Life in Liberated Iraq

[Chris Alger]

Sound familiar? According to Human Rights Watch (and since supported by the State Department's own Human Rights survey), throughout 2004 the Iraqi regime installed by the U.S. engaged in <ul type="square">"the systematic use of arbitrary arrest, prolonged pre-trial detention without judicial review, torture and ill-treatment of detainees, denial of access by families and lawyers to detainees, improper treatment of detained children, and abysmal conditions in pre-trial detention facilities. Trials are marred by inadequate legal representation and the acceptance of coerced confessions as evidence. Persons tortured or mistreated have inadequate access to health care and no realistic avenue for legal redress. With rare exception, Iraqi authorities have failedto investigateand punish officials responsible for violations. International police advisers, primarily U.S. citizens funded through the United States, have turned a blind eye to these rampant abuses."[/list]Like they say, there's a long road ahead, so more of this to come. We're just getting warmed up.

[jaxmike]

better than rape rooms and using WMDs on your own people if its even true, or true to the degree they are trying to imply, but i dont believe.

[thatpfunk]

jax, what sources do you believe then? did u even bother looking? thats ridiculous.

[jaxmike]

i dont believe liberal sources because they have consistently and unremorsefully lied about just about everything. that said, i dont believe conservative sources either, though they are much harder to find.

[KJS]

The US State Department report on Human Rights worldwide echoed these claims by Human Rights Watch. Hardly a liberal source. And not hard to find.

KJS

[jaxmike]

are you actually trying to claim that the US State Department is not liberal?

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
i dont believe liberal sources because they have consistently and unremorsefully lied about just about everything. that said, i dont believe conservative sources either, though they are much harder to find.

[/ QUOTE ]

Human rights watch was set up by the US government to watch Eastern Europe. By their very nature they may attract liberal employees, but I have no doubt what they say is true. Do I have a problem with it? Not really.

"Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared. ....

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. Politics have no relation to morals."

"All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy must be crushed completely. Sometimes they have learned this the hard way. If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out. More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation. The enemy will recover, and will seek revenge. Crush him, not only in body but in spirit."

"Those who seek to achieve things should show no mercy."

Kautilya, Napoleon, Alexander, Niccolo Machiavelli, Ceasar, Cleopatra, Ivan Claulas, and every great leader since the dawn of time understood this most basic principle that the weak find so difficult to either stomach or simply grasp. If we are going to succeed in creating a free, independent, and stable Iraq, it can not be done gently.

-wacki

[bholdr]

wacki, your argument seems to be predicated on the idea that the strategies of Napolean, Machiavelli, ceaser, etc apply not only to authoritarian conquest, but to building democracies as well. i think there's a pretty huge difference.

that is, when implementing an authouritarian regime, the 'embers' may rightfully flare up, a natural reaction to oppression. but when a democracy takes hold, the persuasive power of freedonm has the ability to molify it's enemies over time and with the experiences that come with living in a free society. eventually, the recruiting pool of terrorists-to-be will be won over by the freedoms and oppurtunities that democracy inevitably will begin to provide. it is oppression in the name of victory, al la the isreali response to the palestinian terror groups, that fosters the growth of new heads on the hydra of terror and religious fanaticisim.

patience, charity, transperancy in government and an absense of heavy-handed tactics are what is nessesary to defeat the 'insurgency' (i still don't like that label- it's a deliberate miscontextualization of what they really are- rebels- a word that carries too many positive connotations in american english, i geuss.)

[FoxwoodsFiend]

I think some things are more believable than others due to the probability of their being tainted by biasing factors. However, given pictures of Abu Ghraib and documentation by Amnesty International of various abuses at Guantanamo Bay (AI being an organization whose presence was vouched for by the Bushies) perhaps we can presume that such claims of abuse are more likely to be true than false. We don't need to be skeptical of all sources-just be reasonable.

[Il_Mostro]

I get the feeling that you will not belive anyone who do not think exactly like you. Human rights watch and your own state department, ok, don't belive them if you wish, but who do you belive?