posted on March 22, 2003 01:06:13 PM new
"A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."
posted on March 22, 2003 01:13:10 PM new
ebayauctionguy, have you ever heard anyone on this board say that Saddam's regime isn't evil? Or that Saddam should stay in power?
posted on March 22, 2003 02:38:54 PM new
Twelvepole, I'm not against the use of force when dealing with the likes of Hussein. I'm against this war because I don't believe liberating the Iraqi's is the goal of the U.S. The U.S. has made a mockery of the U.N. and its inspectors imo, with intent to disregard national opinion to reach its goal... all because of a possible threat to the U.S. If peace talks and sanctions don't work and war is the only solution to getting rid of dictators, our world is doomed.
posted on March 22, 2003 02:40:52 PM new
It's probably impossible to kill Saddam. Did you ever consider that. Even after this war has ended, we will not know if he is dead. The Bush administration will cover themselves by saying that killing him wasn't really their goal.
Same thing happened to Osama bin Laden. We pulverized the country of Afghanistan and still nobody knows where he is.
Kraftdinner is right. Liberation of the Iraqi people is not the goal of George Bush.
Neither is elimination of weapons of mass destruction.
George Bush is fighting for power and oil.
Helen
[ edited by Helenjw on Mar 22, 2003 02:44 PM ]
posted on March 22, 2003 03:15:45 PM newThe U.S. has made a mockery of the U.N. and its inspectors imo
kraftdinner, Saddam Hussein has been mocking the UN for the last 12 years, all we did was finally try to make the UN do what they said they would do if Saddam did not cooperate fully... why do you think that UN has not done anything since the war started?
The UN is a lost cause, they know it and if they tried to say anything now, it would most certainly end it, all they want now is Humanitarian aid and I believe we have secured the port for it to start arriving.
Whether other countries like it or not, the US is what keeps the UN functioning and if we go, so does the UN.
posted on March 23, 2003 05:09:10 AM new
The UN has made a mockery of itself for many years. It became complacent. It was a tea party, a toothless dog. It's heyday is over.
It makes no difference to me how we are conceived now or after this war. We did the right thing.
For those that think diplomacy will fix all problem, I say wake up or lay down and die.
This war will save many from death and torture.
The same ones that say we're wrong with the violence would use that same tactic to farther their communist push. They won't admit it but they have it on their minds.
We'll see more violent protest shortly. Just like the 60's and the 70's. There were many groups that used Viet Nam as a reason to push their communist manifesto. It was BS then and it's BS now.
Amen,
Yes I'm reallllllly anti Red.
Reverend Colin
posted on March 24, 2003 08:08:21 AM new
helen's right . . .
Bush is fighting for oil - to take it from a brutal billionaire dictator so it can be given it to the people of Iraq, who will share the wealth as do the people of Kuwait.
Bush is fighting for power - to give the people of Iraq the power to control their destiny by liberating them from a sadistic madman.
Oil and power, helen?
Let's have this debate a year after Saddam is deposed and he and his cronies are dead or awaiting trial for crimes against humanity.
posted on March 24, 2003 08:16:43 AM new
Plus more importantly, you remove another area of support. Support with money, support with training, and support by stirring the political pot in the area. Some people complain we haven't gotten Bin Laden or will not get Hussein. The fact is it simply isn't necessary . Bin Laden without connection to his money or places to train trouble makers and murderers is just a ZZtop wanabee.
Prediction: Very soon the terrorist training bases in Iran will close up shop.
posted on March 24, 2003 09:08:30 AM new
ferncrestmotel - You have such a positive way of disagreeing with a statement. I hope to learn from your example.
DeSquirrel - I hope your prediction turns out to be correct.
posted on March 24, 2003 06:06:47 PM new
"You just arrived," Ajami Saadoun Khlis of the southern Iraqi city of Safwan tells London's Guardian. "You're late. What took you so long? God help you become victorious. I want to say hello to Bush, to shake his hand. We came out of the grave." He lost his 29-year-old son to Saddam's thugs; the younger man "was executed in July 2001, accused of harbouring warm feelings for Iran."
"We never wanted to fight--only the diehards did," said one Iraqi, as they grabbed at water bottles and clasped their palms as if in prayer, begging for food. . . .
One man pulled up his shirt sleeve and held up his right hand. Two fingers had been hacked off and his upper arm was criss-crossed with scars.
"This is the price of defiance--of trying to run away," he said, his eyes beseeching. He held up a torn gas mask that had no air canister. "We have one. We draw straws for it. We know if the British and American soldiers leave as they did before, and Saddam survives, he will gas the town." To make sure we understood, he drew his finger swiftly across his throat.
And another Guardian report, from Baghdad, notes that civilians have been largely untouched the shocking and awesome bombardment of the Iraqi capital: "So long as the rest of Baghdad remains almost unscathed, ordinary Iraqis appear relatively buoyant, as they reach for the possibility that maybe this war will be less punishing than they had feared."
posted on March 26, 2003 05:33:03 PM new
This is from Townhall.com
March 26, 2003
Human shields-turned-hawks
They arrived as Saddam apologists willing to die for the despot—but they left Iraq weeks later with changed hearts and a determination that Saddam must go. Many of the human shields who had arrived with much fanfare to “stop” the United States and Britain were swayed by the strongest supporters of Saddam’s ouster: the Iraqi people.
Particularly powerful is the story of an American group from the Assyrian Church of the East, who went with a Japanese human shield delegation and recently crossed over into Jordan with 14 hours of uncensored video footage. Out of the presence of Iraqi secret police, Iraqi people talked about how desperate they were for the U.S.-led war to begin. Rev. Kenneth Johnson told United Press International that Iraqis he interviewed on camera “told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn’t start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam’s bloody tyranny.”
After talking with the Iraqi people—not the propagandists on Saddam’s payroll the outside world sees—Rev. Johnson realized that Saddam is “a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler.” He explained: “Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so the [torture masters] could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head.”
Showing that Rev. Johnson’s group was not alone, a self-described “23-year-old Jewish-American photographer,” Daniel Pepper, detailed his conversion in a column in The Daily Telegraph of London. He wrote that he, like the other human shields, was “less interested in standing up for [Iraqis’] rights than protesting against the U.S. and U.K. governments.” But five weeks in Baghdad and repeated contact with ordinary Iraqis left him with “a strong desire to see Saddam removed.”
What caused this former do-gooder to see the light? The same thing that shocked Rev. Johnson’s group back to reality: conversations with the Iraqi people. Pepper recounted a conversation he had with the taxi driver who took him and five other former human shields to Jordan. Free to speak his mind without fear of reprisal from one of Saddam’s omnipresent secret agents, the cabbie understood perfectly what the young idealists originally did not: “Of course the Americans don't want to bomb civilians. They want to bomb government and Saddam’s palaces. We want America to bomb Saddam.” Pepper and his pals were stunned. “It hadn’t occurred to anyone that the Iraqis might actually be pro-war,” he wrote.
War in Iraq has not been solely about liberation of the Iraqi people—disarmament is a key driving force—but to them, that is what matters. And it matters to the rest of the world, too. For if Saddam were to stay in power indefinitely, there is no telling when he would turn against the world. Look at Stalin, the man upon whom Saddam has modeled himself, right down to the creepy moustache. Although he had never directly engaged America, scholars now believe that shortly before his death—which many suspect involved foul play—“Uncle Joe” intended to start World War III. Had he done so, untold millions would have perished—and the world would be a radically different place today.
Soldiers fighting in Iraq are fighting for nothing less than our freedom—and our children’s freedom. They are fighting to topple a man who ritualistically tortures his own people, who has used weapons of mass destruction, and who had invaded two of his neighbors. Because he refused numerous opportunities to disarm or simply choose exile, this is a war of Saddam’s choosing—and the brave men and women from America, Britain, and elsewhere have not backed down from the fearsome challenge. They have not just the prayers and support of their countrymen, but of the Iraqi people as well. As the Iraqi taxi driver told Pepper, the former human shield: “All Iraqi people want this war.”
