Ramsey Clark--Supporter of Saddam??

Great Debates
61

In other words, even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes?

That seems to be about it for him. He’s not doing this out of desire to create an equitable international system of justice, or to stand by the ideal that all people deserve a fair day in court. He’s doing this because he hates the United States’ government (and not merely the Bush administration, but every administration that has held office since about 1970) and wants to embarass it in any way he can.

I’d agree that what he’s doing is a moral way to achieve his objectives. Given that his objectives seem to be “allow dictators to imprison and murder any of their populace that they wish for any reason they wish with no interference by outside sources”, his moral methods are overwhelmed by his immensely immoral objective.

62

Hey, it’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it! :slight_smile:

And I mean that. Somebody has to do it. Even the best of empires needs it critics and naysayers and outright enemies, or else it gets to acting even more imperial. God help the world if nobody – especially if no American – steps up to this particular plate. Even when Clark is wrong, he’s right, in that sense.

63

Uh, yeah. You go ahead and keep on praising our enemies. I’ll just stay here and try to make sure we actually fight them.

Yeesh.

64

But I disagree. What if I wrote a rant about how awful, oh, say, Brainglutton was. But my rant didn’t consist of accurate complaints about you but rather false and stupid ones, like that you were an apologist for imperialism, that you secretly helped Richard Nixon and John Chapman assassinate John Lennon, that you were a heroin smuggler, and suchlike.

Everyone needs criticism, right? Except how does my crazy unfactual rant help anyone? It doesn’t help you to see the error of your ways, it doesn’t help others, it would harm you and harm others if they believed it.

Advocating dictatorship, working for dictators, defending dictators who torture and murder ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS, helping to aid and comfort those dictators, helping to allow dictatorship to spread…how exactly do we benefit from people who do those things?

Yes, Saddam deserves a fair trial and he deserves a defense, because everyone deserves a fair trial and a defense, even the guilty, because if the guilty didn’t deserve a fair trial we’d need a trial before the trial to determine whether a particular person is so guilty and awful they don’t deserve a trial. Rather a waste of time. I don’t find it unethical for any particular person to volunteer to defend Saddam Hussein.

However, it is unethical to advocate dictatorship. It is unethical to claim that Saddam’s crimes never happened, and anyway the victims deserved it, and Saddam wasn’t there when the crimes happened, it was an accident. It is unethical to undermine liberal democracy. It is unethical to undermine human rights.

It’s fucking unethical to be a fucking cheerleader for murderous dictators. It might be ethical to help defend them when their accused of crimes against humanity while their sitting in prison, or help prevent them from being executed if you’re against the death penalty, or whatever. But Ramsey Clarke is a cheerleader for dictatorship, he didn’t just support Milosevic when he was behind bars, he supported him when he was exterminating Kossavars and Bosnians. He didn’t support the Iranian mullah’s human rights when they were in a US jail awaiting trial, he supported them for holding our embassy personnel hostage.

It’s bullshit for you to support Ramsey Clarke on the simple principle that Saddam deserves a competant defense. Because Ramsey Clarke isn’t anti-war and pro-peace and pro-human rights, he’s pro-war on the other side, anti-peace, and anti-human rights. He’s scum, and if you paid the slightest attention to his actual record you’d agree.

65

I hereby declare Lemur more directly on point, more cogent, and more eloquent than me.

66

I’ve never read anything written by Clark. Quote or link to something and I’ll evaluate it (and might or might not defend it). Until then, I can’t judge whether what you say here is relevant.

67

You do that. And you remember that this world needs people who do what Clark does a lot more than it needs people who do what you do. Even when Clark is wrong.

68

:dubious: Is it also unethical to make use of murderous dictators and shore up their regimes with military and financial support, as the U.S. government did with many such regimes, including Hussein’s, throughout the 20th Century?

69

Oh, Jesus Fuck-Me Christ!

So both you and elucidator wandered into this thread, started throwing around lofty verbiage defending Clark, stating that he was noble and necessary and intimating that only the evil McCarthyist-like Republicans would have a problem with him doing these noble, American things, and now that you’re having it explained to you what he actually stands for, you’re both claiming “well, harrump, I’m not really familiar with him, I don’t really know what he stands for, and I can’t really judge him.”

What a load of disingenious crap.
But, to humor you:

From post #11 of this thread: Ramsey Clark, the war criminal’s best friend which quotes him as saying during a speech in Belgrade while it was being bombed by NATO “It will be a great struggle, but a glorious victory. You can be victorious.” Also the quote “The international tribunal for Rwanda is an extension of colonial power in Africa…”
From post #55 of this thread, Ramsey’s indictment of Clinton for war crimes:

"The United States, Germany, NATO and other defendants engaged in a course of conduct beginning in, or before 1991 intended to break the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into many parts, segregate different ethnic, religious and other groups among and within newly balkanized borders, weaken the Slav, Serb, Muslim and other populations by causing and prolonging internal violence and by direct assaults by the United States and certain NATO members. As a consequence Yugoslavia, which had 25 million people in an integrated society and economy, is now comprised of many small nations, the largest of which is Serbia. Defendants intend to divide Yugoslavia until all parts of Yugoslavia have fewer than 5 million people, each to be overwhelmingly of a single ethnic origin and religion, to have severely impaired economies largely dominated by foreign interests, in which two groups, Orthodox Christian Serbs and Muslims suffer severest casualties, most extensive property damage, a vast reduction of productivity now down by three-quarters or more, and a generation of impoverishment…

"The United States aerial and missile assault intentionally created a widespread, long-term and severe environmental disaster in Yugoslavia…

"Imposing Sanctions through the UN that Are a Genocidal Crime against Humanity to Achieve Impoverishment and Debilitation of the People of Yugoslavia…

"The United States acting through defendant Madeleine Albright coerced the UN Security Council to create ad hoc criminal tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda in violation of the UN Charter to destroy and demonize enemy leaders in those two countries and threaten leaders elsewhere…

"Using Controlled International Media to Create Support for U.S. Assaults Anywhere and to Demonize Yugoslavia, Slavs, Serbs and Muslims as Genocidal Murderers…

"Attempting to Destroy the Sovereignty, Right to Self Determination, Democracy and Culture of the Slavic, Muslim, Christian and Other Peoples of Yugoslavia…

"The Purpose of the U.S. Actions Being to Dominate, Control and Exploit Yugoslavia, Its People and Its Resources…

And what relief is sought?

"Strict prohibition on all forms of foreign interference with or disruption of efforts to establish unity, peace and stability in the Balkans…

"The abolition of NATO.

Finally,

“The Commission of Inquiry believes its focus on U.S. criminal acts is important, proper, and the only way to bring the whole truth, a balanced perspective and impartiality in application of legal process to this great human tragedy.”

Emphasis added.
So, there, those are two cities that were provided to you in this very thread. Any statement that “I’ve never read anything by Clark” is your own damned laziness.

And now, a few quick web searches:

Democracy Now! interview with Ramsey Clark:
“He doesn’t want - you know, remember when we went into Grenada, we sent 9,000 troops and shot the place up, killed more Grenadians in a few days than the U.S. lost on all fronts in World War II. * Ronald Reagan said we’re going to roll back communism. The dominoes are going to fall the other way. Why did we break up Yugoslavia? Because it was a socialist government that was strong. It was progressive. It was going to come through the collapse of the eastern bloc, and we didn’t want that to happen.”

*Factual note: U.S. combat deaths in WW2: ~300,000. Grenada population: ~100,000. To achieve what Ramsey Clark says we did, we would have to have imported 200,000 people and then killed them.
Here’s Ramsey’s report calling for George H.W. Bush to be indicted for War Crimes for Gulf War One.

Points for indictment?

"President Bush systematically manipulated, controlled, directed, misinformed and restricted press and media coverage to obtain constant support in the media for his military and political goals. "

"The United States has by force secured a permanent military presence in the Gulf, the control of its oil resources and geopolitical domination of the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf region. " (Wait, if our control over Iraq was permanent, why are we there again now?)

"President Bush from August 2, 1990, intended and acted to prevent any interference with his plan to destroy Iraq economically and militarily. "

And, of course,

“The United States waged war on the environment.”

The world needs more people who support dictators and genocide so long as it makes the U.S. look bad?

To steal from the “Cheers” thread in Cafe Society, what color is the sky in your world, BG?

70

BrainGlutton, you know better than that.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/tuquoque.html

71

I beg your pardon, I never said I was familiar with him, in fact I never heard of him before this week. I encountered this thread, Sam Stone called Clark a “Stalinist,” so out of curiosity I reviewed the Wikipedia article on him to determine if that was the same kind of braindead bullshit as it was when Sam called George Galloway a “Stalinist” in a previous thread – and so far, I’m satisfied it is. So all my assessments of Clark have been based on that (and on other things brought up in this thread, which have not, as yet, given me any reason to doubt my initial impressions). His “indictments” that you linked to, I will take time to evaluate.

At the moment, it looks a lot like the color of blood.

72

Saddam is no more innocent than the Bush crowd. The problem is that Saddam got caught, but the Bush crowd has not been caught … yet. I submit that the crimes of Bush crowd make Saddam’s crimes a mere picnic. Now, ask me for a cite !!!

You see, the crimes of Saddam are easy to display by digging graves and having family witnesses. On the other hand, the crimes of the Bush crowd are called mere “conspiracy theories”. You want cites? Ask Chavez of Venezuela for “coincidence theories”.

73

Someone needs a moral recalibration. You’re defending Saddam and Chavez, and you think Bush is the real monster here? Or at least the moral equivalent of Saddam?

The sad fact is, this kind of thinking is all too common on the left these days.

74

BG, you’re embarrassing yourself. If you don’t know what a thread is about, do some fucking reading first or else ask a few questions or else just keep out.

Ramsey Clark has made a living defending the absolute shittiest people on the planet, not out of any love for the law, but out of raw hatred. He is a man ideology, not humanity, and the world does not need him at all.

75

I have no reason to be embarrassed, and no reason to retract or reconsider anything I’ve said here. See post #71.

Still and all, the world (America too, but more importantly, the whole world) needs such a man a lot more than it needs someone like John Corrado who will devote himself to making sure America “actually fights” its “enemies.”

76

You know better than that. If A decides B is evil and devotes himself to thwarting B’s plans, C cannot meaningfully evaluate or judge the situation without seriously inquiring into B’s moral character. It’s not a “two wrongs make a right” scenario. From Clark’s POV it’s more like an “enemy of my enemy” scenario.

77

So the world needs someone who sucks up to dictators and approves of genocide more than it needs someone who wants to see democracy spread and dictators overthrown?

Ah, but the color of the sky in your world is bloody, and you must weep in despair for the Iraqi children. Like Clark, you don’t give a shit about Bosnian or Rwandan children, unless their deaths can be directly tied to the United States.

78

At this particular moment in history, it does. Strange but true. :dubious: And I hope you would not be so preposterously foolish as to consider the second category a fair characterization of yourself or anyone who supports this Administration’s foreign policies, which have nothing to do with “spreading democracy.”

As noted above, I do not agree with Clark about U.S./NATO intervention in Yugoslavia. I care about the children you mention – and about the children of Darfur (whose deaths cannot be blamed on the U.S.), and of Haiti (whose deaths can be, to some limited extent). Can’t speak for Clark.

79

When come back, bring reality.

80

And to think I used to have some respect for you, BrainGlutton.

I never thought I’d see you defend genocide and dictatorship, but I suppose stopping George Bush is a bit more important, eh?

I’m going to have a very hard time taking your words seriously in the future.