Responding to Torture ( MoveOn.Org )

It has led to a lot of posturing by people who have previously shown a tolerant and indulgent attitude toward dictators who torture and kill people as a matter of explicit policy.

Well, the USA:

- Condoned and supported Saddam's use of chemical weapons in the past

- Executes child offenders within USA (only Iran and Congo did this in the recent years - China stopped doing that in 1997)

- Supports Uzbekistan's security services with $79M, the same security forces that hold between 7000 and 10000 political and/or religious prisoners, and use 'torture as a routine investigation technique', according to the US State Department (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/eur/ 8366.htm)

- Knew about torture in Iraqi prisons but the administration hid the data from the Congress

So I suppose you're including it in the set of posturing poeple?

It was written:

Your clarification and correction is 100% accurate.

The hype is just another exploitation and distortion of events by the Usual Suspects.

Dave Simpson

Yes, the dirtbags of the Left, the offal of Western society.

The abuse (not 'torture' as the Usual Suspects have leaped to parrot) needs to be investigated, even if it leads to loss of re-election of Bush and his administration. It is independent of whatever howling and yowling the stupid extremists are engaged in (what World Socialist Review, the Militant, or that Global Resarch nitwit outfit in Canada have bellowed and lied about this, for example) as well as the scumbags elsewhere in the world for which this is not only normal but mild behavior (but our very worst, almost insignificant as well as so aberrent, behavior).

Dave Simpson

No. The U.S. condemned Iraq's use of chemical weapons.

The U.S. did supply both sides in the Iraq-Iran war in an effort to weaken two aggressors. Liberals didn't like it, given their aversion to anything that inconveniences aggressors.

I'm unaware of such executions in the U.S.

The only time liberals and leftists get outraged at an objectionable government is when it gets in the way of a worse government.

I doubt that Congress was unaware that Saddam engaged in torture.

I include Kalin who doesn't want the U.S. to inconvenience countries where torture and murder are official policies.

excerpt: In the last decade, the U.S. has executed more juvenile offenders than all other nations combined. In the last three years, the number of such nations has dropped to four: Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, and the United States.

Seventeen British companies who supplied Iraq with nuclear, biological, chemical, rocket and conventional weapons technology are to be investigated and could face prosecution following a Sunday Herald investigation. One of the companies is International Military Services, a part of the Ministry of Defence, which sold rocket technology to Iraq. The companies were named by Iraq in a 12,000 page dossier submitted to the UN in December. The Security Council agreed to US requests to censor 8000 pages - including sections naming western businesses which aided Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme.

. . .

A = Nuclear program B = Bioweapons program C = Chemical weapons program R = Rocket program K = Conventional weapons, military logistics, supplies at the Iraqi Defense Ministry and the building of military plants

United States of America

1. Honeywell (R, K) 2. Spectra Physics (K) 3. Semetex (R) 4. TI Coating (A, K) 5. Unisys (A, K) 6. Sperry Corp. (R, K) 7. Tektronix (R, A) 8. Rockwell (K) 9. Leybold Vacuum Systems (A) 10. Finnigan-MAT-US (A) 11. Hewlett-Packard (A, R, K) 12. Dupont (A) 13. Eastman Kodak (R) 14. American Type Culture Collection ( 15. Alcolac International (C) 16. Consarc (A) 17. Carl Zeiss - U.S (K) 18. Cerberus (LTD) (A) 19. Electronic Associates (R) 20. International Computer Systems (A, R, K) 21. Bechtel (K) 22. EZ Logic Data Systems, Inc. (R) 23. Canberra Industries Inc. (A) 24. Axel Electronics Inc. (A)

In addition to these twenty four companies with their headquarters in the USA fifty foreign enterprises are mentioned which cooperated with Iraq through their subsiduaries in the US. Also named as suppliers for Iraq's arms programs (A, B, C & R) are the US Departments of Defense, Energy, Trade and Agriculture as well as Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National atomic weapons laboratories.

Sort of like destroying a village to save it?

Among links found by Googling for 'child offender execution usa' is this: http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/juvexec.html, issued on August 30th 2002:

There are 79 juvenile offenders on death row.

Juvenile Offenders Executed since 1976: Toronto Patterson TX 08/28/02 T. J. Jones TX 08/08/02 Gerald Mitchell TX 10/22/01 Charles Rumbaugh TX 9/11/85 James Terry Roach SC 1/10/96 Jay Pinkerton TX 5/15/86 Dalton Prejean LA 5/18/90 Johnny Frank Garrett TX 2/11/92 Curtis Harris TX 7/1/93 Frederick Laskley MO 7/28/93 Ruben Cantu TX 8/24/93 Christopher Burger GA 12/7/93 Joseph Cannon TX 4/24/98 Robert Anthony Carter TX 5/18/98 Dwayne Allen Wright VA 10/21/98 Sean Sellers OK 02/04/99 Douglas Christopher Thomas VA 1/10/00 Steve Edward Roach VA 1/13/00 Glen McGinnis TX 1/25/00 Gary Graham (Shaka Sankofa) TX 6/22/00

FACTS

The use of the death penalty for crimes committed under the age of 18 is prohibited under international human rights standards, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the American Convention on Human Rights.

The United States is one of only six countries with documented executions of child offenders since 1990, along with Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Yemen has since outlawed this practice. Also of note, China amended its laws in 1997 to abolish capital punishment for child offenders.

[lovely company, wouldn't you say?]

Since 1990, 19 persons who committed crimes under the age of 18 have been executed worldwide. The US alone accounts for more than half of these executions (10). The execution of Sean Sellers in February 1999, for a crime committed at the age of 16, marked the 13th execution of a child offender in the US since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.

Wrong. I cannot make a generalisation to other liberals and leftists, but I object to *all* objectionable governments.

I was talking about US perpetrated torture.

You (purposely?) twisted my words. The point was that the US has a history of supporting shady regimes whenever it suits them, regardless of what kind of a regime it is. See the Uzbekistan case above.

[...]

The government had to take Iraq off the list of countries banned from buying dual-use items from the US before those companies could legally sell dual-use items to Iraq. The US Government did this AFTER reports of WMD attacks by Iraq surfaced in the press.

Reagan had to sell Saddam WMD in order to prolong the war between Iran and Iraq.

Otherwise, Reagan's Iran/Contra affair would have had to shut down long before it served its purpose.

Reagan did not sell the Hussein regime WMDs, 'for' whatever 'reason' you create out of thin air.

Reagan did sell dual-use items, including motor vehicles officially meant for civilian uses that could be converted to military uses.

It was the Europeans (as usual) that were the main WMD helpers of Hussein. This includes the nuclear weapon activities beyond the reactor sold to Iraq by France (no surprise) that used bomb-grade fuel (also supplied by France), which Israel destroyed before it began to operate.

Dave Simpson

<Snip> Previous stuff.

Actually, he was considerably worse.

Under those miserable Mullahs, Iranians kidnapped Americans who worked for the embassy and held them 444 days. The current Iranian government supports terrorists governments, and they are currently trying to develop nuclear weapons which, they leave little doubt, will be used aginst Israel.

The Shah did not support terrorist organizations.

This Tempest character apparently prefersthe likes of the Ayatolla Khomeni.

The Tempest prefers the likes of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot.