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Anti-Iraq Propaganda, Naturally

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ogopogo3

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You don't honestly expect an american to know who Jack Straw is do you? :D
 
Amnesty attacks Iraq torture dossier

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/fore...,852130,00.html

Amnesty attacks Iraq torture dossier

Staff and agencies
Monday December 2, 2002

The government was today accused of manipulating information on human rights abuses in Iraq to build its case for war against Saddam Hussein.

Amnesty International said a dossier released today by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, listing torture, rapes and other abuses perpetrated by the Baghdad regime, is a "cold and calculated manipulation" of the work of human rights activists.

"Let us not forget that these same governments turned a blind eye to Amnesty International's reports of widespread human rights violations in Iraq before the Gulf war," the group's secretary general, Irene Khan, said.

"They remained silent when thousands of unarmed Kurdish civilians were killed in Halabja in 1988."

The report contains graphic first-hand accounts by victims of the regime's human rights abuses, as well as intelligence material and evidence from aid charities working in Iraq. It makes clear that the abuses are carried out as a policy of the Iraqi dictator.

Publication of the dossier is being seen as a further move by the government to make the case for war if President Saddam fails to comply with a UN resolution ordering him to disarm. Baghdad must submit a full declaration of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in six days or face "serious consequences" under UN resolution 1441.

A team of UN weapons inspectors has been in Iraq for five days examining suspected arms sites.

In the introduction to the document - titled Saddam Hussein: Crimes and Human Rights Abuses - the Foreign Office said: "Iraq is a terrifying place to live.

"People are in constant fear of being denounced as opponents of the regime. They are encouraged to report on the activities of family and neighbours. The security services can strike at any time.

"Arbitrary arrests and killings are commonplace. Between three and four million Iraqis, about 15% of the population, have fled their homeland rather than live under Saddam Hussein's regime.

"These grave violations of human rights are not the work of a number of overzealous individuals but the deliberate policy of the regime. Fear is Saddam's chosen method of staying in power."

Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: "No one doubts the barbarism of Saddam Hussein. It dates back to the period when, under a Conservative government, the UK was willing to sell him arms-related equipment and to give him substantial financial credit so that he could afford to make purchases.

"The issue is whether or not he will fulfil his obligations under the security council resolution 1441.

He said that "justifiable distaste for Saddam Hussein and all his works" should not obscure his obligations to the security council.

Sherif Ali bin al-Hussein of the Iraqi National Congress, which brings together a range of groups opposed to Saddam Hussein, today described the prospect of US military occupation of Iraq as liberation.

"Comparisons with Japan or Germany are incorrect," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"The true comparison should be with France, Holland or Denmark, looking on Iraq as a liberated country, not a defeated enemy."
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First off, the title to this thread is a real joke.

So lets see if I have this right... Amnesty International is ticked not because the info being released is untrue...but because those releasing it now weren't suitably outraged in the past.

Hmmm... is there a word for this brand of high-handed, very PC, smugly righteous anger?

The thing is, I will bet that a good many, who do not look past headlines, will presume that AI is objecting because they are claiming the basic info is untrue - a reasonable guess from the headlines, I might add. But no, they are just chiding and finger-wagging because they don't like the truth being used NOW in support of a cause they have no real sympathy for...Hmmmm


Shadow
 
And rightly so I feel. It is hypocritical in the extreme that the UK and US governments did nothing about the human rights abuses being committed until it suited their own agendas to do so.
 
And continue to do nothing about the Human Rights abuses in 'Favoured' countries such as Saudi Arabia.
 
*L* Oh, I love it...

4imix - guess you would be right there supporting the USA if it moved to overthrow the Saudis, now wouldn't you? Yeah...right!

The smugness of the anti-USA/UK crowd is really amusing. When the USA acts in what can be argued to be its cold self-interest, it is imperialistic, arrogant, amoral, etc, etc etc. When it acts where it HAS no practical self-interest, it is bullying, meddling, arrogant, etc, etc, etc...

*LOL*

The hypocrites here are those who are less concerned with human rights than with scoring political points. If human rights WERE the number one concern of AI and company, they wouldn't give a @#%@^ WHY Sadaam was potentially facing ouster. After all, they don't dispute his appalling record of torture and murder. They would just be glad that he was likely on the way out. But no, they would rather posture and "tut tut" and such.

PUH-LEEZ...

Shadow
 
I think your dismissive attitude of anyone elses opinion shows outrageous smugness personally Shadow.
I am not anti US or anti UK. I have very mixed feelings about the proposed war against Iraq and the motives behind it. There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam is a dictator and a madman. My point however, was the blatant hypocrisy of the governments involved. They could use various methods to combat human rights abuses isn all of these countries but don't do anything. Now they decide to come over all pious and self righteous and use the abuses that they have hitherto completely ignored to bolster support in what is generally seen to be a very unpopular war.
 
Shadow said:
*L* Oh, I love it...

4imix - guess you would be right there supporting the USA if it moved to overthrow the Saudis, now wouldn't you? Yeah...right!

The smugness of the anti-USA/UK crowd is really amusing. When the USA acts in what can be argued to be its cold self-interest, it is imperialistic, arrogant, amoral, etc, etc etc. When it acts where it HAS no practical self-interest, it is bullying, meddling, arrogant, etc, etc, etc...
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Err, no i wouldn't. i would however, be behind attempts to highlight the abuses, and apply political pressure to get them to conform to UN conventions.
The saudis are the 'Taliban-With-Oil' and we support them wholeheartedly.
The British Govt 'Dossier' like the last one, highlights nothing new.
 
I am not dismissive of others' opinions - merely trying to figure what the point is!

In a nutshell, here is what AI is saying... Yes, the info in the report is accurate. Sadaam is a torturing, raping, murdering dictator. But we don't like you bringing it up now, because you didn't do anything about it in the past. So there. THBBBTTTT!

I mean, that is about it, isn't it? Really?



:rolleyes:

Shadow
 
I think what they are pissed off about is that they have submitted annual reports, sometimes Bi-Annual, to the govt for the past 20 yrs or so, highlighting these abuses, and asking them to do something about it. which they haven't. Now, when they want to stir up flagging public support for a war. they realease it.

yes its good that the govt highights these things. but its also good that some of us are highly suspicious of their motives.
 
Of course the 'random killing spree' techneques employed by the israili ary in responce to the equelly evil 'random bombings' employed by hamas are just as bad as iracs torture of political prisoners yet bush and blairs responce to them is just to ignore them.
when you consider that it's from situations like this that the terorists get their new recrutes it seams strange that the us and uk governments are focasing their attention on 'soft targets' such as irac rather that trying to stop teroriam by attempting to reconsile the 2 sides in the israil-palistine civil war which would have more of an effect on alqieda as it would (if the setelment proved successfull in the eyes of muslim countrys) cut off a lot of alq's flow of new members and therefore realy hit them where it hurts.

Bush only wants this war now because Sadam is going to die of natural causes within 10 years so he see's this as a last chance to get sadam 'for daddy'. Blair only wants this war now because he wants bush to send lots of amerian money to britain.

May I add my critisisam of blair here: Blair is britains blodthirstyest leader since WW2 and he seams to be enjoying his 'Army Tony' role a bit to much than is healthy for britains national security and economic stability.
 
Oll_Lewis said:
May I add my critisisam of blair here: Blair is britains blodthirstyest leader since WW2 and he seams to be enjoying his 'Army Tony' role a bit to much than is healthy for britains national security and economic stability.
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I voted labour cos i wanted a Socialist Government... I Shan't be doing so again!

It seems Blindingly obvious to anyone who cares to look, that the many of the middle easts problems stem from the Isreal/Palestine conflict. if we put as much effort into finding a solution to that as we do with our gung-ho war fever, we'd surely be getting somewhere by now.
 
I voted labour in 97 but now (since the whole 'lets lie to students and say we won't do tuition fees' debarcle) I'm a liberal democrat (admitidly one with royalist tendancys) and proud of it, after all they are the most leftwing of the 3 main partys...
 
Amnesty rapid reaction force...

From today's Independant (03/11/02)

Amnesty International's speedy reaction to the government's dossier on Iraq was a surprise, not least to Amnesty staff, who had barely started looking through it by the time that they were quoted as condemning it. "It appears," says a spokesman, "our response to a dossier the government produced in September was used to pre-empt a reaction to this report." Very naughty.
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Don't you just love news coverage. ;)
 
Speaking of pre-emptive responses, Bush said yesterday that it was "not encouraging" that Iraq would comply, and Blair today echoed the same sentiments. All just after the inspections are underway, let alone finished.
They've made their minds up, and once this charade is over we're going in no matter what.
 
DD, I hope that you're wrong, and that it isn't a foregone conclusion. (Bear in mind though, that at the end of the Gulf war Iraq denied that it had been developing WMD. Once the inspectors went in, this was demonstrated to be a sham. What then ensued, up 'till the inspectors were pulled out, was a cat and mouse game of "hide the WMD program.")

Then again, assuming that Iraq complies, and hasn't been developing WMD, should relations with Iraq be "normalised." Should we still attempt to change the nature of the regime in Iraq, and how do we go about it?
 
If the US and UK had such good intelligence about the 'weapons of mass destruction' allegedly being produced in Iraq, one would have expected the inspectors to go directly to the places of manufacture.

Instead, they seem to be flailing about at random with the apparent purpose of not letting the Iraqis know what they will do next. If these weapons exist, and both sides know it, then the present activity is just some elaborate charade, and the longer it goes on the more pathetic the excuse for war will become.
 
Rynner, not sure if that is how it would have been played. It depends on how much sensitive material the UK and US feel safe providing. If the inspectors went straight to the "correct" sites (assuming that they exist) then that may jeopordise sources of info. (If, for example, they just went to WMD sites which were supplied with soft drinks by one guy, then that one guy might "get his collar felt.") The inspectors have certainly been talking about using civil systems to find things, so it is unclear how much, and in what form, they have received any info from the UK and US.

There are many possibilities (including theone where there is nothing to find) but I would like to give the inspectors a bit more of a chance. (They may have just been using "safe" sites to build up experience and trust with the Iraqi authorities. I just don't know.)
 
Could be, Fortis.

But at present it looks like a propaganda war the Iraqis are winning.
 
Adrian Veidt said:
It is hypocritical in the extreme that the UK and US governments did nothing about the human rights abuses being committed until it suited their own agendas to do so.
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Actually, if something is moral, it is moral now, tomorrow, next week, next year. Political climate is irrelevant. Similarly if something is immoral, it is always so. AI's indignation is understandable but does nothing to advance their cause.

Hypocrisy is distasteful but does not chenge the rightness or wrongness of a situation or action.

Human rights violations, as a pretext for war, is a weak peg for a government to hang their justification on. However, as yet another straw on the camel, it is very effective - how can it be argued with? Who can honestly say that evidence of torture gathered by semi-impartial observers (Amnesty Int'l) is an acceptable thing for any person or government to engage in?

Arguing that it is wrong for a goverment to trot out previously ignored reports when it is convenient is the epitome of not seeing the forest for the trees. Who cares if it was convenient - do we focus on that and ignore the torture of human beings because we find the politics behind the disclosure repugnant? That's a worse action, in my eyes, than the politicos using such horrors to fuel their own agendas.
 
Fortis, I hope I'm wrong too, but from what I've heard this whole inspection thing is flawed. The Iraqis have had weeks to hide vital information whilst the UN wrangled over wording the resolution. Laptops, files, and portable equipment has been hidden in civilian housing. Then there are the portable labs. Imagine looking for a single rack of test tubes in California - that seems to be the scale of the issue. The original inspectors were in Iraq for seven years - now we're expected to see a similar job done in a couple of months.
 
But Fallen, while I take your point that human rights abuses are wrong whatever the circumstances, they should not be used as an excuse to bolster support for an unpopular war. AI are just as opposed to war as they are to other abuses of human rights because, in war, it is the civilian population who suffer the most. Waging a long and bloody war on Iraq won't help the people being abused.
 
Re: Amnesty rapid reaction force...

Fortis said:
From today's Independant (03/11/02)
Amnesty International's speedy reaction to the government's dossier on Iraq was a surprise, not least to Amnesty staff, who had barely started looking through it by the time that they were quoted as condemning it. "It appears," says a spokesman, "our response to a dossier the government produced in September was used to pre-empt a reaction to this report." Very naughty.
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Don't you just love news coverage. ;)
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hmmmm,

But there was an Amnesty spokesperson on Newsnight the other night, Accusing the government of opportunism...........:confused:
 
It Doesn't Really Matter Much, Any More.

It doesn't really matter what us 'PC' anti-war peeps say. The war will happen because the US Gov. wills it to be so and the UK Gov. will follow that lead, NO MATTER WHAT.

I'm not anti- UK or US. But the respective administrations stink. I do feel let down.

This report, which we Brits now recognise, all to readily, as spin does not tell us anything new. It's been published simply to help justify whatever is to come and to prepare us for it.

The fact that the list reminded me of the CIA's Counter-Insurgency (101) Classes for military students from foreign lands, is by the by.

There are very good reasons for tackling wicked and criminal regimes like Saddam Hussein's. Reasons that could equally, if not with even more good reason, be applied to Saudi Arabia, and many more regimes around the world.

But, the reasons and methods which are to be applied in this case are both suspect and worrying. I won't lose sleep over the demise of Saddam and his rule. I will over how damaged, truth, the rule of law and, plain and simple, human good faith and trust are becoming around the world.

:confused:
 
Oll_Lewis said:
) I'm a liberal democrat (admitidly one with royalist tendancys) and proud of it
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I never thought I'd see the day!
 
Dark Detective said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2543697.stm

Keep piling on the pressure until the demands become "unreasonable", Iraq refuses and the US goes "aha! You breached the resolution!"
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This is horribly reminiscent of the sort of pressure Hitler put on Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland before invading them. (When it came to Poland, of course, Britain and France were obliged to declare war on Germany, because they had a mutual protection agreement with Poland.)

A nasty parallel. But then GWB's grandfather was involved in trade with the Nazis just before America finally joined the war - this was discussed on another thread.
 
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