What do you really know about the goings on in Iraq in general, as distinguished from what you believe about the goings on in Iraq in general? Name “a lot” more, if you have enumerated only “a few” of the goings on.

Why is it ironic? Hussein could be tried regardless what other nations do in Iraq, and he’s on trial in Iraqi courts, not US courts. There isn’t much evidence that senior members of the US government have taken to raping or torturing or gassing US citizens or residents, so there’s no similarity there. If you know how to hold those who commit crimes against humanity accountable without risking additional crimes to bring them to justice, enlighten me. If you just want to leave judgement to their gods, that’s fine too.

I suppose what you mean is that you deem it ironic that Hussein is on trial in Iraq for crimes committed against Iraqis by his will, while senior members of the coalition which fought and occupied Iraq are not on trial for crimes of similar nature but in vastly smaller numbers committed against Iraqis without the leaders’ will.

It’s true that all the crimes are crimes. I wasn’t originally in favour of a US invasion of Iraq (notwithstanding the strategic advantages), but I do desire them to see it through. If the US had not invaded, people would still die. Because the US invaded, people have died. There’s no difference, unless the number of dead and who killed them matter in the equation. In future it will certainly be easier politically if the US simply lets other people find their own way. People will die, but not by the hand of the US, and that might mean that some attention can be focused on the problem rather than on the US. Sudan is still an excellent opportunity to pursue solutions which don’t involve the US invading and occupying a land, killing its non-combatant inhabitants collaterally or through criminal behaviour of its soldiers, imposing its will, and generally interfering with the internal matters of another state. It will of course be interesting to see whether anything effectual is ever done before the point is moot.

Lost a post again.

I think if the charges and processes brought against Hussein were wholly controlled by the Iraqi government, he’d be found guilty and executed already.

>Come on already, a bunch of insurgents behead a civilian contractor and The Decider himself talks about the barbaric and brutal execution

We can agree that is a correct characterisation of the situation.

>when Marine’s torture prisoners or when Iraqi civilians die it’s “a few bad apples, and “unfortunate circumstances”…. what’s that?

If we disagree whether that is a correct characterisation, perhaps you can explain how it is representative of the Marines or US forces as a whole.

I think the official word from Haditha is going to turn out much like My Lai - weak leadership allowed the group to substitute its own values for army values.

Read here for an explanation.

http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/MarApr01/MarApr01/rielly.pdf

For an example closer to home, consider what happened to the values and culture of the Canadian Airborne Regiment.

IrC, my point, as I am sure you are aware, is that US Marines are engaging in the same actions as Iraq’s military engaged in - actions that now see Saddam Hussein in a court room for crimes against humanity.

You can spin it anyway you want, you can even seek, as balbulican has done, to explain it as a predictable phenomena - and none of that will change the fact that the same crimes have been committed but are characterized far, far, differently because of who committed them…. have I called anyone a word pansy yet today?

Apologies for any lost post IrC, the bunker has been hit by a new batch of SPAM bots of late and both the moderation pen and the SPAM-trap runneth over. I do look at each of them regularily however every now and again a legit comment gets accidently deleted, or a piece of SPAM is accidently allowed through.

I would go further than balbulican and identify the consequences as not merely predictable, but as the default condition in the absence of training and leadership to inculcate and maintain chivalric behaviour. As I wrote, using armed force will have consequences. Not using armed force will also have consequences, although the nature of responsibility then changes from commission to omission.

The reason the crimes are spun differently is not simply because of any inherent difference in the acts themselves - presumably one recognizes the difference between, say, US Marines acting from rage and Iraqi Republican Guards acting under orders - but also because of what created the milieu. Regardless whether you judge the war to be illegal or immoral or poorly executed or none of those things, it is still qualitatively different than when armies are ordered to commit atrocities on their own people. Regardless, the overriding concern, and presumably the one which preoccupies you, is the propaganda effort to conceal or minimize atrocities. War is fought in the moral plane as well as the material one. Issues will be managed as part of the information battle.

>there is a difference between armies committing atrocities against others and armies committing atrocities against their own people?

It depends on whether they were ordered to do so, and on the difference between an army ordered to war against a government and an army ordered to war against a people. Is that enough letters for you to understand?

What’s unclear?

Hussein to soldiers: “Kill those people”. Soldiers murder people as ordered.

US to soldiers: “Do not kill noncombatants”. Soldiers murder noncombatants against orders and policy.

Is that different, or not?

(c) isn’t an option. International law recognizes degrees of culpability and degrees of magnitude. For example, the PW Convention discusses “grave breaches”:

“Article 129
The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.

Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case.

Each High Contracting Party shall take measures necessary for the suppression of all acts contrary to the provisions of the present Convention other than the grave breaches defined in the following Article.

In all circumstances, the accused persons shall benefit by safeguards of proper trial and defence, which shall not be less favourable than those provided by Article 105 and those following of the present Convention.

Article 130
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, compelling a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of the hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a prisoner of war of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in this Convention.

Article 131
No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article.”

The “wilful killing” of civilians by Marines constitutes a grave breach under Convention IV (the same, or nearly same, provisions are there). Under other law applicable to matters such as genocide, the behaviour of Hussein’s government toward its own people might be likewise considered particularly heinous. However, the culpability in the former case is likely limited to the subunit in question, whereas the culpability in the latter case extends from the top to the bottom of the chain of command.

In the case of the Haditha massacre one can say that guilt lies with a particular unit, or possibly even a small number of individuals within a particular unit, in other cases and instances mentioned in the post the line of guilt goes much higher.

The general gist of your thoughts seem to be that various atrocities committed under order by Saddam Hussein are worse than the various artocities committed by American soldiers because, well, because Saddam Hussein ordered them.

You are definately on the right side of this argument as far as popular opinion seems to flow, it’s a hell of a lot easier for people to use words like “bad apples” and “abuse” and “murder” than it is to use the descriptors reserved for what “the bad guys” do…. as I said earlier, with luck history has big enough balls overcome that.