Low Blow
From AP:
The top U.N. diplomat said Monday he could not support bringing captured Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein before a tribunal that might sentence him to death.
”The U.N. does not support death penalty. In all the courts we have set up (U.N. officials) have not included death penalty,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a brief encounter with reporters at the United Nations.
”And so as secretary-general and the U.N. as an organization are not going to turn around and support a death penalty,” Annan said.
And Annan’s opinion matters why?
Look, if cutting a life sentence deal with Saddam means we get information out of him, then I’m all for it. Wring him dry and lock him up until August 42, 2056 AAD. But allow me to repeat myself: Annan’s opinion matters why?
He fought us on inspections. He fought us on a use-of-force resolution. He fought us on everything — and yet now he wants a say in how we handle POW #1.
He sounds almost French.
Right, the UN and Annan don’t support the death penalty, but they supported keeping Saddam in power thus unsuring the death penalty for thousands of Iraqis. Annan likes to strike the pose of standing on principle and defending human rights, but is silent on having the human rights commission corrupted not only by dictatorial members but by having Libya run the show. How can these people not see their hypocrisy?
And Annan’s opinion matters why?
It doesn’t.
Next!
Should the UN Try Saddam?
Stephen Green makes a good point regarding the UN’s role in Saddam’s trial at VodkaPundit–namely, why in the world should the UN have a role? Just to make a clear point even clearer, the UN propped up the Ba’athist regime…
Koffi and the UN in toto are not relevant. They chose that route, immediately and afterwards.
He’s obviously delusional.
Strangely, Annan had little to say about the thousands of death sentences carried out by Saddam.
Koif was thousands of miles away from the Iraqi rape gangs and executioners while he dined and traveled in the lap of luxury courtesy of the Oil for Food program. Even if he was close enough to hear the screams, I’m sure the gush of crude and clink of coin would be loud enough to drown them out.
Don’t forget, he also cut and ran the first time their people in Iraq came face to face with terrorism
I can’t even support any trial that might imprison Saddam. Is he not human? Does he not bleed? How can we take a precious life and subject it to imprisonment? He has feelings, you know. As a baby, he had pink little toes.
Strangely, Annan had little to say about the thousands of death sentences carried out by Saddam.
Come on, can’t we all get along? Am I the only one who’s going to maintain moral standards around here. Me and Khadafi, and Chirac? Come on.
I was against removing Saddam, siding with leaving the Husseins in power for another 25 years. Um, it’s called being “pro-peace”; look into it. It’s not about war, people! Grown ups solve their disagreements without hitting, kids. They solve them at the UN.
My positions are not “pro-fascist”. That’s just a right-wing caricature. People who use such epithets are an embarrassment to the forum! I’m pro-UN. Is that so wrong?
Hello? Is this thing on?
“And Annan’s opinion matters why?”
Took the words right out of my mouth. Hussein is an Iraqi crimminal and he’ll face Iraqi justice. If they decide he needs to dangle from a length of hemp in a public square for a week, well you won’t get any argument from me.
Come on! Let Annan in peace.
If you want to kick someone think about yourself. As a matter of fact the US helped Saddam Hussein through the Iran-Iraq war and Bush Senior let him off the hook in the First Iraq War.
Yes, it’s clearly better to behave as old Europe does. When you make a mistake, keep at it.
Of course, if we’re going to try the various Americans as the old European advises, a lot of old Europeans go on the dock as well. In face, if we rank folks by contribution and freshness, the old Europeans go right after Hussein.
That is what the old European intends, right?
Cutting a deal with Saddam should consist of one thing:
“Tell us everything you know, and if we can verify it, then you get a dignified beheading.
Otherwise we’ll tie your hands behind your back, parade you through downtown Baghdad, string you up with piano wire and let the Iraqi people have at you.”
“In face, if we rank folks by contribution and freshness, the old Europeans go right after Hussein.”
I pretty much doubt that the military hardware and intelligence contributions by the Europeans during the Iran-Iraq war came anywhere near to the amount and importance of contributions by the US.
While we are at it:
I notice the freshness with which the current US administration embraces all the petty new dictators in the Caucasus republics. Did Rumsfeld teach president Alijew how to stuff ballot boxes in Aserbadjan?
TOE:
Then you’re once again displaying your ignorance. The largest suppliers of weapons to Iraq during the I-I war were the USSR (European state, wasn’t it?), France (I’m pretty sure that’s European), and the PRC.
The British sold a handful of items, mostly dual-use. The US provided primarily intelligence.
You didn’t know that? Where do you think those unforgiven French and Soviet/Russian debts that the Iraqis owe CAME from?
But there’s a simpler way of figuring this out: In both ’91 and ’03, what kinds of weapons were Iraqi soldiers seen fielding, manning, holding? Did any of them appear to be M-16s? SA-80s? Were there reports of F-4s or F-16s or Tornadoes in the air, manned by Iraqi pilots? No? What might that suggest?
TOE, just in case you wondered about levels of magnitude that your comment was off-by, here’s an interesting set of stats:
Sir, I have often heard the claim that we armed Saddam. Thankfully A. H. Cordesman, in his 1998 report on the Iraqi military for the Center for Strategic & International Studies, has enlightened me.
In the key period between 1973-91 the US exported a mere $5 million of weapons to Iraq; more reprehensibly the UK sold $330 million-worth of arms. Of much greater interest are the arms export totals to Iraq of the four countries most against military action: Germany with $995 million, China $5,500 million, France $9,240 million, and the Russians a massive $31,800 million. So the claim that we armed Saddam has to be treated with a degree of care, particularly by those who would award the moral high ground in this debate to the leaders of nations such as Germany, France and Russia.
I remain your obedient servant,
ANDREW HAMILTON,
Dermatology Laboratory,
Thomas Guy House, Guy’s Hospital,
St Thomas Street, SE1 9RT.
March 10, 2003.
Now, perhaps your European education is superior to ours, here in the States, so please, tell me, is $9,240 million more or less than $5 million where you come from? And is Germany or France part of Europe?
Err… Uh… Steve?
lock him up until August 42, 2056
Are you implying we’ll be switching to metric calendars by 2056?
Not quite, George. I also used “AAD” instead of “AD.” In other words, an imaginary date. In other other words, we lock him up until forever.
TOE’s “doubts” being dealt with by others, let’s consider:
> I notice the freshness with which the current US administration embraces all the petty new dictators in the Caucasus republics.
And “old Europe” is behaving differently. NOT.
I’m not claiming that the US is always right. I’m pointing out that when there’s a difference between “old Europe” and the US, the US usually gets it right.
I suppose that it would be gauche to point out that when the US screws up, it usually has old Europe as company, if not in the lead. See supplying Saddam as a prime example.
> He fought us … He fought us … He fought us
To me the outrage of Annan goes beyond just that. Consider his behavior when he headed the UN peacekeeping department–Kofi is the very man who refused to reinforce the meager band of UN peacekeepers in Rwanda, ensuring that they were unable to do anything about the ensuing slaughter.
ad: Military hardware exports to Iraq
I concede that point as I was far off the truth there. Sorry for that. I don’t like to argue against the truth.
The data given by Cordesman should be looked at with scepticism. When he published his study Saddam Hussein was already the big bad guy for the US and his figures show more than a slight tendency to minimize the US part in supporting Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war in the 80ies.
Here is another data sheet with a breakdown by countries for the period 1973-2002 by SIPRI (http://projects.sipri.se/armstrade/Trnd_Ind_IRQ_Imps_73-02.pdf). I don’t think you can question the neutrality of SIPRI in that regard.
Their data show the former USSR as the main arms trade partner (25.15 billion US$, 57%), followed by France (5.6 billion, 13%) and China (5.2 billion, 12%). The US is in the list with 200 mio (1%). That is quite ahead of Germany (84 mio) and the UK (79 mio).
It’s surely possible that SIPRI underestimated the real amount of arms trade with Iraq as Cordesman shows higher figures for most countries. But it’s next to impossible that all countries other than the US traded much more while the US traded “a mere $5 million of weapons to Iraq”. SIPRI lists 125 mio $ US arms sales to Iraq just for 1988.
In addition it is difficult to put a dollar value on the intelligence data collected by US military satellites about the battle lines supplied to Iraq which helped them to hold their ground against Iran’s offensives. Other countries hadn’t much to sell in that area of expertise.
TOE:
In America, we have a saying—when you’re in a hole, stop digging.
YOU are the one who claimed that EUropean exports of arms to Iraq paled in comparison to that of the United States, despite not only plentiful data to the effect that that is not true, and despite the obvious evidence from videotape from both the ’91 and ’03 wars.
To now claim that, somehow, the intel data provided balances out the sales by the USSR (200X the dollar value of US sales) or France (a mere 50X, pikers) is simply laughable. To ignore the possibility that both France and Russia ALSO provided intelligence to Saddam (whose loss would’ve ensured that they never got paid on any of those arms sales) is, well, a display of simplisme.
But then, you are European, are you not?
“France and Russia ALSO provided intelligence to Saddam”
On that point it’s you that succumbed to simplistic reasoning. Both had no equivalent to the network of spy satellites the US had. They don’t have now either.
If you dare, you might confront your own history of cooperation with Saddam Hussein:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index.htm
TOE:
First, you DO understand the meaning of the word “intelligence,” yes? I did not say “satellite intelligence” or “space-based intelligence.” Are you suggesting that France has no electronics intelligence? Or human-based intelligence? No Deuxieme Bureau?
Evidement, plus de simplisme, n’est-ce pas?
Second, you insist on waving your ignorance around even in the more narrowly defined area of space-based intelligence. In the period 1980-1990, what is under discussion here, mon vieux, are you suggesting that the USSR had no satellite network?
Here is a brief technical description of just some of the Soviet Union’s PHOTO-recon satellites:
http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/Recces/Recces.htm
There were, of course, also radar satellites, electronic intelligence satellites, etc. in the Soviet military space constellation.
But you would have us believe, Old European, that the Soviets had no space satellite network, eh? All those various KOSMOS satellite systems, none of that counts, in YOUR view, to a spy satellite network, eh?
Please, “enlighten” us further. What other “truths” do you so respect?
TOE:
I happily confront the picture you refer to.
I have also seen the pictures of FDR and Churchill sitting w/ Stalin. And Jacques Chirac happily standing with Saddam as well.
Is not realpolitik in your lexicon, oh European?
But I suspect that that is not your point, so I must admit curiosity (against my better judgement) as to what it might be?