David Lock

Good cast tonight if you like that sort of thing (I do).

Galloway, Campbell, Hughes, Spellman

So left left, left, can't make up his mind and doesn't really count

dl

Chip

Well thats unlike the BBCto have a bunch of lefties on isnt it.

Chip

JTaylor

Galloway, Campbell, Hughes, Spellman and Dimbleby....I really hope he allows the panelists to finish their monologues instead of constantly butting in. I understand he needs to moderate but it sometimes feels like the Dimbleby show. Interesting panel.

Leslie

I agree. I find it gets tedious enough when the panellists keep trying to talk each other down but even worse when Bumblebum keeps butting in to show us how clever he is and interrupting the panellists flow.

David Lock

If he'd let them go on then it would have turned into the Alistair Campbell show

I thought Galloway was in good form

dl

zip106

I thought the footballer was pretty good.

Effective orator for a footballer and asked some probing questions.

JTaylor

I thought Alastair Campbell did well to remind that fawning mouthpiece for Saddam, George Galloway, of the time the sickening creep simpered, salivated and preened for the benefit of the genocidal dictator: "I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." Well, he's been through the trap door now, Gorgeous.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Yes and everyone is living happily ever after in Iraq... wel everyone our troops ddn't kill in the illegal war that is

hodgy0_2

Spellman was pathetic

David Lock

A sickening question really but would it be fair to argue that far less people would have been killed and Iraq would be a stable country if we had left Saddam alone?

dl

JTaylor

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human...edirected=true

http://history1900s.about.com/od/sad...seincrimes.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=2761722

A poster on another thread called for Blair to be hanged, this sickens me. We were right to remove Saddam. Blair was right to take us to war.

http://m.npr.org/story/4962517?url=/...and-punishment

Martin2005

Fewer would of been 'kiiled', but far more would of died.

Infant mortality rate was just awful in Iraq under Sadam, it's now much much lower, on that score alone we have saved 100's thousands of lives over the past 8 years.

Of course sanctions had much to do with the high mortality rate, but those would never of been lifted whilst Sadam was in power, for me it just adds power to the argument that we did the right thing in getting rid of him.

hodgy0_2

beautifully constructed circular argument btw

high mortality rate

caused by our sanctions

which would remain – causing more and more deaths

so we had to get rid of Saddam

back to top

JTaylor

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halab...son_gas_attack

@ the Saddam apologists.

Ask yourself if it is your humanity that makes you a peacenik or your hatred of all things Bush and Blair?

David Lock

Well the oil for food/drugs programme wasn't handled robustly at all IMHO. It's not that bloody difficult to sell oil and have a secure fund and identify genuine companies to provide goods required. But it turned into a bit of a corrupt farce.

And, of course, while this was all going on we let nice Mr Mugabe starve his people and reduce the life expectancy of people - sorry I know this is not relevant but lack of action in Zimbabwe has always pissed me off

dl

hodgy0_2

Iraq was supplied the chemicals to gas Halabja by the West, do you think we went into Iraq to stop deaths of Iraqy's?

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Of course we did. We were so outraged at the attack in 1988 we acted quickly and incisively and ousted him....er.... 15 years later LOL!

Some people on this board need a reality check.

Martin2005

It isn't a construction, they are the facts.

What would the alternative of been?

The UN oil for food programme was routinely piilaged by Saddam, so it wasn't fit for purpose. Like it or not there was no way sanctions were getting lifted whilst Saddam or his son were in charge

hodgy0_2

look my basic point is that if we (in the west) had said

"enough is enough -the man (and his regime) is a cvnt -- and we cannot tolerate his killing and torture of the Iraqi people anymore, so are going to get rid of him - lets build a coalition (inc other Arab states if poss) and kick his **** in"

then I think alot more people would have supported the project. - I would

It is my view that any enterprise or action which is built on lies and deceit (and fundementalist religious fervour) does not have happy endings - in fact ends in tragedy

it would be fairly easy to do a spreadsheet comparing the deaths of innocents btw

and ultimatly it does not matter whether you are killed by a Bathist bullit or an American one

David Lock

I am sure a lot of people would agree with that but accepted international law prevents that happening. It seems a dictator can do what he likes unless he poses a threat outside his domain.

Then there's Burma, N Korea, Zimbabwe and a fistful of other African states. Sad.

dl

Leslie

Do you have the actual statistics for those statements Martin?

Les

JTaylor

There's a picture available of Sir Winston Churchill shaking hands with Jo Stalin. Realpolitik dictates that sometimes one has to swallow their vomit and accept that the enemy of the enemy is a friend.

Would you blame a licensed gun dealer if one of his customers committed a murder?

hodgy0_2

your arguments are as bizarre as the American "pro-lifers" who murder Doctors and support the death penalty

JTaylor

Ok, could you explain how you've reached this conclusion, please, I'm struggling to understand the correlation? For the record, I'm pro-choice and anti-death penalty. Are you equating my support for Saddam's removal with a broad Christian-right political outlook?

Jamie

Spell Man

l caroline@carolinespelman.com.

unclebuck

Didn't know Saddam was gay!!

hodgy0_2

The “peaceniks” you so cavalierly condemn were campaigning against the arming of Saddam and Iraq in the 80’s, in a war that cost a million lives, were campaigning against supplying him with the chemicals used to gas the inhabitants of Halabja, and campaigned in the millions against the illegal invasion of Iraq – causing, well who knows, as they did not bother to account for the innocent lives lost.

The “peaceniks” you support, were supplying “in the name of Realpolitik” the guns and chemicals that prolonged a war that caused a million deaths, the “peaceniks” that you support unleashed on the innocent peoples of Iraq the “dogs of war” in a carnage of biblical proportions.

it reminds me of the American general fighting in Vietnam who said - "To save this village we have to destroy it"

Bizarre – that’s all

JTaylor

Ok, that makes more sense, although I still don't follow the abortion and death penalty reference. I'll respond after TG.

JTaylor

In 1980 Iran was (and still is) a Pan-Islamist state; this offered up an ideological threat to the West. Iran is/was Shia and Persian, which Saddam didn't like (because he was Sunni and Arab) and invading Iran and winning would present a nationalist victory alongside an increased oil reserve and dominance in the Gulf. In September, under the pretext of an assassination attempt on Tariq Aziz, Saddam invaded. Saddam presented himself to the world as secular and a socialist.

Amidst the battle Iran knocked out some of Iraq's oil fields, restricting their capacity to export. The war continued with Iran being supplied by North Korea, China and North Korea (enemies of the West) and Iraq being supplied by France, Italy, Germany, the US, the UK, Spain and others (the West).

In 1984 Iraq attacked some Iranian tankers. Iran countered by attacking Iraqi tankers (and that of their allies) which affected oil supply to the West. This little lot cost Lloyds of London a small fortune.

In 1985 Khomeini stated: "It is our belief that Saddam wishes to return Islam to blasphemy and polytheism. ... if America becomes victorious ... and grants victory to Saddam, Islam will receive such a blow that it will not be able to raise its head for a long time ... The issue is one of Islam versus blasphemy, and not of Iran versus Iraq." The words of a theocrat, the US and Nato were firmly behind the secular socialist, Saddam. Reagan responded that the the West could not afford to allow Iraq to lose the war to Iran", and that the United States "would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran."

The war waged and, after extraordinary atrocities by Saddam against the Kurds and Iran excepting UN resolutions, peace was restored.

Saddam then became madder and more brutal and then he invaded Kuwait and the rest, as they say, is history.

Sometimes, and it's hard to swallow, one has to back the bad guys because they present less of threat to one's way of life than their enemy. Yes, it smarts. Yes, it presents as hypocrisey. And yes, it's incredibly sad.....but that's the nature of internationalism and the long game.

The West were right to back Saddam in the 80s: the West were right to remove him in the noughties. My allegiance, as ever, is to the West, Great Britain, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and free religion. I believe that to defend this one has to make sacrfices. Sometimes that involves swallowing vomit.

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

I'm outta this thread