A riposte to Archbishop Tutu's observation

Post by **spot** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 7:30 am

I note the following, and commend the entire article to the site's attention:Earlier this week, Archbishop Tutu, a veteran peace campaigner who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 in recognition of his campaign against apartheid, pulled out of a leadership summit in Johannesburg because he refused to share a platform with Mr Blair.

The former Archbishop of Cape Town said the US- and UK-led action launched against Saddam's regime in 2003 had brought about conditions for the civil war in Syria and a possible Middle East conflict involving Iran. "The then leaders of the United States [Mr Bush] and Great Britain [Mr Blair] fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand - with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us," he said. He added: "The question is not whether Saddam Hussein was good or bad or how many of his people he massacred. The point is that Mr Bush and Mr Blair should not have allowed themselves to stoop to his immoral level."

BBC News - Desmond Tutu calls for Blair and Bush to be tried over Iraq

I don't believe, in the light of all the evidence, that Mr Bush and Mr Blair "allowed themselves to stoop to his immoral level". I think Saddam Hussein's moral level was justifiable. I would happily have taken tea with him. What Mr Bush and Mr Blair wilfully engaged in was a deliberate major breach of the Nuremberg principles and they should both be legally pursued for the remainder of their lives on that basis. To compare the legitimacy of Saddam Hussein's governance, or Colonel Gaddafi's, or President Assad's, with that of these criminal Western adventurers, is quite wrong.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 7:32 am

Sadly, his fine words matter not... he will never see Bush and Blair tried for war crimes during his life time.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 12:48 pm

I think parliament should have called hiom to account when it became apparent he had been lying. They did not have to go along with him, our MP's forget the power is with them not the cabinet or the PM.

remember this?

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Cook's resignation speech

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:25 pm

gmc;1403187 wrote: I think parliament should have called hiom to account when it became apparent he had been lying. They did not have to go along with him, our MP's forget the power is with them not the cabinet or the PM.

remember this?

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Cook's resignation speech

I remember it well - the one member with the backbone to speak out and put his principles before his pay packet.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 4:04 pm

Bryn Mawr;1403219 wrote: I remember it well - the one member with the backbone to speak out and put his principles before his pay packet.

That's more than you can say for blair

Lesley Riddoch: Blair seems like unfinished business - News - Scotsman.com

It emerged that Blair was paid £150,000 to attend while Tutu waived his fee – no wonder Nelson Mandela called the 81-year-old former church leader South Africa’s “moral compass.

But some people had a good war, financially speaking at least. Arms companies, reconstruction firms and Blair himself, who has reportedly earned £11 million lecturing on various subjects including the post-Iraq terrorist threat.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 4:15 pm

gmc;1403228 wrote: That's more than you can say for blair

Lesley Riddoch: Blair seems like unfinished business - News - Scotsman.com

For all our sakes put the Hague to work - ask the question and lets have an answer rather than a whitewash.

koan · Post by **koan** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:12 pm

The US can not allow themselves to be judged by another country. Their Constitution forbids it. Not sure about Blair's situation.

That means they won't extradite Bush or send him off to an international court, nor arrest him on behalf of any international warrant. Canada also refused to detain and/or arrest Bush when he travelled here despite the charges filed in court by Vancouver lawyers. So I hope he's got lots of vacation spots between Florida and Alaska. Oh, and Hawaii too.

koan · Post by **koan** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:13 pm

oh, mind you Iran claims they reverse engineered a drone...

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 3:37 am

Certainly Tutu doing something like that gets my attention. I would like to know what really happened and would like to see a trial for that reason. But would we see the truth? I suspect now only the historians of the future will really be able to put it together. And they'll be disagreeing about it too.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 5:17 am

spot;1403157 wrote: I would happily have taken tea with him.For what purpose?

Post by **spot** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 5:32 am

Ahso!;1403557 wrote: For what purpose?

Social intercourse, the reason most people take tea with each other. I wasn't proposing a business lunch.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 5:42 am

spot;1403560 wrote: Social intercourse, the reason most people take tea with each other. I wasn't proposing a business lunch.I thought you'd want to get to know the man better - is that what you mean by "social intercourse"?

Post by **spot** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 6:15 am

Ahso!;1403561 wrote: I thought you'd want to get to know the man better - is that what you mean by "social intercourse"?

There was a time when the concept was well known. It has a more formal implication than you're allowing it. Here's an online reference:the mores of the time, the preoccupations of the people, the language in which they conversed, and the niceties of their social intercourse. It is a world which is fascinating to us, even today, because such a severe order was imposed and everybody knew their place.

Georgette-Heyer.com - Georgette Heyer's Regency England

I would like to think my manners were moulded by such considerations.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 6:53 am

I take it then that you'd also have tea with GW Bush?

Post by **spot** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 7:01 am

Ahso!;1403565 wrote: I take it then that you'd also have tea with GW Bush?

Not at all.

In my opinion Saddam Hussein as President of Iraq and Head of the local Ba'athist party did a good job of governing and developing a progressive secular country until the West piece by piece destroyed the nation in a process it laughably called "liberation".

In contrast, GW Bush fronted a criminal conspiracy to wage aggressive war in contravention of International Law as developed at the Nuremberg Trials. I would spurn any such social invitation as coming from someone not fit to receive me.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 7:07 am

Your motives for taking tea with Hussein is in relation to his politics. Would you bother asking him as to why he accepted the job from the US in the first place?

Post by **spot** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 7:19 am

Ahso!;1403567 wrote: Your motives for taking tea with Hussein is in relation to his politics. Would you bother asking him as to why he accepted the job from the US in the first place?

I wouldn't have presumed to question him regarding his murky start in life, no more than I'd question anyone else that way in a social setting. I imagine we'd have discussed Bristol, among other non-controversial topics. Some of his children went to school about a mile up the road from here. It would have been interesting to hear how he came to write a novel and how he regarded its subsequent success and transformation into a film.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 7:30 am

I'm curious at what point you became a fan of Hussein's; was it while he was a US puppet or only after the US decided to dis him?

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 8:04 am

koan;1403235 wrote: The US can not allow themselves to be judged by another country. Their Constitution forbids it. Not sure about Blair's situation.

That means they won't extradite Bush or send him off to an international court, nor arrest him on behalf of any international warrant. Canada also refused to detain and/or arrest Bush when he travelled here despite the charges filed in court by Vancouver lawyers. So I hope he's got lots of vacation spots between Florida and Alaska. Oh, and Hawaii too.

The irony being the US was one of the main instigators of the international courts in the first place

posted by spot

I wouldn't have presumed to question him regarding his murky start in life, no more than I'd question anyone else that way in a social setting. I imagine we'd have discussed Bristol, among other non-controversial topics. Some of his children went to school about a mile up the road from here. It would have been interesting to hear how he came to write a novel and how he regarded its subsequent success and transformation into a film.

You could have discussed how Bristol's wealth was built on the back of the slave trade and how the middle east and britain have that in common and how slavery blighted africa up to the present day. Not so long ago the notion of a black bishop in the church of England would have had the the tea being spluttered all over the tablecloth never mind daring to suggest a British prime minister be put on trial. I

Post by **spot** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 8:06 am

Ahso!;1403569 wrote: I'm curious at what point you became a fan of Hussein's; was it while he was a US puppet or only after the US decided to dis him?

I'd not describe myself as a fan, I was brought to think about the matter by the mindless patriotic group-hate from the majority of posters here over the years, which reminded me of similar lies enacted in George Orwell's 1984.

I feel confident that had Saddam Hussein not been harsh on occasion in his governance of Iraq he'd have been replaced by someone who'd have provided the harshness. I feel he was foolish in acceding to US pressure to go to war with Iran but, as you say, he may well have had agreements in place with the US intelligence community for some while beforehand. I doubt whether anyone can produce documentation to that effect yet. I suspect historians will have access to it one day.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:36 am

I wish you'd make up your mind regarding American Foreign Policy - whether or not you agree with it, that is. You appears to agree with America's choice of Hussein as an installed dictator, but don't care for the fact that he'd been fired. Perhaps after it digests a bit more you might see things differently? I imagine that's what happened on the initial act of appointing him.

Post by **spot** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:58 am

Ahso!;1403681 wrote: I wish you'd make up your mind regarding American Foreign Policy - whether or not you agree with it, that is. You appears to agree with America's choice of Hussein as an installed dictator, but don't care for the fact that he'd been fired. Perhaps after it digests a bit more you might see things differently? I imagine that's what happened on the initial act of appointing him.

I'm sure Saddam Hussein became President of Iraq primarily through his own efforts, I don't think the US State Department or its intelligence community had so much influence that they made it happen on his behalf. Anything either of us say on the topic would be guesswork because the facts are unavailable. I don't see much to be had out of guessing.

He was an Iraqi politician, he got to the top of the Party one way or another and - the essential point - he held onto it. Had he not held on he would have been toppled. I don't think he can be faulted for employing the local political process for staying in office, given that his domestic policies were invariably beneficial to Iraq as a whole. He transformed the country, mostly for the better. The proportion of citizens in tertiary education and with doctorates was phenomenal, the fact that so many of them were women was astounding, the average Iraqi had housing, food, energy and clean water, Iraq was a social oasis in the Middle East.

Since his quasi-legal assassination at the hands of the US army, working through their Quisling Iraqi post-"liberation" puppets, Iraq has been pushed back to the status of a third world banana republic. Why we should be expected to applaud such sickening wanton destruction I don't know.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 5:18 am

Rough business, the oil industry. I wonder if others in the region are complicit in any way in wanting to retard the advancement of any one nation there and hired US muscle to clamp down on the issue. I can't imagine Afghanistan, for instance, would care for the Hussein vision of the future. Not that Afghanistan would look to the US for assistance. Now the Saudis, that may be a different story.

What are your thoughts on Iraq's invasion of Kuwait? Do you think Hussein was interested in forwarding his progressive agenda there, and on Iran, for that matter?

Post by **spot** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 5:34 am

Kuwait was historically part of Iraq from before Alexander the Great until the British carved it off. Iraq had claimed it as an internal province from the day they regained their independence. Here's Ron Paul discussing the US green light to the invasion of Kuwait. Saddam Hussein was suckered into providing the US with sufficient spurious grounds for "moral outrage" to talk US public opinion into deploying into the Middle East. Ambassador Glaspie affirmed to Saddam that “the President had instructed her to broaden and deepen our relations with Iraq. As Saddam Hussein outlined Iraq’s ongoing border dispute with Kuwait, Ambassador Glaspie was quite clear that, “we took no position on these Arab affairs.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 6:04 am

I recall Ross Perot making an issue of that when he ran in 92. Perot's words were something like: George [HW] Bush told Hussein he could have some of Kuwait but Hussein had to go and take the whole thing.

koan · Post by **koan** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:20 am

Since investigating more into the 9/11 Truth movement, I've repeatedly thought of my remarks in this thread and wish to retract them. I don't care if the US has a policy of answering to no one but themselves. War was waged on false pretences and it isn't just a matter of the US doing something internally. I think an international court will be required to bring justice to the people and countries who have suffered so greatly because of Bush's war games. We see these things happen as if we are reading a book or playing a video game. Meanwhile, millions of people are dying.

Enough is enough.

The only way to bring peace back into this world is to start prosecuting and holding accountable the people who have acted with malicious self-interest.

koan · Post by **koan** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 am

I say that believing fully that George 'dubya' Bush is too stupid to have planned anything himself. I just think he'll squeal like a pig if you make him answer some hard questions.