That should had been a :eek: not a 
:smack:
Ale, was that attack before of after we declared an end to hostilities? If it occurred during the war, it would have been a matter of trying to take out the enemy command and control so as to end the war more quickly (as were all the bunker attacks we launched). Once the war “ended” (according to Bush), the rules would have changed. Or, at least, there is no reason to presume they would not change; we issued the “card decks” of most wanted and we have arrested, not assassinated, the majority of the 40 guys that we have so far discovered.
That was about a month ago, IIRC. Ale makes a good point. Whatever you say about the difficulty of taking prisoners alive in a heavily guarded house, how hard would it have been to capture a couple of trucks?
So ‘standing quietly by’ means they were in mourning? Sorry, I’d like a better description than that. Maybe they were standing there going, “Jeez, I wish I had gotten a shot in”, or “So this is how the lives of those two bastards end.”
No, “stood silently in mourning” means “stood silently in mourning.” You do realize that there are specific ways people display that they are in mourning, even in our culture? If the people were not engaged in behavior associated with mourning in Iraq, then the reporting was inaccurate. Unless you can cite something that shows this report, and the others that a quick search will turn up, then we have to accept it as correct.
In the short term, it doesn’t appear to have impacted things. But I agree with London Calling - most of the people attacking troops probably want them gone more than they want Saddam gone. The only people with a real vested interest in Saddam coming back are the rest of the Tikriti clan. The number of people who want the US out - like the former Sunni overclass - is surely greater.
Apparently it was Qusay who ran the secret police and was to have succeeded Saddam. Uday ran some of the media and had a reputation as a serial rapist. I’m sure human rights charges - or war crimes, since they were two of the leaders of the country - could’ve been brought.
From CNN (who I would not normally trust for any news, but anyway):
Yeah, I think they could’ve charged 'em with something if they’d had the chance.
Thanks for quoting me out of context w/ relevant words missing. Can’t get that too often.
I can’t say the world is a poorer place without them, but I still get rather ill at the thought of people celebrating killing, even though these two make a fine case for “addition by subtraction.” That makes me even queasier than the disgusting photos themselves.
Are you people still on about the weapons of mass destruction? Since when has this been about weapons of mass destruction? Show me ONE time the President talked about them.
I’m sorry, I was working on my Ari Fleischer impression.
Once again - could have been brought where? The reason for the ICC is to deal with exactly these kinds of situations, because as it is, there is no court in the world that could claim jurisdiction.
Hey, I agree 1000%. I said so in the GQ thread about this topic, actually: “The administration said the two were on their list of potential Iraqi leaders who could be tried for war crimes. … I’d love to know who would have tried them, since the US doesn’t recognize the World Court, but that’s another matter.”
I’m just saying that the two would apparently be MORE than triable if there was a court to do so.
Of course I would be a little bit happy if someone just shot the rapist of that woman down my block. I thought however that we lived in a society where such a man would be arrested, tried before a court and then convicted (or not)
My personal feelings about the deaths of the Sons of Saddam pale beside my feelings about the possibility of banned chemical and biological weapons being used against civilian targets. I guess you don’t care one whit about the potential deaths of thousands of innocent civilians.
I was proposed that Qusay was in charge of iding banned weapons in Iraq. I posted, “If it is true that Qusay was in charge of hiding the banned weapons, then this seems to be a grave failure on behalf of those whose concern ostensibly is to find the banned weapons.” The reason that this would be a grave failure is that it would mean that we had the chance to capture someone who could tell us where the banned weapons are. Need I remind you that the banned weapons are pruported to be able to kill thousands?
Since I didn’t discuss my feelings about the deaths of the Sons of Saddam I suspect that your post is defective.
Getting back to the question of the OP, my armchair-QB take is that this will be of help in the effort to bring peace and some sort of reasonable government to Iraq, but not nearly as much so as the Panglosses in the Bush administration are making it out to be.
First thought: Saddam, wherever he is, is suddenly much more vulnerable. Anyone thinking of turning Saddam in, this time last week, would have considered that U&Q would have tracked him down, no matter how long it took, and made him die painfully. Sure, there are other Saddam loyalists, but it’s doubtful that anyone would go to the extremes the brothers almost certainly would have to revenge his death. The chance that we’ll find him in the near future has just gone up significantly, IMHO.
Second, I believe this will help get the message through to the average Iraqi that Saddam’s not coming back. This will give Iraqis more freedom to take whatever side they really want to take - whether it’s to work with the US occupation, or join a Shi’ite movement, or whatever. On balance, I think that’ll work out as a net plus for us, but it’ll be a mixed blessing.
Third, I expect that Ba’athists were only one of the factions gunning for our troops in the past three months. Killing U&Q takes them down a peg, which is a Good Thing, but I don’t think it’ll make Iraq that much safer for our troops there.
But still, the world’s a better place without those two.
Now, where’s that pack of wild boars? 
Wait, just because the US hasn’t joined the ICC, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t hand U&Q over to the ICC if we wanted too. Why couldn’t we hand them over to the Hague? Why can’t we turn over Saddam himself, if we capture him?
And Chula, again, please explain why it would be a problem to hold Saddam for a year or so until we get our puppet Iraqi judiciary set up. It would be illegal to hold him? Why? The US military is the current police force in Iraq. If a US soldier catches someone looting, should they just turn their backs and let them go? Would it be illegal for the soldier to take a looter prisoner? Or would it be illegal for the soldier to ignore the looting?
US soldiers have the authority to capture people they have good reason to suspect are criminals. Martial law. Sure, this isn’t how things work on Law and Order or LAPD Blue. But our troops have an OBLIGATION to provide security for the people of Iraq, and that means capturing and detaining people we have good reason to beleive are criminals. Saddam isn’t going to walk on the technicality that US soldiers didn’t Mirandize him when he was captured, or they didn’t have a seach warrant when they entered Baghdad.
And on preview, I agree with RTFirefly. The deaths hurt the Baathist portion of the resistance, but how large that fraction is we don’t yet know. It reinforces that the Baathists aren’t coming back, it emboldens people to turn on the Baathists. If Saddam is alive, someone who knows where he is has been watching this news very carefully.
Because Iraq is not a party to the ICC. Because crimes committed before the ICC came into existence cannot be prosecuted (no ex post facto laws). Because the US government would look like even bigger hypocrites than they do already.
I’ll grant that the rules for due process are relaxed somewhat during periods of armed conflict. But simply detaining someone is different from detaining someone indefinitely. This is the problem with the detentions in Guantanamo – no charges have been brought and the prisoners have had no hearings to determine if there is any legitimate basis for their detentions. At this point we have no idea when, if ever, there will be a judicial body in existence capable of prosecuting former Iraqi leaders for crimes against humanity. The US government is hoping to set up a tribunal like the one in Sierra Leone at some point, but who knows when that could happen. They wouldn’t want to put Saddam on trial either. Can you imagine Saddam being locked up for life? (Of course, there’s no capital punishment in any internationally supported tribunals.)
He could share a cell w/ Noriega, couldn’t he?
Perhaps instead of making Iraq that much safer it makes another region of Iraq that much unsafer?
To be fair though the attacks were starting to go up north into the more stable regions before this happened.
I hear the 25th annual Uday and Qusay Rape-fest and Cotillion has been cancelled.