Reply With QuoteWell, the mass graves stories all seem pretty legit, but I think your bigger point about the continual media retraction stories is spot on.
Remember those kids Saddam threw in jail for their politics? Turns out it was an orphanage.
I think this is the "baby incubators" story of the second iraqi war.
Well, the mass graves stories all seem pretty legit, but I think your bigger point about the continual media retraction stories is spot on.
Well, I think you're spinning a bit, Jason. It was an "orphanage" in the sense that kids lived there and it wasn't really a "jail" as originally reported. But the kids were not allowed to leave, and although they were not there because of their own political beliefs (as originally reported), they were there because of their parents' political beliefs. I don't know whether that makes it better or worse, frankly, but your unblinking assumption that this is okay is a little weird IMO. I mean, your post here makes it sound like this was just an orphanage like any orphanage you'd see here in the US, and that's simply not true. The kids were malnourished and, you'll notice, almost none of them have been willing to go back--they feel they're better off begging for money or even as prostitutes than they were in Saddam's "orphanage."Originally Posted by Jason McCullough
So the inital media reports (or, more accurately, the info that the soldiers gave to the reporters) were wrong, at least to some extent. But I'd hardly say this qualifies as a "180" (or, as we like to say here on QT3, a "360").
Or maybe they are creating hit records, or maybe they went home to relatives .OH WAIT!!!Many children who have not returned have resorted to life on the streets, begging for food or money, or perhaps turning to drugs or prostitution.
In that case, they should never be allowed to leave.For those who remain, the orphanage is the only home they know.
What the hell kind of reporting is this?
Chet
humm. I wonder if we're reading the same article? I see nothing that says the kids were not allowed to leave. It says the left and do not want to return. Also, where does it say they were being held because of their parents political beliefs? If you have some new information I'd like to see it.
Yeah, just like any US orphanage except that it's not in the most prosperous country in world history, so of course it must be the same as a jail. When does malnourished mean the same as prison? Not to obviscate the issue with silly facts, but it's now being run by clerics, not Saddam, and the kids still don't want to come back. I wonder how many well nourished orphans in the US turn to prostitution and begging, as opposed to staying in a govt institution? It seems reasonable that a child who has lost their parents might act in an irrational way.
If you're going to spin it that much it can't be either 180 or 360 becasue it just keeps going round and round.So the inital media reports (or, more accurately, the info that the soldiers gave to the reporters) were wrong, at least to some extent. But I'd hardly say this qualifies as a "180" (or, as we like to say here on QT3, a "360").
It's the obligatory retraction kind of reporting that's become all the rage suddenly!
It says the kids were "released," which means they weren't previously free to go; also, the fact that almost none of them went back is pretty strong evidence that they weren't free to go before. Why do you have to make everything so difficult? You make one good point (addressed below), but honestly, so often it seems like you feel the need to attack every statement that runs counter to your views, even when the evidence is clearly against you. Are you honestly taking the position that those kids were free to leave whenever they wanted?
Good point--my bad. I know many people (i.e., parents) were imprisoned or killed for their political beliefs, and so I assumed that the kids' parents had been imprisoned or killed for their political beliefs--seems like the sort of thing that could get garbled in the way this story was. But that's just an assumption on my part; it's not in the story.
I'm not even sure what you mean here. Can you clarify? Are you saying that the Iraqi orphanage was an okay place for kids to be? Are you saying that because Iraq is poorer than the US, we can't expect them to feed the kids they imprison in orphanages? I don't understand. I wasn't saying that "because the kids were malnourished, this was a prison." I was saying that the kids were in fact kept their against their will (which is true of orphanages even in the US) but were apparently not fed adequately. I mean, I agree with you--I agreed in my original post--that the facility is not a jail, so if you're trying to "gotcha!" me on that, you're missing the mark here.
I think the word you're looking for there is "obfuscate," but fortunately for you I'll do you the courtesy of not bringing it up over and over again for months, the way you do to Dan Morris. In any case, I'm not totally sure I see your point here, either. I was saying, "They don't want to come back, which means they were probably treated badly before." You're saying "No, they don't want to come back because the orphanage is run by someone similar to the person who ran it before." How do you see that as supporting your position? Doesn't it seem to you that that is just another way of restating the point that I was making?
EDIT: rereading this, I think I get your point better: that the orphanage is run by someone different, but the kids still don't want to come back; therefore their reason for staying away must be something other than the way they were treated. However, the story itself says they don't want to come back because they're afraid of being treated the same way, IIRC.
I don't know. Do you? I doubt it. This is just a bunch of meaningless assumptions and conjectures. I'm sure there are kids who are runaways and beg for food, although to be honest I live and work in the second largest city in the country and I don't see them--we have tons of adult homeless, but very few kids, at least in LA. Are there child prostitutes? Yeah. Are they prostitutes by choice because they prefer that to being in a government institution? None of the ones I've dealt with.* In fact, the last one I talked to had a regular home with a parent and a little brother who didn't know what she was doing for money. Anecdotal, certainly, but I don't know where you get the idea that the US has a bunch of kids who have fled orphanages and turned to prostitution. Maybe such evidence exists, but it's certainly not referenced in your post.
[size=2]* For my job, you sickos.[/size]
From the new NYT article:
So there you go: it was an orphanage. Kids went there for normal orphanage reasons, in addition to the (technically still "normal") reason that their parents were killed or imprisoned by Saddam.The orphanage had been home to 107 girls and boys whose parents were killed or imprisoned, or were unable to care for them. As the Americans advanced on Baghdad, they mistook the orphanage for a jail or prison and released all the children who were there.
This is *not* the same as "these kids were locked up to punish them for their political beliefs," or "these kids were locked up to punish their parents for their parents political beliefs," which is what the story was previously reported as.
Letting them out was silly, of course. A parallel: imagine that the US government executes an innocent man for a crime and his kids go to an orphanage. When it comes out that he was actually innocent, do you "free" his kids from the orphanage?
And since when are kids allowed to leave orphanages before they turn 18? In the US, that kids don't like orphanages, and often times try to run away from them, isn't spun into a sinister story about them being held against their will. Sheesh.
Maybe they should be sent to Jamaica?
(I'm trying to create cross thread synergism here... work with me...)
Hey, but the French still suck! That hasn't changed!
"Turns Out The French Are Ok" would be a funny headline.
more like, newspapers slagging their rivals...i'm thinking the intent is to hype up the "fog of war" to the point where a few missing WMD can be shrugged off as non-impeachable (well, damn! we didn't have any ULTERIOR motives for hyping a story, right?)It's the obligatory retraction kind of reporting that's become all the rage suddenly!
Except that most of those mass graves turned out to be a decade old, filled with bodies of rebels who thought that the US was going to support them in their uprising after the first Gulf War.
I'd been waiting for this one -- surprised to see it actually took 12 posts to get to it.Except that most of those mass graves turned out to be a decade old, filled with bodies of rebels who thought that the US was going to support them in their uprising after the first Gulf War.
Andrew Mayer sits in the proverbial catbird seat -- if Uday Hussein never committed any recreational rapes, then the invasion of Iraq was unjustified. If Uday did commit recreational rapes, it was only because the US failed to invade Iraq in 1991, making the invasion of Iraq unjustified (and Americans rapists-by-extension).
Maybe we shouldn't have promised we'd support their uprising and decided not to, then.
I couldn't agree more. Though I somehow doubt you'd have been so sanguine about an invasion in 1991, or at anytime in the subsequent reign of terror.Maybe we shouldn't have promised we'd support their uprising and decided not to, then.
With the coalition we'd had at the time, it'd have been a great idea; would have lended some legitimacy to the whole thing.
That did come out poorly. I am saying that an orphan being held against their will is no different than in any other orphanage.
[/quote]I'm not even sure what you mean here. Can you clarify? Are you saying that the Iraqi orphanage was an okay place for kids to be? Are you saying that because Iraq is poorer than the US, we can't expect them to feed the kids they imprison in orphanages? I don't understand. I wasn't saying that "because the kids were malnourished, this was a prison." I was saying that the kids were in fact kept their against their will (which is true of orphanages even in the US) but were apparently not fed adequately. I mean, I agree with you--I agreed in my original post--that the facility is not a jail, so if you're trying to "gotcha!" me on that, you're missing the mark here.
I'm saying that any orphanage is an unpleasant place to be. Also, it's a little much to hold Iraq orphanages up to US orphanages when the rest of fucking Iraq is suffering with shortages of food and medical supplies.
What's up with this gotcha nonsense? You seem a little defensive, Rywill. I respond to your posts because you routinely make ridiculous claims. If you stop making silly claims, I'll stop responding.
No. I read it and think orphans don't want to live in orphanages or be orphans. You read it and seem to see something vaguely nefarious having to do with Saddam Hussein. WTF, talk about spinning.
More of the silly logic games, Dan? What's next harsh language?
Nice one. Putting words in my mouth and ignoring the point in one fell swoop!
You should learn to ask people's opinions. Instead your playing cheap rhetorical games.Though I somehow doubt you'd have been so sanguine about an invasion in 1991, or at anytime in the subsequent reign of terror.
But Uday's rapes make no difference in the administratons pattern of deception. The failure to support the uprisings in the first gulf war are relevant in that they reveal the inability of the US to own up to its own history in the region. Using that as another half baked rational for this war just adds to a this administrations growing pile of half-truths and outright nonsense.
Wait, wait, we invaded Iraq because Hussein's son was raping people? Phew. I guess we don't have to worry about that silly WMD stuff anymore.
-Tom
If you'd ever seen Uday's package you'd know it *is* a weapon of mass destruction. (That's what his press kit says, anyway).
But how is that relevant to whether or not it was right to invade? Say we admit--I certainly think this--that the US royally fucked up by abandoning those people in 1994. Does that mean that somehow it was okay for Saddam to slaughter them all along with their families and anyone else that happened to be nearby? In your mind, who is most at fault for those deaths--the United States? Is it your view that because the US could have prevented the 1994 deaths, but didn't, the US should not try to prevent any future deaths in Iraq, because that would be hypocritical?
I'm falling somewhere between Andrew and Daniel.
While it is true many of those mass graves were from immediately after Gulf War 1, even if you were to wipe those deaths off Saddaam's side of the ledger, he'd still be a pretty miserable son of a bitch.
For the sake of argument, let's all agree Hussein has earned himself a bullet in the head for many, many reasons. The man on the Left of this argument could admit Hussein killed enough people to be unworthy of running Iraq. The man on the Right could admit the primary reason for going to war as presented by the administration was because of concerns that Hussein was a clear and present danger to the United States and its allies?
Andrew perhaps make the mistake of needing the others side to be utterly, completely "wrong" (i.e. Hussein didn't even really kill those people!). Daniel perhaps leverages that nitpicking to divert the argument away from the core (In this case, the general misreporting or "sexing up" of the facts to make the Iraq situation more dire than it actually was.)
There's little value in arguing "how bad" the regime was. It was bad enough. But it's also hard to imagine that they were the threat they were purported to be (even if weapons are found, why weren't they used against us when Hussein's back was against the wall). We can argue his motivation all day, but time has borne out that the regime was not a clear and present danger to the US and our Allies.
The question comes down to "Was the threat posed by Iraq to the US and its allies intentionally exaggerated by the administration, incorrectly reported to them by the allied intelligence services, or correctly reported and materially misunderstood?"
The copyeditor must have been asleep on the job again. The press kit was supposed to say "weapon of ass destruction."
That'd be in the butt, Bob.
Talk about hitting the broadside of a barn!
Well said.There's little value in arguing "how bad" the regime was. It was bad enough. But it's also hard to imagine that they were the threat they were purported to be (even if weapons are found, why weren't they used against us when Hussein's back was against the wall). We can argue his motivation all day, but time has borne out that the regime was not a clear and present danger to the US and our Allies.
Sorry, I know logic doesn't go over too well here.More of the silly logic games, Dan?
Andrew was/is arguing that our failure to defy the UN and invade Iraq in 1991 disqualifies us from defying the UN and invading Iraq in 2003. Further, he was/is arguing that the presence of mass graves in Iraq can be blamed on America's failure to defy the UN and invade Iraq in 1991, thus disqualifying us from using the presence of mass graves to even partially justify deposing Saddam.
No Tom, and I'm a bit surprised you're so quick to ignore the logical analogy. My point is that Andrew can successfully have his way on ANY justification for action against Saddam's regime ---- according to his logic, if a casus belli is illegitimate/untrue, then the war cannot be justified, whereas if our beef is legitimate/true, then the US is culpable for it because of its failure to "own up to its history in the region."Wait, wait, we invaded Iraq because Hussein's son was raping people?
In short, he has established "own(ing) up to its history in the region" as a catch-all umbrella off of which any US justification for war in 2003 can be brushed aside. And you are allowing and encouraging him to do so.
How many dead US soldiers is this all worth again?
There was a time when casus belli meant you actually had a good reason to wage war. These days it might as well be the message you get on Q23 when you hit 50 posts with one avatar.
Sorry, dude, you can't be on our WASTE network unless you have casus belli.
Times are tough when Daniel has to stoop to rhetorical games to justify his opinon. Dan, I am still waiting for your insightful (bellwether) response to how Jimmy Carter is really responsible for the current war in Iraq. Maybe you could whip up one of these silly logic games for me on Carter?
Tim, it is you who drew that conclusion for yourself, in a frankly pathetic effort.
I merely pointed out that while he was president, Carter was responsible for: establishing CENTCOM; authorizing the Rapid Deployment Force (with the Persian Gulf in mind); committing the US to its first military operation in the Persian Gulf; and, just for good measure, becoming the first US president to declare Persian Gulf oil a military interest of the US, with the following announcement (which has since become known in shorthand as the Carter Doctrine):
CENTCOM's first commander, General Robert Kingston, explained in 1982 that his orders from Carter were simple, and here I quote the general:Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.
How's that for realpolitik?"to assure the unimpeded flow of oil from the Arabian Gulf."
Now, all I asked in the Carter thread was for you to compare the above to Carter's much more recent Buddha-speak on Iraq.
Commence spell-check, Tim.....
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