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View Full Version : "War Criminals Hire War Criminals to Hunt Down War Criminals"




zimv20
Sep 12, 2003, 04:21 AM
are US taxpayer dollars being used to hire baathist gestapos?

http://www.sptimesrussia.com/archive/times/898/opinion/o_10190.htm


Chris Floyd's Global Eye

Die Laughing

Here's a headline you don't see every day: "War Criminals Hire War Criminals to Hunt Down War Criminals."

Perhaps that's not the precise wording used by the Washington Post this week, but it is the absolute essence of its story about the Bush Regime's new campaign to put Saddam Hussein's murderous security forces on America's payroll.

Yes, the sahibs in U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraqi Raj are now doling out U.S. tax dollars to hire the murderers of the infamous Mukhabarat and other agents of the Baathist Gestapo - perhaps hundreds of them. The logic, if that's the word, seems to be that these bloodstained "insiders" will lead their new imperial masters to other bloodstained "insiders" responsible for bombing the UN headquarters in Baghdad - and killing another dozen American soldiers while Little George was playing with his putts during his month-long Texas siesta.

Naturally, the Iraqi people - even the Bush-appointed leaders of the Potyomkin "Governing Council" - aren't exactly overjoyed at seeing Saddam's goons return, flush with American money and firepower. And they're certainly not reassured by the fact that the Bushists have also re-opened Saddam's most notorious prison, the dread Abu Ghraib, and are now, Mukhabarat-like, filling it with Iraqis - men, women and children as young as 11 - seized from their homes or plucked off the street to be held incommunicado, indefinitely, without due process, just like the old days. As The Times of London reports, weeping relatives who dare approach the gleaming American razor-wire in search of their "disappeared" loved ones are referred to a crude, hand-written sign pinned to a spike: "No visits are allowed, no information will be given and you must leave." Perhaps an Iraqi Anna Akhmatova will do justice to these scenes one day.



Desertrat
Sep 12, 2003, 11:43 AM
This doesn't give enough info to really provide for a firm opinion, but it certainly calls for open descriptions/information about what's going on.

Insofar as using the Baathists, though, an old tenet is that ex-outlaws can make good sheriffs or marshalls; "It takes a poacher to catch a poacher." Once again, it's less a matter of what is done than it is of how it's done and what controls are in place. There's certainly as much potential for harm as there is potential for finding proven Bad Guys.

'Rat

zimv20
Sep 12, 2003, 12:03 PM
Originally posted by Desertrat
This doesn't give enough info to really provide for a firm opinion, but it certainly calls for open descriptions/information about what's going on.


i agree. i'd like to see one of the majors report it.


Insofar as using the Baathists, though, an old tenet is that ex-outlaws can make good sheriffs or marshalls; "It takes a poacher to catch a poacher." Once again, it's less a matter of what is done than it is of how it's done and what controls are in place.


so you might support this action? one of the administration's justifications was taking down a brutal regime. now it's allegedly using elements of that regime to gain control of iraq. don't you find that at all hypocritical?

Desertrat
Sep 12, 2003, 04:07 PM
Long tradition. The U.S. Calvary used Indian scouts. Much the same thing went on with ex-Nazis after WW II, by all the Allied Powers. We had the chieu hoi in Vienam (Ex-VC. Spelling?). Expediency: You can use a turncoat; you don't have to like, respect or trust one.

Now, if these particular Baathists were higher-ups, they're most likely more deserving of some punishment by Iraqis. If they're mid-level types, they may have been more interested in personal survival during Saddam's days of power, more than active participants. Damfino.

'Rat

pseudobrit
Sep 12, 2003, 10:01 PM
Originally posted by Desertrat
Long tradition.

The same argument was made for using the institution of slavery. Was it right? Acceptable?

The U.S. Calvary used Indian scouts. Much the same thing went on with ex-Nazis after WW II, by all the Allied Powers. We had the chieu hoi in Vienam (Ex-VC. Spelling?). Expediency: You can use a turncoat; you don't have to like, respect or trust one.

But we're paying these Ba'athists ("evildoers, killers") while blaming them for extending the war in Iraq ("on terror") with guerilla attacks ("terrorist attacks")

Neat! We're funding the fighting on both sides of the war on terror!

Desertrat
Sep 13, 2003, 10:34 AM
"But we're paying these Ba'athists ("evildoers, killers") while blaming them for extending the war in Iraq ("on terror") with guerilla attacks ("terrorist attacks")"

Aw, yeah. All Ba'athists are alike. All Europeans are alike. All Arabs are alike. All Jews are alike.

You oughta do better, when you go to working at twisting the meaning of words and statements...

'Rat

pseudobrit
Sep 13, 2003, 11:05 PM
Originally posted by Desertrat
"But we're paying these Ba'athists ("evildoers, killers") while blaming them for extending the war in Iraq ("on terror") with guerilla attacks ("terrorist attacks")"

Aw, yeah. All Ba'athists are alike. All Europeans are alike. All Arabs are alike. All Jews are alike.

You oughta do better, when you go to working at twisting the meaning of words and statements...

'Rat

Bush is the one who makes such suggestions. I was merely putting his spin parenthetically into my own statement for added effect.