and advanced in all fields.

It is only Orientalist racists that make the baseless claim that the only thing Muslims did was get old knowledge, and that's it. John P, why don't you go back and read some real history, not the bile farted by the likes of Pipes, Spencer and Karsh.

Now instead of picking what you can twist into an anti-Islam rant, go learn something true. Heck, I don't mind if you criticise Islam and Muslims all you want, as long as you criticise something that's true!

[joe90]

In fact, even the much-touted "Arabic Numerals", the feather in every islamist's cap, are in reality Indo-Persian decimels, a number systeme that predates islam by several centuries.

Check it out.

- check it out indeedy.
According to your own completely rubbish non-historical collection of complete and utter gibberish, these Indo-Persian are actually Christians.

So it was Christian that wot invented Arabic numerals and the use of '60' in cyclical measurement such as angles and time - or something like it.

There is, as we know, a world of difference between the singular brilliance necessary for truly novel inventions and the mundane necessity of disseminating pre-existing ideas. Don't confuse the two.
- I never do, which is why you come into the second
ie the dissemenation of pre-existing half-baked racist tosh by a half-baked ignorant racist moron.

[George Carty]

In fact, even the much-touted "Arabic Numerals", the feather in every islamist's cap, are in reality Indo-Persian decimels, a number systeme that predates islam by several centuries.

The concept of positional base-10 numerical notation is indeed Hindu, but the numerals did not acquire the forms currently used in the West until they reached al-Andalus.

It's a bit strange though that Westerners speak of "Arabic numerals" when Arabs outside the Maghrib use different numerals, much closer to the Hindu originals.

[Raashid]

Can somebody direct Publinski to Robert Spencer's website. How does a post related to Saddam Hussein become a discussion about history?

[John Palubiski]

It's a bit strange though that Westerners speak of "Arabic numerals" when Arabs outside the Maghrib use different numerals, much closer to the Hindu originals.

Exactly, George. The lie of "Arabic" numerals has been propagated for so long, now, that people take it to be the truth.

There's very little point in discussing Middle Eastern history with Islamists because they're raised from day one with the false belief that all that is outside or anterior to Islam is somehow ignorance and darkness. This viewpoint is practically ingested with mother's milk and serves as a barrier against both intellectual discovery and the dangers of apostasy.

In the late 7th century two Orthodox monks were forced to flee from Syria to Constaninople because of the growing Muslim oppression. They were brilliant and brought with them the chemical recipe for what was to become known as Greek Fire. In addition, there is now some evidence suggesting that the Byzantine world of the 6th and 7th centuries understood the basics of electricity, steam engines and early optics.

There's another very good reason so little is know about the Byzantines and Persians and it's this; no successor cultures exist that could serve to champion these civilisations.

Both the Christian (Roman Catholic) West and the Arabo/Muslim world drew their inspiration from Greco/Persian dicoveries.

In 1204 the Franks captured and looted Constantinople and destroyed much of its intellectual heritage. In 1453 the Turks confiscated a city that had become an empty shell.

The Catholic church will never acknowledge Byzantium's intellectual and scientific contributions. The Islamo/Turkish world avoids, whenever possible, saying anything at all positive about the former inhabitants of the lands they now occupy. Not doing so would obviously de-legitimise their presence there.

Both are obliged, in order to mask their repsective historical sins, to downplay, deny and denigrate the achievements of civilisations that prospered for a thousand years and which served as inspirational buffet table feeding the intellectual appetites of lesser cultures.

And here's the biggest problem: How come did the Christians and Jews wait til they were occupied by the Muslims in the Middle East before they started to show their brilliance and achieve everything you ascribe to them

The Byzantines didn't "wait" for Islam to construct Hagia Sophia.....a structure that nothing in the Islamic world or Roman Catholic world...even today.... can compare with. Nor did they wait for Islam to invent Greek Fire....a substance that obviously requires a fairly solid knowledge of chemistry.

What did Islam, in comparison, invent, exactly? Domes? Arches? Aqueducts? Windmills? Watermills?

Beats me.

An d as far as the roman Catholic west is concerned, go do a tour of St Peter's in Rome. Guides will tell ya the dome is the highest. Probleme is the challenge with a dome is width and NOT height. Hagia Sophia encompasses more space even though it's a thousand years older. In the event of earthquakes-something common in the region- the structure bends, folds and twists....as though it were almost alive.

St Peter's, on the other hand, is but a series of gothic arches meeting at the apex, and the whole of this is set atop a plain stone box. It is an "inanimate" structure, as are all mosques.

[DrM]

You didn't read what George posted did palpablinsky? As usual, a stupid fellow of your lowly calibur offers nothing but ceaseless revisionist spin. What language does arqam hindiyyah sound like to you?

[George Carty]

There's another very good reason so little is know about the Byzantines and Persians and it's this; no successor cultures exist that could serve to champion these civilisations.

Probably true regarding the Persians (by the way, where could I read up on pre-Islamic Persian discoveries and inventions?) However, why don't the Russians or the modern Greeks champion Byzantine civilization?

[George Carty]

You didn't read what George posted did palpablinsky? As usual, a stupid fellow of your lowly calibur offers nothing but ceaseless revisionist spin. What language does arqam hindiyyah sound like to you?

"Arqam hindiyyah" is in Arabic, but clearly translates as "Hindu numerals". It's what Middle Eastern Arabs call the numbers which they themselves use. I think that these numerals should be called "Hindu numerals", while those used in the West should be called "Andalusi numerals".

Anyway, cut out the ad hominems DrMaxtor. They don't do your arguments any good at all!

[John Palubiski]

Arqam hindiyyah" is in Arabic, but clearly translates as "Hindu numerals".

I agree. There should be a name change done in western math and history texts to reflect the truth and to give credit where credit is due

As for championing these brilliant cultures, reformists in Iran, those that wish an end to the Islamist régime, defend their Persian heritage quite forcefully.

When the Mullahs first took power plans were drawn up to destroy the ruins of Persopolis in an effort to alienate Iranians from their pre-Islamic culture.
People, though, protested and the plans, thank god, were put aside.

As for Turkey; well, some Islamists have threatened to dynamite Hagia Sophia. Its mere existence is both painful AND tempting. Like Stonehenge in England its presence is a reminder that things were not always as they now are. It is a portal to another culture, to another history and to another way of approaching god.

The forceful removal of a people's identity, its past, has been a constant throughout islamic history. It allows the conquerors to rewrite the cultural script, to create a civilisational no-man's land, an identity void, into which Islam then moves and presents itself as "savior", as substitute.

This is why questioning SOME muslims about the details of their pre-islamic past and identity is often met with overt hostility. Such an exercise is considered *harem* because it subverts the islamic mind-set by opening up a whole new world of alternate possibilities; ones in which allah, the koran etc are no longer necessary or even desirable.

[DrM]

I know what "arqam hindiyyah" means George, and it proves that palpablinski doesnt know what he's talking about. The very fact that Arabs acknowledged and improved upon what was then called "arqam hindiyyah" is totally ignored by him. If we go even further, we would be calling them Buddhist numbers, you can go on and on. His pathetic display of historical revisionism and ad hominem attacks against all Muslims are a clear indicator of his petty hatred. He'd be laughed out of any place of higher education with this sort of recycled orientalist tripe. The disingenuous attempts at playing archaeologist are particularly amusing(not counting the destruction and looting of Iraq's historical sites by thieves like him).
Its obvious that this racist moron spends too much time online in front of his 7 year old computer scavenging Robert Spencer's nonsense. Dregs like palpablinski should be sent to Iraq to live out his homicidal christofascist fantasies, but we all know his type prefer combat from behind a computer screen.

[joe90]

homicidal christofascist fantasies
- nice one DrM!

These types are never happy -
- apart from the fact that an obvious uncivilsed, illiterate, racist moron has taken it upon themselves to be the judge of the sum of human culture and civilisation, and others Peoples and other religions contribution to that sum -
- what qualifications are needed in order to be the judge of others or other religion, I wonder?

I would have thought that pompous, arrogant, self-centred, solpsistic, narcissistic, little empty thicko-twerpo, neo-nazi non-entities like J Pinhead would be the first candidates for throwing into the dustbin of history, where he can join his Stalinist and Himmlerian mates (whose idols were also lauded as being models of cultural perfection and progress, don't forget) wallowing amongst the worst-forgotten dregs of humanity.

Have you ever noticed how it is always ignorant racist morons, like J Pisspoorski here, who are always the ones to take it upon themselves to be the judge of others they know nothing about?

Hardly models of perfection or evidence of human progress themselves - quite the opposite.

[ainelivia]

Joe90 wrote: - "I would have thought that pompous, arrogant, self-centred, solpsistic, narcissistic, little empty thicko-twerpo, neo-nazi non-entities".

Somewhere in the Bible, J90 or J(),it says that God created humans in his own likeness and image. Obviously you create your projections in a similar manner, as quoted above, in your own likeness and image. "pompous, arrogant, self-centred, solpsistic, narcissistic, little empty thicko-twerpo, neo-nazi non-entities".

Well done. I've always wondered how you would describe yourself.