Saddam arrested?

[Donut]

I'll preface this by stating that I am delighted Saddam has been captured.

However - I'm a bit confused. Rumsfeld has said that he would be afforded the protection of the Geneva Convention but footage of him has been beamed around the world. Doesn't this contravene the GC.

According to Rummy it does:

"Rumsfeld - 'Iraqi Footage
Violations Geneva Convention'
3-23-3

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday Iraqi television footage apparently showing American prisoners of war was a violation of the Geneva Convention.

On CBS "Face the Nation," Rumsfeld was shown footage relayed by the Arabic satellite station Al-Jazeera that Iraq television claimed were captive U.S. soldiers.

"That's a violation of the Geneva Convention, those pictures you showed," Rumsfeld said of the international law on treatment of prisoners of war. He said the convention prohibits the photographing or interrogation by media of those captured in battle. "

And Bush derided Saddam about living in a hole in the ground. But isn't that what the President and the Vice President did after Sept 11? Admittedly it was rather well appointed and comfortable but the principle is the same isn't it?

[WillowIX]

Donut, you really don't believe they wuld follow the GC when breaking that law suits them? *gasps* [img]tongue.gif[/img] Ahh cynical little me.

So will be Bush Sr be called to witness in regards to funding mr Hussein?

[Donut]

Originally posted by WillowIX: Donut, you really don't believe they wuld follow the GC when breaking that law suits them? *gasps* [img]tongue.gif[/img] Ahh cynical little me. So will be Bush Sr be called to witness in regards to funding mr Hussein?

I await the trial. When Hussein calls Rumsfeld as a witness for the defence!!

[Timber Loftis]

If the Geneva Convention actually does make it illegal to show Saddam getting a mouth examination, then it's a stupid convention. Oh, but I forget, you don't enjoy such broad freedom of the press in other parts of the world, so you wouldn't understand. I personally think all news outlets should be nationalized and I think their content should be limited. I mean, this whole "free press" thing has gotten way outta hand.

[Sir Taliesin]

By showing Saddam, we told the Iraqi people that they no longer had to fear him or his regime. That's the reason he was shown on TV.

You know when we captured all those Nazis back at the end of WW2, think about how many of them appeared on news reels. Everyone cheered then. Samething now! Give it a rest!

[ 12-16-2003, 10:42 AM: Message edited by: Sir Taliesin ]

[Donut]

Originally posted by Sir Taliesin: By showing Saddam, we told the Iraqi people that they no longer had to fear him or his regime. That's the reason he was shown on TV. You know when we captured all those Nazis back at the end of WW2, think about how many of them appeared on news reels. Everyone cheered then. Samething now! Give it a rest!

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Or do you believe the US should be allowed to decide which parts of the Geneva Convention it adheres to?

If it's wrong then it's wrong! Simple as that.

Hypocrisy thy name is Bush.

[Donut]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: If the Geneva Convention actually does make it illegal to show Saddam getting a mouth examination, then it's a stupid convention. Oh, but I forget, you don't enjoy such broad freedom of the press in other parts of the world, so you wouldn't understand. I personally think all news outlets should be nationalized and I think their content should be limited. I mean, this whole "free press" thing has gotten way outta hand.

Don't know what you mean about our press not being free. Many laws appear stupid - do you advocate breaking them because you think they are stupid?

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Donut: Don't know what you mean about our press not being free. Many laws appear stupid - do you advocate breaking them because you think they are stupid?

Well, I was being sarcastic about the press, but technically I don't think you have a free press or a right to free speech as a fundamental right in some parts of Europe -- though I'm not sure how the EU Treaty speaks to this. I'll not challenge the fact that freedom to speak generall exists there, but having it as a fundamental right is a bit different. Anyway, it was just sarcasm. And, in truth, I don't see the sense in a treaty preventing accurate NEWS reporting. That sort of disconnect between the people and the relevant information they need flies in the face of the UN Treaty, under which the Geneva Conventions were agreed IIRC.

If a law is stupid AND contains no penalty provision to enforce it, why wouldn't one break it? [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img] People choose to break laws all the time. I speed. I represent companies who will weigh the cost of compliance with the cost of noncompliance -- if noncompliance is cheaper, then that's the government's fault for failing to adequately enforce it, isn't it? What good is a hollow law?

[ 12-16-2003, 12:57 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Sir Taliesin]

Originally posted by Donut: What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Or do you believe the US should be allowed to decide which parts of the Geneva Convention it adheres to? If it's wrong then it's wrong! Simple as that. Hypocrisy thy name is Bush.

Before you go spouting off about it being against the Geneva Convention, think about why that rule is in the GC in the first place. It was placed there so prisoners would not be viewed as trophies of war. The video of Saddam isn't being used like that. It was released to show the people of Iraq that the man they feared above all others was captured and no longer a threat to them, their loved ones and their country. Unfortuately there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that the video could only be broadcast in Iraq and not the rest of the world. Today's modern technology will not allow it.

[ 12-16-2003, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Sir Taliesin ]

Originally posted by Donut: quote: Originally posted by WillowIX: Donut, you really don't believe they wuld follow the GC when breaking that law suits them? *gasps* [img]tongue.gif[/img] Ahh cynical little me. So will be Bush Sr be called to witness in regards to funding mr Hussein?

I await the trial. When Hussein calls Rumsfeld as a witness for the defence!!

[/QUOTE]willow and donut, i think you will enjoy this:

from salon.com Imagining Saddam's trial By Barry Lando Dec. 16, 2003 | It's a good bet that, despite their apparent elation, many U.S. leaders wanted Saddam found dead, not captured alive. As they ponder the consequences they're probably increasingly upset that the disheveled fallen dictator wasn't riddled by a hail of bullets, blown up by a grenade, or self-dispatched by cyanide capsule when all seemed lost. Instead, prominent Americans could find themselves playing a role in what may be a very long, drawn-out and embarrassing trial. Imagine, for instance, seeing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, and a parade of CIA directors and secretaries of state called as witnesses -- for the defense. Not to mention a clutch of headmen from other Western and Middle Eastern countries. This may be exactly what Saddam now craves: the chance to publicly implicate other leaders and countries in his own brutal past. It won't be difficult. Some of the tawdry background about Saddam's ties to world leaders has trickled out in the press over the past year, but tied together during a dramatic trial, the collateral damage could be devastating. Saddam's attorneys could present an interesting dilemma to Washington, demanding access to U.S. government documents detailing its leaders' dealings with Iraq, documents that would almost certainly implicate other nations as well. The New York Times' conservative columnist William Safire speculated Monday that Saddam "is looking forward to the mother of all genocide trials, rivaling Nuremberg's and topping those of [Nazi Adolf] Eichmann and [Yugoslavia's Slobodan] Milosevic. There, in the global spotlight, he can pose as the great Arab hero saving Islam from the Bushes and the Jews." Of course Saddam is no hero, but he may have evidence showing that when it comes to Iraq, many American leaders haven't exactly been heroes, either. Saddam and his attorneys might begin with footage shot back on Dec. 20, 1983, by an official Iraqi television crew when Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Baghdad as special envoy from President Ronald Reagan. Saddam, wearing a pistol on his hip, already had established himself as a brutal dictator -- as Newsweek put it, "a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear weapon." According to the official note taker at the meeting, Rumsfeld "conveyed the President's greetings and expressed his pleasure at being in Baghdad" to the murderous tyrant. At the time, of course, America's chief concern was Iran and its Ayatollah Khomeini, with whom Iraq had gone to war. And so, over the next five years, until the conflict finally ended, the United States supplied Saddam with economic aid and such nifty items as a computerized database for his interior ministry, satellite military intelligence, tanks and cluster bombs, deadly bacteriological samples, and the very helicopters that were used by Saddam to spew poison gas over his own Kurd citizens. And when those atrocities finally became known, the Reagan administration also lobbied to prevent any strong congressional condemnation of the Iraqi dictator. Fast forward to 1990 and the invasion of Kuwait, a territory that, according to some interpretations, had once been part of Iraq. In that year, Assistant Secretary of State John Kelley called Saddam a "force of moderation" in the Middle East. Saddam, in fact, moved into Kuwait only after consulting with the ranking U.S. diplomat in the region, April Glaspie. So why shouldn't the fallen dictator's attorneys now summon Glaspie and her State Department masters to explain why she assured Saddam back then that the way he handled his border dispute with Kuwait was of "no concern" to the U.S.? Following Saddam's defeat in 1991 came the brutal repression of the Shiites. Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of Shiites were massacred by Saddam after they rose up against Baghdad with U.S. encouragement. Saddam will probably argue he had no alternative to keep his splintered country intact. And he can point out that the same fact occurred to the Americans, who cheered on the Shiite rebellion and then turned their backs after they began worrying what might happen to Iraq if Saddam were to fall. During the trial, Saddam could ridicule as hypocrisy the shock recently expressed by American leaders as grisly evidence of his mass executions was uncovered. It's hard to believe that U.S. government files would not contain desperate pleas from the Shiites for help as their followers were herded to their graves. A similar fate, for similar reasons, befell the Kurds, who received U.S. encouragement to seek independence under presidents from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton, only to be abandoned. The Kurds never seemed to learn. The U.S. had left them to Saddam's bloody reprisals in 1975, prompting Henry Kissinger's famous explanation that "covert operations is not missionary work." As for Saddam's quest for a nuclear weapon, the former dictator will point out that, if weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East are a concern, they exist in Israel and Pakistan as well. Maybe here the French could be brought forward to testify how they helped both Iraq and Israel with nuclear facilities. A host of other suppliers in the WMD field, from Germany, Italy, the U.K and the U.S., would be subpoenaed. And Saddam's lawyers might want to investigate the old charges that Vice President Dick Cheney's firm, Halliburton, violated sanctions against Iraq and provided it with oil-industry equipment. (Cheney, it will be recalled, lobbied to end U.S. sanctions against Iraq while he headed Halliburton, arguing they hurt companies like his more than dictators like Saddam.) None of this makes Saddam innocent of his barbaric crimes. But it certainly muddies the moral waters and gives the former dictator and his supporters much more than their day in court. Which is why you know a lot of people in Washington wish Saddam had used that loaded pistol he kept in the "spider hole" where he was finally captured. But true believers in Iraqi democracy have to be glad he didn't.