Anti-war movement to sue Bush, Blair over Iraq
A coalition of groups opposed to the US-led invasion of Iraq says it intends to take legal action for “mass murder” against British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
“What has happened is the mass murder of 20,000 or so Iraqis,” Chris Coverdale said, a spokesman for the Stop the War coalition, told Sky News.
“We have to ensure that Bush and Blair and all the others associated with that decision to attack and kill Iraqis are held to account for it.”
A few facts:
For over two decades Saddam Hussein and his regime were the biggest threat to the Iraqi people and the neighbors of Iraq.
Amnesty International reported (2001) that “victims of torture in Iraq are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks. Some of the said victims died as a result and many have been left with permanent physical and psychological damage.”
If that weren’t enough he even had approximately fifty of his own relatives put to death in brutal violent ways – - including a couple of his son-in-laws.
He would take the word of the men who served him of a woman being a prostitute and have her beheaded. She would have no say. No trial. There would be no proof she had committed the crime.
There are world wide documented reports of chemical attacks from 1983 through 1988 that resulted in tens of thousands of Iraqi as well as Iranian deaths.
The Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam’s 1987-1988 campaign of terror against the Kurds killed as many as 100,000 Kurds.
In 2002 it was estimated by the Committee for Refugees that over one hundred thousand Iraqi’s had been expelled by Saddam’s regime so that Saddam could
have the oil on their lands.
Over 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five have died of malnutrition and disease (preventative) because Saddam Hussein and his regime refused to have food available to those in need let alone medical care.
Saddam had thousands arrested and put in prison for no reason. During his reign he executed thousands of prisoners. For instance in 1984 he had 4,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison executed. He referred to it as his “Prison Cleansing Campaign”.
So these people need to look at these numbers and do the math. Then they need to again look at their definition of mass murder.
What George W. Bush and Tony Blair have done is to stand strong to their beliefs and to rally several countries of the world together in order to free a nation and liberate people who lived in fear on a daily basis.
Yes, it is awful that anyone had to lose their life during the war in Iraq – - However, the price of freedom is not free and I’m sure many of them gladly gave their lives in order to allow their loved ones to not have to live in fear of a murderous raping stealing tyrant. I know the US citizens who fought in the war and lost their lives – - many of their families have spoken out that their loved one was proud to serve and to help the Iraqi people and that they proudly gave their lives for that cause.
Should we have all just sat back and allowed this to continue?
Oh, brother. Seems like a waste of money to me, suing the President. I can’t even say I know of anyone who tried to sue LBJ over Vietnam.
Then again, this was long before prisoners were suing their own cops for various reasons…
Where were these people when Saddam was in power, when he was torturing, murdering and raping the people of his country? When he betrayed his own people with his murderous ways – - – when his people lived in fear every single minute of every single day?
Answer: They didn’t give a shit.
Hey, 20,000 Iraqis may have been killed in the last year, but it’s a lot better than those who would have died unnecessarily under a brutal dictator.
Us: 20,000
Saddam: uncounted millions
They should do the math.
How do we know the figures are even correct? How do we know they died at our hands.
But…
But Bush and Blair did not say they went to war to liberate Iraq, they said that Iraq was a threat, had WMD. I don’t think that they should be allowed to defend themselves by describing all the horrible things that Saddam did, after they justified the war on other grounds.
That make absolutly no sense!
Hello! The name of the operation was “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. Liberating the Iraqi people was one of the several objectives outlined by the DoD before we invaded. President Bush regularly reminded us of the atrocities committed by Saddam.
Where is the proof? Where are the names of the people that died? If they can come up with such a definitive number where are the names to go with those numbers?
They don’t have proof.
There was an incident in Iraq while we were bombing parts of the country that troubled me… remember when a bomb exploded in a heavily crowded market place? and we were led to believe that an American bomb had cause the damage, but minutes before that an American AWAC detected a missile fired from an Iraqi position and it was said to have landed in the vicinity of that same market… this was never reported, so what’s to say that Saddam and his evil regime weren’t launching rockets and hitting crowded civilian areas and saying we did it? Also, about 85-90% of the bombs we used were GPS driven smart bombs and had an almost a 100%, if not 100%, success rate… didn’t hear that either… Hmmm, just things to think about.
We need to nuke all those that don’t speak
English and fear God like us Americans. Who cares if they have WMDs as long as we can use ours on them? We are the chosen people. God Bless America and no one else!
your an idiot.
no, just a God-fearin American votin for GW!
The following links prove war crimes committed by US-soldiers by executing seriously wounded and (for this reason) defenseless iraqui soldiers/fighters:
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story823.shtml
http://cop-players.com/cop-media/apache.mpeg
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5365.htm
so much about the “evil” Saddam Hussein and as an opposite the homecountry of the noble US forces…
or as you would say:
“…and the home of the brave”
When it comes to prosecuting GW and Tony for crimes against humanity (just ask the little guy who lost his arms) and can simply quote american Apache Pilots when they see anything that moves: “Hit’em!”
Where was the willingness to take up arms and rush to the defense of the Iraqi people when Saddam Hussein and his lovely regime were dropping gas cocktails on the Kurds? “Displacing” them? Carting them off into the middle of the desert to shoot them to death?
The United States government was providing (from 1983 to 1988) more than half a billion dollars in credits per year to Iraq in order to purchase American farm products as part of the Commodity Credit Corporation. After the Anfal, rather than cutting off this support, the credits going into Iraq were doubled.
So…it seems you were already quite adept at sitting idly by and allowing such things to continue, unless something specific should have struck your fancy.
Maybe this is why some of us are more than a little confused. Or maybe selective apathy is just the way to go. Who’s to say?
Hey Rog, let me quote a famous German ‘ZEIG HEIL!’ or how about ‘HEIL HITLER!’ ring any bells? what you seem to be missing in your obviously slanted, socialist view is that we are at war (one that your country opposed, because you had your hands in the UN sanctioned coffers)… you do not see what is happening before or after that video is shot… what were those men doing? What is the policy in Iraq about men who are doing these things? Shoot them on sight… God bless America…
Until then, let me quote a former American sailor, Me “du kannst mich mal”… enjoy!
Hey madbarr,
first, the nazi-quote you mean is written ‘SIEG HEIL’ and was also stated by people who rather were proud of the success of their conqueror-forces, than asking for the justification for their war or a minimum ethical standard of the means…
Second, I wish that people like those guys who hail (and that is actually one meaning of the german word ‘HEIL’) towards the coldblooded murder of a defenseless enemy, will suffer the same fate. As you are such a huge believer of the bible, I guess you’ll share this ‘an eye for an eye’-attitude…
Third, if I wasn’t about to marry my fiance and if I had another sexual orientation, I would also offer you to kiss me where the sun never shines, but… sorry, I can’t return your offer.
To M. Roggenbuck.
You are kidding about about war crimes right? The first link didn’t work. I have seen the apache video, no big deal there and the last was edited. This is your proof of war crimes? you have been watching too much TV… IMHO…
@J.R.:
this link has various links reporting on the two cases..
http://www.ndrtv.de/panorama/archiv/2004/0226/soldaten.html
The CNN-video was also shown on TV but without the scene showing a seriously wounded iraqui fighter on the ground that could barely move( and who was in no way any longer a sort of threat) who was blown away like a duck in a shooting gallery!
The apache tape shows a similar case. On a TV documentary on those cases a retired US general said that apart from a violation of the Genevan Convention which prohibts the killing of incapicitated enemies (who have then POW-status), it was absolutely dumb because in a situation like in Iraq every POW might be a source of information to fight terrorist/partisan activities…
But how was again, one of my favorite quotes from “Platoon”:
“Excuses are like Assh*les- everybody got one!”
Rog, just trying to rattle your chain, old boy, was kind of fun in a way… sorry about the ZIEG meant SIEG, just kept hitting that stupid Z key instead… oh well…
I will also return to the standing orders of those in Iraq who come across someone trying to plant a road side bomb… or other nefarious behavior for that matter, shoot to KILL, because that is all they understand… those little devices have killed 200 American soldiers so of course we are not going to give them an ioTa of leniency…
Also, those who put an ioTa of trust in ANY CNN broadcast must really believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.
madbar- you brought up a good point here…are we being held responsible for those that died at the hands of the suicide bombers, the human shields the iraqis used, or the bombings we were able to attribute to the Iraqis?
Go walk the streets of Dearborn Michigan and present this suit to them and ask for their support..I guarantee you will not be walking out.
Yes, peejz, the mainstream media was told that we were responsible for all those civilian deaths and they presented it as fact… when in fact they did not have the facts… as a matter of fact. they sensationalized everything they were told, it’s worst than when Geraldo “found” Al Capone’s vault, remember all the hype and the build up… hours of listening to him speculate and juxtapose what was in there and when they opened it up, all it had was bottles and garbage… it just got worse from then on… now we can’t even trust them to give the truth an even slant… just lies and propaganda. Sad really.
Hmmm.. interesting peejz.
Your Dearborn sounds a great deal like Berlin between the two World Wars.
Has freedom of speech and thought been banned in Michigan?
Actually Madbarr.. in your last post you left out my favourite…
“The tooth FAIRY”
madbarr, peejz,
of course suicide bombers and other terrorists don’t play by the rules.
That’s why THEY are bad guys! They are terrorists!!!
If you behave like barbarians and/or terrorists you ARE barbarians/terrorists!! It’s not that difficult, or is it?!
PS: madbarr, you believe in Adam & Eve and NOT in Santa Clause?? Shame on you! ;o)
Hey rog, you seem to be looking at them as good vs. evil… are you ok? do you need to lie down? just a strange post coming from you in regards to your views about me being silly for looking at the world like that…
oh, and yes, I believe in Santa… I got a LOTR action figure from him last year… HEEEE…
madbarr,
I just tried to put it in a way, you understand…
To me those poor idiots who blow themselves up are desperate people who try to defend their country with extreme measures. The only problem for them is that they don’t have the defense-budget of your country…
Maybe in their situation I would do the same cruelties…
See that is what I’m talking about rog, so what if we have a good defense budget? So what if we are a thriving super power? Just because they don’t have what we have, that makes us bad, huh?
You have just proven my point about you being a whiney little liberal, socialist… You think: “all those Haves need to give all you have to those Have-nots” “waaa-Waaaa those poor little terrorists doesn’t have the same budget the big, bad US does” makes me sick… this country has made more progress in almost 300 years than countries like yours have in several thousand… and you want to begrudge us our freedom to do with it what we wish… America is powerful enough to do what ever ill or good we wish, we are powerful enough to do what we want to countries like yours, but we DON’T, we use our resources to promote freedom from oppression and saving YOUR sorry, appeasing, countries ass from a madman like Hitler, Mussolini, and Toji… saving Iraq from a brutal dictator, saving Afghanistan from Bin Laden and the Taliban… unlike weasely, appeasing, people like you…
So, thanks for making a good point and then proving yourself wrong in the same breath…
okay, maddy, and who saves the world from the guy who started the (so far) two biggest military conflicts of the third millenium???
And please try to ask yourself this question:
Is freedom a value which is determined by the people who live in a country or from intruders like you are in Iraq?
Or do you want to suggest the state of having sth between a couple and 140 murdered people every day is an expression of freedom, happiness and satisfaction?!?
PS: and before using terms like “socialist” you should at first look up a dictionary for its meaning…
PPS: I’m not the perfect choice to propose mistakes in your language, but wouldn’t it be better to say “has made more progress … THAN your country…” ?
PPPS: aha… you talk about progress by famous american inventions like the steam engine (englishman James Watts), nuclear power (Albert Einstein, Nils Bohr, Otto Hahn), car engines (Nikolaus Otto, Rudolf Diesel), cars (Daimler/Benz),the basics principles of flight (Otto Lilienthal), rockets and spaceflights (Wernher von Braun), computers (Konrad Zuse), printing (Gutenberg), democracy (english Magna Carta, french revolution)
Shows for someone who prides yourself on knowing so much, you didn’t fail to let me down…Dearborn Michigan is comprised of a large population of Iraqi people that fled the regime of Saddam. They are thankful to this country and our allies for giving future generations hope. Many want to return to the country now that he is gone. They have accepted the death of some in order to protect the life of many.
The last time, Saddam murdered “many” in Iraq was when Bush sen. encouraged a rebellion during the first gulf war and abandoned those poor idiots.
Just another proud chapter in the long history of american interference in other country’s internal politics…
Why were any killed Rog?
Now what do these stupid antiwar pansies want? can you remember when RAMSY CLARK was demanding that we appoligse for bombing lbiya after the terrorist bombing?(ramsy Clark can take his demands and shove em)we dont need to waste our money on frivoloius lawsuits by the usial bunch of peace-nik idiots