The article includes a description of the video that provoked Muslim rioting, and politican's response to that rioting.
President Obama , and the Republican candidate for the presidency, Mitt Romney, have made statements regarding the rioting in Cairo, Egypt, and in Benghazi, Libya. While seeking a safe haven during the Libyan protest by extremist Muslims, American Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed, as was Sean Smith, a Foreign Service information management officer, and two security persons who are at this point unnamed.…
Article comments
26 - John Lake
Deano:
As you point out, "HOWEVER, at the time GWB began drum-beating for war, Saddam had divested himself of most of his stockpiles..." We had inspectors on the ground with full authority and permission to search anywhere, including the royal palace, and no weapons were found. Additionally, at the time of our "preemptive strike", Hussein had no ongoing plans to threaten the West. In fact, he was involved in ending the hostilities between Muslim sects in Iraq.
27 - Deano
John & Glenn,
No offence but both of you need to start paying a bit more attention to actually reading the comments that get posted back to you.
At no point did I note that the regional threat Saddam presented justified the invasion of Iraq nor any of the subsequent "spin-offs" of death and torture. I noted that John's claims of no "progressing hostility" was spurious and ill-informed, and that Saddam was systematically involved in both developing and using WMDs. He had a long and colourful history with WMDs and provided little evidence or trust that he had changed his stance under sanctions.
As for searching for WMDs, John, Saddam wasn't exactly cooperating with the UN teams. In fact, he often deliberately misled them and misdirected them, so it is important if you are looking at the history and the events that you don't make assumptions that everything was known at the time and was being deliberately misconstrued. Bush and Cheny looked for the evidence that supported their justifications and ignored (and at times surpressed) views and evidence that did not support it. They had a very specific policy direction in mind, and worked towards implementing it. Their objectives and goals notwithstanding, Saddam had his own agenda and purpose around his own regional status and domestic political control. He was not an innocent party.
Lastly Glenn your statement about the war crimes court is nice hyperbole but probably not justifiable under international law.
28 - Glenn Contrarian
Deano -
I'll avoid giving a long reply, but the need for the war crimes court for Bush and Cheney is quite justified seeing as how both personally approved the torture, never mind that we hung Japanese officers who waterboarded POW's during WWII.
29 - Deano
Glenn,
I understand the desire to bring them to trial however it "ain't a gonna happen" for a wide range of reasons, not the least of which is that international law is very ambivialent about authority and responsibility and jurisdiction.
When you *lose* a war, or you are being faced down by the international community that included the superpowers, (i.e. the Serbs, or the Rwandan genocidists) you might be brought to trial and held to account, but when you win or when you are operating for a major power, it isn't going to happen. In practice, the difference between a just war and an unjust one is winning, more than any other factor.
You can dispute the Bush war criminal concept on a wide range of levels (and mind you, I'm not saying they are right or justified, it isn't about that. International law is generally about expediency and what works to suit the state, not justice in any sense of the word).
You can argue about whether waterboarding is defined as torture, whether the detainees/prisioners were covered by the Geneva Convention or not (as non-uniformed combatants, I think they don't meet the standard from what I've heard. The convention needs to be updated), you can argue about the moral justifications of going to war on the basis of the common good of humanity (Saddam killed a significant number of his own and other people), you can claim the war was "illegal" but that is highly disputable and hard to define, particularly when the UN and the international community had agreed upon some type of response.
In short, the call for Bush/Cheney to be tried as war criminals is nothing but empty hyperbole and posturing theatre - unlikely, improbable and difficult to justify legally - however much you and many others might like to see them brought to account.
What I would like to see is a detailed and searching investigative commission into the march to war, the conduct of that war and have them pull the curtain aside on the bitter and painful aftermath that has resulted. I would like to see the American people get a clear and unadulterated factual examination of the events, the manipulation and where the responsibility and decision-making lay. I would like to see all the stupidity and venal motivations laid bare on stage, stripped to of the political hyperbole and the posturing.
I should live so long....
30 - Glenn Contrarian
Deano -
You're speaking more of the pragmatic side of the matter, and I understand that - I really do. While I will always rail about war crimes by Bush and Cheney, I know quite well that they will never be brought to justice - it simply ain't gonna happen. But they took us to war on false pretenses...and it wasn't even about the WMD's that they claimed - that was just the excuse. Bush had determined before he ever took the Oath of Office that he was going to be a war president, that he was going to attack Iraq and do what his daddy didn't - as I detail in comment #16 of this article. The guy is a war criminal who through his idiocy caused the deaths of over 100,000 innocent men, women, and children - and immeasurably strengthened Iran's position in the region.
Such is the power of human stupidity when it's backed up by pride and military might. But my wish for justice in this matter will never be anything more than a wish. America, OTOH, will still pay a steep price as the years go by, for after illegal invasion and hundreds of drone attacks and the deaths of so many innocents, it will be many, many generations before the people there stop hating us...
...and for the life of me, I can't blame them.
31 - John Lake
I question the jurisdiction we had over Hussein. How a sovereign ruler keeps his house in order is not necessarily our business; China and Russia agree.
If Bush/Cheney haven't been punished for crimes including profiteering and torture (which went far beyond the repeated drowning in waterboarding) it isn't because of a lack of international agreement, rather because these corporate family members have power to remain above the law.
There may be some merit to "it IS our business." We might have little right to stop the things we don't approve of, things like nuclear ambition, but we have the good sense to move forward anyway.
32 - Deano
John,
China and Russia agree when it is in their interest to agree. Given both countries records (China with Tibet and other border regions; and Russia with Hungary, Czechosolvakia & Afghanistan) neither is in a position to scream about jurisdiction.
The thing to remember about international law is that is very mallable - it is generally determined on the basis of what you can get away with.
The US is very good at leveraging multilateral organizations to back them up for their foreign adventures. China and Russia traditionally had a harder time with that piece of political theatre as the US and western nationas traditionally dominated the UN and multilateral institutions until recent years.
International law is a weird mix - you want the law to restrain and help control international activities of everyone else, but you generally don't want it restricting your sovereign ability to do what you want and need internationally and domestically, hence the UN, China, Russia etc. are terrific at supporting multilateral trade agreements but abysmal about things like controlling how a nation-state treats its own population.
Hence Syria! Cynically, no wants to intervene in Syria, it has too much potential to suck up money, resources and lives for few to no long-term benefits for any of the parties involved. It is far enough from the gulf not to seriously impact the oil, and Israel is probably stronger with Syria in a state of chaos. The Russians and the Chinese are content to make money on the weapon sales and off-set the US influence, and frankly the US is probably secretly pleased as punch that Russia and China are stalemating the UN security Council from doing anything that actually might entail active intervention, especially in an election year.
33 - Lee
Cindy, we have been at war for centuries with ideologies like Islam. Do you so detest violence that you would refuse to stand up for a child being raped or a child being murdered because of their beliefs? This is exactly what this "Spring" in the Middle East has produced. I bet you did not know over 100,000 Christians have been killed int he last month in the country of Egypt alone. And you can thank Barack for that. He stood by and encouraged the "Spring". As the Muslim Brotherhood and other Terrorist factions took power from American Allies.
It is you and the liberal kind that are responsible for these atrocities that are happening in Libya, Syria, and Egypt. 1 for voting in a coward, 2 for being spineless in the face of evil, and 3 for hating and fighting those that would give their own life to protect yours and this last bastion of Freedom. Do not come here and spew this hatred and nonsense any longer. Just because you cannot and will not protect and fight for this country and your fellow brethren, does not mean the rest of us cannot and will not. I refuse to be brow beaten any longer be you idiots. So be it if you want to call me a "War Monger", Hate Monger", "Racist", "Fascist", or any other inflammatory nonsense to make us back down.
I will no longer stand in the Dark! I will not go quietly in the night! I will stand up and fight for what is right. Not because I want to, but because no one else has the balls too.
You cannot reason with a religion that has in their doctrine that their religion must dominate the world, That they must kill none believers, and their families. If someone is hell bent on killing you, the only recourse is to kill them 1st. It sucks, but it is the cold hard truth.
It does not matter if Romney or Obama is in. That will only change where it will be foguth. Abroad, or here.
The war is coming, and in some ways is already here. And that part is also the fault of the liberals. Appeasement and apology has never worked with a crazy leader or religious sect that is bent on world domination. It only makes them stronger in their belief that you are easily dominated and are to be controlled by them.
It kills me to see my fellow Americans that their fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers died for, systematically tear it all down in the name of tolerance.
This is my question to all of the "Tolerant". Who's tolerance to we judge by? Yours? Mine? The Governments? Alla's? Jesus's? There is no real tolerance, you judge only on what you choose to tolerate. That is human nature. But, freedom trumps Tolerance. Freedom gives us all a right to speak, and to be heard. Regardless of if anyone wants to hear it or not.
The Tolerance of the Left cannot do that. Because they choose to not tolerate any speech that they deem "Hate Speech"(Code for Free Speech). Without total free speech, there is not freedom, and one group or another can have total control in the name of Tolerance.
34 - Zingzing
Lee, care to share a source for your 100,000 christians killed in egypt thing? I hate to tell you it's nonsense. As for the rest of your diatribe, I think if you and a radical Muslim stood across from each other, you'd see how much you are alike. You are their mirror image, and it strikes me as rather sad that you look upon them with such hatred while failing to see the same qualities in yourself. To those of us that want nothing to do with your stupid war, you're as much the problem as they are, and looking at you must be just as frustrating for me as it is for a moderate Muslim to look at what assholes do in the name of their religion.
And if their religion says they must kill, and your thoughts say that those who would kill must be killed, I think that means you have to target yourself as well. Logically. Of course, that would be stupid.
35 - John Lake
Obama, the only candidate for the presidency with any insight into theories of government, and society, and morality... any ideology at all, has made the point several times that as nations transit from oppressive dictatorships to democratic centers of freedom and human worth, the path is never going to be smooth. "Bumps in the road", not the best possible choice of words, perhaps, were predictable and inevitable. But in the long run, the global society and the people of Egypt, and Libya, will benefit beyond comprehension.
Romney has already specultated on three new wars; does he think we will balance the budget and pay down the national debt, while proving our "leadership" to the world?
I've yet to find a perfect religion. There are extremest Muslims,extremist Christians, and (holy holiday) extremist Jews.
Obama's policy is limited or non-involvement, and thank God for him.
Clarification of three new wars: Iran, Syria, and (this is so unbelievable!) China.
36 - Igor
@33-Lee: you must provide a reliable primary source for this lurid assertion:
"I bet you did not know over 100,000 Christians have been killed int he last month in the country of Egypt alone."
I've heard no such thing, and, frankly, I don't believe it. After all the signed articles I've read, and the known sources I've checked out, that statement seems utterly fabulous, to me.
You only damage your own credibility by making such assertions.
37 - Glenn Contrarian
Lee -
I am a strong Christian, but I also read al-Jazeera fairly regularly, and if 100,000 were killed in Egypt, I'd know about it. Guy, you need to get a life, get away from the right-wing echo chambers that tell you only what you WANT to hear, and start reading papers from around the world and find out what your right-wing media aren't telling you.
38 - Igor
Maybe Lee got that from Warren (not the liberal actor) Beatty. He seems to be tied into that stuff.
39 - Rushman
Allah akbhar
40 - John Lake
I might take a moment to mention that a bipartisan commision has pretty much concluded that an organized terror attack took the life of the ambasador and some of his staff. But again it is stressed that government spokespersons did their best to assertain responsibility shortly after the attack. There was no demonstration, no referrence to the depiction of Mohammed. The investigation is ongoing.
Praise God.