This story about “jihadi etiquette” appeared in The Sunday Times on June 10, 2007.
It has been nearly six years since the World Trade Center attack. It has been four decades since the Six-Day War, which signaled for the Arabs and Muslims a recognition that regular warfare, in the Lesser Jihad against Israel, would not do, and terrorism would have to be employed. And so began plane hijackings, and letter-bombs in embassies, and the seizing of schoolchildren and their subsequent murders (Ma'alot), and the explosions of planes in mid-air (that TWA plane that rose to a certain height and then, bam!), the smuggling of explosives onboard through the use of innocent Infidels (that pregnant Irish girl, given a "package" to unwittingly deliver on an El Al flight by her "Palestinian" boyfriend whom she loved so very much -- but apparently he had other ideas).
It has been four and a half years since the Iraq War began, a war whose folly can only be properly understood not by those who counsel appeasement, not by those who oppose the war because "it is all about oil," but only by those who have understood how the Administration has misunderstood the real problem, in its "war on terror" and in its misunderstanding of Iraq and the usefulness of establishing, or thinking there might be established, a Light Unto the Muslim Nations in Iraq. And so in this misunderstanding it began a war that has now cost this country $880 billion, that is, more than the total cost of all the wars, save World War II, ever fought by the United States.
Yet The New Duranty Times, the insufferably inaccurate and negligent goddamn New York Times, has been unable until now even to hint at what Islam has to do with it. Instead, The New Duranty Times has hidden behind -- oh, haven't they all, haven't almost all of them, done so? -- such phrases as "radical Islamist extremists." That phrase has that unnecessary adjective fore, "radical," and that unnecessary noun aft, "extremist," and in the middle, just to be sure of misleading the reader, that little suffix "ist" put in to transform the true word, the word that does not hide behind that ill-concealing suffix -- that is, the word "Islam," which tells the intelligent student of both Islam (its tenets, attitudes, atmospherics) and of the history of Jihad-conquest (over 1350 years, from Spain to East Asia) all that they need to know to make sense not only of what is happening, but of what can be done to make what is happening happen less, or happen to the advantage and not the disadvantage of the confused and inarticulate and besieged Infidels.
Four-and-a-half years after the catastrophic war in Tarbaby Iraq began, The Times continues to be against it. But it continues to be against it incoherently and unintelligently. It cannot explain satisfactorily (this website can, this website has) how the ignorance of Islam led to the folly of the polypragmonic intervention in Iraq. It cannot explain why that intervention was undertaken not to swiftly find and destroy certain kinds of weaponry and then leave, but instead in order to bring "freedom" and "democracy" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East. That Light Unto the Muslim Nations Project was colossally misguided. It was fed by trust in plausible Shia in exile, and also fed by a belief that Islam, being a "religion," could not possibly be very different from other world religions, and the very word "religion" in some quarters commands automatic, salaam-salaam respect.
The New Duranty Times has over the past several decades failed to investigate Islam. It has failed to see, in its coverage of the Middle East, in the tens of millions of words it has published, the centrality of Islam. And so have many others. But at a certain point, that negligence or ignorance became intolerable. After the 9/11/2001 attacks, and after the attacks on non-Muslims all over the world became better known, and even, at times, reported on, what was the excuse of the Times in not finding out?
All over the world non-Muslims have been attacked, some across borders, and some within the borders of countries in which Muslims dominate. The Arab siege of the Infidel state of Israel remains what it has always been -- not a "nationalist" desire for "the legitimate rights of the 'Palestinian people'" but an implacable war, not limited to military means, against the continued existence of the one Jewish state. And that has received attention both exaggerated and misconceived. The Times has devoted thousands of articles, over several decades, to the so-called "Peace Process" without once -- not once -- ever bothering to examine the Muslim view of treaties with Infidels. It has done so without once -- not once -- studying the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyyah and its central role in Muslim treaty-making (see Majid Khadduri, "War and Peace in Islam"). The very idea of presuming to discuss either the Arab attitude toward Israel, or the real nature of Ba'athism (the reasons for the creation of the Ba'ath movement, and why it succeeded, for similar but distinct reasons, only in Syria and Iraq -- have been repeatedly laid out at this website, and for all I know, possibly somewhere else), without any reference to Islam here either shows how poorly The New Duranty Times has performed.
It is called here "The New Duranty Times" to remind readers of how badly The Times covered Soviet Russia in the 1930s, when its Pulitzer-award winning correspondent (his award worth about as much as the Pulitzer awarded to the terminally jejune Tom Friedman) Walter Duranty failed to notice Stalin’s famine. Now the Times fails to notice the Christians in Pakistan and the Philippines and the Moluccas of Indonesia, the Hindus of Bangladesh and Pakistan and even the last remaining Hindus in Afghanistan under the Taliban, the Christians and animists in the southern Sudan, and the Christians of southern Nigeria. When the Biafra War was covered, no one noticed, no one wanted to notice, that it was a classic Jihad against the Christian Ibo -- no one, except Col. Ojukwu and the Christians of Nigeria themselves.
The New Duranty Times is not alone. The newspapers, the radio pundits, the television talkshows and sound-bite rapid-fire interviewers, have ignored the nature of Islam, the history of Islamic conquest of non-Muslim lands and subsequent subjugation of vast numbers of non-Muslims, over time forcibly islamized and in the Middle East and North Africa, arabized as well.
But The Times has never been able to coherently explain much of what it covers, that is, much of what is merely reported, but about which neither The Times, nor its readers therefore, can make sense. For by leaving out the teachings and promptings and atmospherics of Islam, it leaves out the explanatory heart of the matter.
I emailed the link to this article to JW/DW, and I was probably not the only one. I found this sentence on the very first page to be hopeful:
"Islamic militants who embrace violence may account for a minuscule fraction of Muslims in the world, but they lay claim to the breadth of Islamic teachings in their efforts to justify their actions."
Well qualified though it is, the "breadth of Islamic teachings" is mentioned in a Jihad-serving light. The NY Times got a little something right for a change. Hugh is right, they have been incompetent and stupid, and I would like to think the change is due to sites like this one. Let's all keep it up. It makes a difference. Being reasonable and logical, with scriptural support, any one of us who reads this site and has done their research into the Islamic canon can change minds befuddled by the likes of the Times, the rest of the mainstream media, apologist pseudo-intellectuals and Muslim spokespeople.
The Guidebook for Taking a Life
--from Sunday New York Times, June 10,2007
(link below)
Rule No. 1: You can kill bystanders without feeling a lot of guilt.
Rule No. 2: You can kill children, too, without needing to feel distress.
Rule No. 3: Sometimes, you can single out civilians for killing; bankers are an example.
Rule No. 4: You cannot kill in the country where you reside unless you were born there.
Rule No. 5: You can lie or hide your religion if you do this for jihad.
Rule No. 6. You may need to ask your parents for their consent.http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/weekinreview/10moss.html?pagewanted=2&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fSubjects%2fK%2fKoran&_r=1
The "NYT," run by Limousine Liberals, is the most ignorant newspaper of all. Those bastards.
Excellent piece Hugh,
As you stated:
"It cannot explain why that intervention was undertaken not to swiftly find and destroy certain kinds of weaponry and then leave, but instead in order to bring "freedom" and "democracy" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East."
Nearly no one realizes that immediately after Hussein was pulled from his hole in the ground, preceded by the elimination of his geneological line in Uday and Qusay, and similarly before that, with the obliteration of the Baathist Republican guard, The war in Iraq was over.
I wonder historically, if there was ever a precedence that the victor in a war was obligated to prop back up the very same people it had just knocked down, immediately following the end of the conflict. Does anyone know of such a precedence?
The initial mistake was the incorrect assumption that all things and peoples in Iraq not directly tied to the Baathist regime were inherently "good" and worth sacrificing US military and economic resources for. Well, that did not pan out as assumed, that is for sure. The vortex was and continues to be, the administration's complete willful ignorance to the ideology of Islam and it's adherents...all fo them.
They, the administration, are certainly not alone in this deficiency, but due to the ultimate responsibility that they share as the leaders of the free world, makes their deficiency, the most egregious.
Hugh,
I'm VERY glad you mentioned the "plausible Shia-in-exile," because that point seems to have been forgotten by the media and the politicians.
Everybody in America, including the Bushies and the Congress and the American public, had been sold a bill of goods by groups like Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. Prior to the Iraq War, they went around Washington and appeared on all the TV news interview shows (especially Fox News) to reassure Americans that oh, yes, Iraqis are a cultured, freedom-loving people, they're ready for peaceful Western-style democracy; and as soon as the U.S. topples Saddam, just leave it up to the Iraqis and they'll build a new model society in Iraq.
And we bought it.
I haven't forgotten Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress and their allied groups of emigres who were lobbying America to take out Saddam. But just about everybody in Washington seems to have forgotten the role they played in bamboozling America.
As far as I can recall, the Americans, after the fall of Bagdad declared that 'nationbuilding is not on the cards'- which made the Eurabians squirt all over themselves with 'you broke it, you fix it' demands.
Perhaps this was Bush's intention in the beginning. But somehow, somebody coaxed this US- administration into this rebuilding nonsense, which now costs 800 billion and 3500 good men their lives and 10.000 (?) wounded and permanently damaged from this unnecessary war.
The poster above is right:
"No one realizes that immediately after Hussein was pulled from his hole in the ground, preceded by the elimination of his geneological line in Uday and Qusay, and similarly before that, with the obliteration of the Baathist Republican guard, The war in Iraq was over."
It's unfortunate that the Duranty Times hasn't been able to see through Islam. (I recall another "news" outlet -- this was before the Iraq war, before March 2003, in Canada -- and there was a useful idiot who claimed to be a doctor and was preaching for the lifting of sanctions against Iraq -- because, of course, the "sanctions" had killed a 100,000 Iraqi children -- and he was making the rounds (probably funded by Saddam's mad money) to radio stations and Christian churches...and the radio station, CBC, completely ate up this story..."Ja! A 100,000 children are dead!"
When Saddam was defying U.N. resolutions to let the weapons' inspectors back in and look around for WMD -- the Germans were claiming that Saddam already had WMD (yeah, it was a "done deal.")
Living in Canada I came to the conclusion that even if Saddam had nukes, nobody would do anything about it (and if the U.S. had the audacity to protest, the U.S. would become isolated -- shunned by all the other western dhimmi states happy with their Islamic overlords.)
So when Chalabi came along promising great things for Iraq -- why not? Chalabi was a useful tool. How could the so-called Leftists be opposed to freeing the Iraqi people from the brutal dictatorship of Saddam? (In a way, this is how politics works). And, yes, I suppose after the capture of Saddam, arrangements should have been made to leave Iraq (but maybe some were still afraid that Saddam would be released and come back to power -- on that score, the best possible scenario (which did not happen) would have been to have had that soldier with the grenade drop it into the spider hole -- THEN the U.S. could have declared victory and left. But that did not occur.
I still don't see a way of extricating the U.S. from Iraq without the Dhimmicrats and other lovers of Islam to announce any pull-out as a victory for Islam. So, yes, it's a tarbaby.
But, in the meantime, I too wish that the "reporters" at the rag Duranty Times would brush up a bit on Islam -- they should at least bother to view the 6th part of "What the West Needs to Know" (see "The House of War" 1 hour, 23 minutes into the video) and recall what happens when Islam feels itself to be "weak"..."you concede peace when you're the weaker party," you ask for a Hudna, a temporary truce, so you can build strength. And when you're stronger you take out your enemies. This is precisely what is happening right now with the so-called "truce" or friendly arrangement between Americans and Iraqi "insurgents" (with the Americans stupidly giving them weapons -- as if these weapons will not be used against Americans -- "O never!" the liars allege). Again, they need to understand Islam and "The House of War." (or how "treaties" with Infidels work in the Islamic world). But readers of the Duranty Times will never, ever encounter such matters -- Duranty is too much in awe and loving admiration of Islam.
Kaddafi's hostage extortion update:
Libya urges Bush... Butt Out!
Hugh, Excellent article! The New York Times is a clear example of the synbiosis between the left and the jihad. However Ynkedoodl2's link does seem to be an rare exception.
---------------------------------
Ynkedoodl2,
Thanks for the link. In fighting the jihad, these rules are useful to remember. especially:
"Rule No. 6. You may need to ask your parents for their consent"
This could be used as a weapon against suicide bombers. After all, if someone kills himself for Islam we can legally assume him to be a good Muslim. As a good Muslim, we can also legally assume he had his parents consent and thus we have no legal restriction against executing the suicide bomber's mother and father as terrorist co-conspirators.
Knowing their parents will be executed for their crime might cause a few potential suicide-bombers to think twice. Right now suicide-bombers know that Saudi-funded "charities" will pay their families a lot of money. If we execute a few mommas and daddies, that will take away at-least one incentive.
Also, since the parents have been executed as terrorists, the state can also legally take any underage children from these families and adopt them out to non-Muslims. Not only will the suicide-bomber know his parents will be killed for his act, but he'll also know his little brothers and sisters will become kaffirs.
"No one realizes that immediately after Hussein was pulled from his hole in the ground, preceded by the elimination of his geneological line in Uday and Qusay, and similarly before that, with the obliteration of the Baathist Republican guard, The war in Iraq was over."
-- from a posting above
Erratum:
For "the war in Iraq was over" read "the war in Iraq should have been over."
As for the first three words -- "no one realizes" -- what am I, a potted plant?
Hugh, wonderful commentary, as always.
Journalists just don't seem to be able to believe that humans can really want to put their children in front of bullets so that they can go to paradise and have their family guaranteed entry to paradise.
Provoslavni- Those things aren't done because the Iraqi's aren't really the enemy remember, just the ""islamists""... I agree with you. And if they really wanted to stop the war just have all bullets dipped in pigs blood and don't allow the heads/body parts of any suicide bombers or Iraqi fighters to be returned. No paradise-no jihad.
A powerful weapon not being used because it's not 'nice'.
Hugh, wonderful commentary, as always.
Journalists just don't seem to be able to believe that humans can really want to put their children in front of bullets so that they can go to paradise and have their family guaranteed entry to paradise.
Provoslavni- Those things aren't done because the Iraqi's aren't really the enemy remember, just the ""islamists""... I agree with you. And if they really wanted to stop the war just have all bullets dipped in pigs blood and don't allow the heads/body parts of any suicide bombers or Iraqi fighters to be returned. No paradise-no jihad.
A powerful weapon not being used because it's not 'nice'.
Hugh, the poster said "Nearly no one realizes. . ." The word nearly is a very important word in that sentence. I would have written it differently. I would have used "almost." With the word nearly, it means that potted plants realize that the war should have been over.
"...immediately after Hussein was pulled from his hole in the ground, preceded by the elimination of his genealogical line in Uday and Qusay, and similarly before that, with the obliteration of the Baathist Republican guard, The war in Iraq was over." from above post.
Ok -- let's just do a little "what if"...So, the Americans pull out of Iraq after capturin' Saddam. heh, heh, heh. In the immediate aftermath, some Iraqi "insurgent" types (perhaps former Baathists and loyal Saddamites), say to the Iraqi "people" -- "Hey, those treacherous Americans!! Let us get even and restore Saddam to power!" So through various means (money, corrupt officials, bribes, threats, kidnappings, etc.) they get Saddam freed from his jail...secreted off somewhere...(maybe with some help from the French, who knows). Anywho, then what, eh?
This war has already lasted longer that the US involvement in all wars except Vietnam. One of the unspoken reasons we dropped the A bomb was fear of a mutiny when the soldiers in Europe were sent to the Pacific. By the time 1945 arrived, war weariness was beginning to grow.
The reality is that Iraq should be looked at as a campaign in a larger war. Like the invasion of the Palau Islands, the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest, and the capture of Aachen, our post Saddam involvement should have never continued. The invasion of the Pelelieu was probably the most egregious waste of American lives; Iraq may be a close second.
We should be battling the larger war against militant Islam. Is "militant" a superfluous adjective? People are compelled to add these modifiers to prevent being the object of the "racist" slur. If I say that we are at war with Islam, I will be jumped on like a raw steak in the lion enclosure.
J.S. - After Saddam was captured, and the Shiites were firmly in power, the restoration of the Thug in Chief Throne would have been very unlikely. After S.H. was hanged, we could have left, everyone would get a nice campaign ribbon, and we could watch the Iraqis play Shiites and Sunnis.
On the other hand, what if we let Saddam keep Kuwait? I no longer give one hoot in hades about Muslims mistreating Muslims.
I would prefer a secular Iraq to what we have now. How many Shiites did S.H. kill? With Saddam in power, does anybody think Iran would be rattling their scimitars. During the Cold War, we found allies in some rather ugly dictators, they were anti-Communist and that was all that mattered. In retrospect, I say, it was necessary.
"Rule No. 6. You may need to ask your parents for their consent"
"Mommy, can I go kill some infidels?"
"Have you cleaned your room?"
"Aaw, Mom...!"
"Get in there and get busy and if I find your explosives vest on the floor one more time..."
"After S.H. was hanged, we could have left..." Saddam was captured in December 2003 -- executed Dec. 30, 2006. He was kept in jail for three years. (Remember when GWBush thought that Saddam would be put on trial so that all his crimes would be discovered and documented? Instead, the trial(s) were hideously bungled...really a farce. As with so much of what has happened in Iraq -- there are all these good intentions, only to flounder or crash and burn -- I think it comes from Americans not understanding what they're up against -- Iraqis are not "westerners" -- it's an alien culture.) Anyway, to have been able to leave back in 2003 something would have had to been done with Saddam -- killed by "accident"? But it would have been far, far too risky to leave Iraq with Saddam still alive (the worst nightmare would have been to see the Americans leave, only to have Saddam restored to power to prance about and gloat...and probably, immediately resume WMD development.) I think both Iraq wars were necessary -- and good riddance for overthrowing Saddam. I also suspect that if the West had allowed Saddam to take-over Kuwait, where would he have stopped? (he needed money, due to the disastrous war with Iran -- he was broke and figured he could supplement his income with Kuwaiti oil monies...start a war, can't pay for it, so invade another country and steal from someone else...) At some point the world is going to require that Arabs grow up...stop the whining, stop the violence, stop the threats, and so on. (the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq and the West's response, I think, showed that the west does have some limits. Arabs can't act with total impunity.)
About not giving a hoot about what Muslims do to one another -- you know, I think that's becoming commonplace -- I think we're becoming numb -- the entire world seems utterly indifferent. Nobody cares. How many suicide/truck bombings have there been? It continues on a daily basis -- another 70 dead with 200 injured...and it's "So what else is new?" (I don't think this is good, yet, obviously we're completely powerless to stop it...Until they themselves come to the realization that murdering others isn't "good" -- then, I'm assuming it will go on...And I suspect that the notion that "murder" isn't all that bad comes directly from the Koran...)
I still stand by my belief that Saddam's return to power would have been a long shot with the Shiite Majority in charge. With the threat of US re-intervention, it could not have possibly happened.
Instead of Saddam trying to be the master of the Middle East, we now have a religious zealot trying to be the master. Iran's economy is also not very healthy, and that is dangerous.
A strong Sunni controlled Iraq would have kept Iran where it belongs. Whatever one says about Saddam, he was not driven by Islamic idealogy; he was driven by the eternal desire for wealth and power that predates Mohammed.
Saddam was our client/ally in the Iran-Iraq War. How soon we forget. We still owe Iran a good old fashioned beating.
Yes, a "long shot" -- you're probably correct. But, you know, Saddam was known as a risk taker (always pushing the limits -- imo a psychopath -- and with the Americans not present, I don't know...I think Saddam would have done everything possible to get back into power ... and even now, are the Shiites in charge? There are all of these factions and it seems every faction is out to get the other (tribe vs tribe)...I also agree that the replacement of a psychopathic secularist with a religious fanatic isn't good news...(I guess, one of those lofty notions of GWBush was to create a thriving secular Iraqi society which would cause a domino effect throughout the Middle East, other neighboring nations such as Iran would then see the success in Iraq, be put to shame-- the Iranian Mullah system shown up as a failure...of course, the reality is that just the opposite has taken place...that lofty goal shot down/crashed and burned. Now we've got the nut-jobs/religious fanatics to deal with (including the Iraqi Shiite variety.) (Samuel Huntington had an interesting observation about regions without a dominant power in place -- when there's a vacuum, you get regional instability as different states compete (so potentially we've got Iran/Iraq, Egypt, and S. Arabia battling it out.
Here is a classic case of the NYT getting it waaaay wrong in referrence to Israel's strike on Saddam's nuclear reactor in 1981:
"For all the brilliance of its execution, the raid incurred a terrible price. It further inflamed the Arab world and burdened the Moslem nations that are willing to accept the reality of Israel. It deepened the isolation of Egypt's President Sadat, whose diplomacy brought Israel more security than any of its recent military forays. It heightened distrust of America in the Middle East and opened new paths for Soviet intrusion.
Yet Americans who never dreamed a week ago of urging an attack on Iraq's reactor suddenly argue that we should all be grateful to the intrepid Israelis. They condemn President Reagan for responding even with a ritual reprimand. They pronounce France liberated from Iraq's pressure for nuclear fuel and presume Saudi and Egyptian delight at its humiliation. The cause of nonproliferation is said to have found a bold new champion. ''Anything that takes out a nuclear installation, I'm in favor of,'' says Senator Moynihan.
If that's the new realism, why stop at Baghdad? Why not throttle the Indians and Pakistanis by kidnapping their scientists? Why not sabotage or bomb the plants of Europe's nuclear exporters?
…It is no favor to Israel to keep admiring a military boldness that threatens to become a substitute for intrepid diplomacy. …A truly bold Israel would use this time of military superiority not to flaunt its power but to run more risks for accommodation, encouraging especially Palestinians to trade steps toward peace for hunks of territory."
(Editorial Desk, "THE FALLOUT FROM BAGHDAD," NYT 6/14/81)
MY TAKE ON THE 1981 EDITORIAL:
"If that's the new realism, why stop at Baghdad? Why not throttle the Indians and Pakistanis by kidnapping their scientists? Why not sabotage or bomb the plants of Europe's nuclear exporters?"
IF WE HAD REALLY FOLLOWED UP ON THIS SARCASTIC SUGGESTION, THE KHAN NETWORK MAY HAVE BEEN NIPPED IN THE BUD!
"…It is no favor to Israel to keep admiring a military boldness that threatens to become a substitute for intrepid diplomacy. …A truly bold Israel would use this time of military superiority not to flaunt its power but to run more risks for accommodation, encouraging especially Palestinians to trade steps toward peace for hunks of territory."
APPEASEMENT = INTREPID DIPLOMACY
Hugh wrote:
"As for the first three words -- "no one realizes" -- what am I, a potted plant?"
Now, now Hugh. That was a bit below the belt. Pelayo pointed out that the qualifier "nearly" was used in my post and it is painfully obvious that I did not intend to include you in that group of "nearly no one realizes".
Additionally, the war WAS over and SHOULD have been viewed as over. Policing civilian neighborhoods, what we have their today in Iraq, is not war. I apologize for not being explicitly clear and dutifully accept a demerit otr two for that transgression.
J.S.
Agreed on your point. However, knowing what we know about Islam and what Bush and Co. do not know about Islam, would you have turned Hussein over to the Iraqi's in the first place? I certainly would have not. I for one was waiting for the old coot to be let out the back door all the way through that sham of a trial.
Pelayo,
Thanks.
Posted by: Quijybo
I agree completely. This site and others do make a difference. Indeed, because of this site and others I've been able to fully appreciate the principles of Jihad and those of Islam in a way that makes sense of the world. Sites like this put a foundation under all the disparate data points that, standing on their own merit, seem inconsistent and 'crazy'. Yet when you put them into the framework of history, the ulema rulings and the canonical texts of Islam they line up properly. They are consistent and self-reinforcing. This understanding comes in large part from visiting Jihadwatch.org, faithfreedom.org and other sites, to which I'm truly grateful.
Once the pieces fall into place and it begins to 'make sense' many readers feel a certain duty to share. I belong to this group. I've been fighting my personal counter-jihad for at least two years now and can see that it pays in dividends. Recently I had a liberal-leaning friend of mine thank me for 'showing him the true about the whole Muslim issue'. Those are the words. It works people!!!! Take the time and make the effort. If you focus on the issue, don't get overly passionate, respond to all objections and do so with quotes and citations that are linked directly to the sources... it will pay off. The internet is a powerful resource... the fact that the Muslim Student Association has put the Qur'an, Ahadith and other Sunnah on line is a huge bonus.
Never give up. My friend has turned at least 160 degrees around to face the issue head on. Thank you Jihadwatch and thanks to all persons who make a contribution here. It Does Matter and It Does Make a Difference. I would say it's even more important than any military action in this war of Ideas.
Awake,
"...would you have turned Hussein over to the Iraqi's in the first place?" Absolutely not. I was also afraid that Saddam's American attorneys would wrangle their way into having Hussein sent to the International Criminal Court, where, if convicted, he'd spend the rest of his life behind bars...and/or to eventually appeal and win and/or escape...(after Islamic "militants" take some Europeans "hostage"...and thus, Saddam makes his way back to Iraq .. flown by French Jets, thanks to Chriac personal interventions, and given a royal re-instatement as Prez of iraq.) No. The only way would have been for Saddam to be shot "by accident" back in 2003...(or shot as he presumably made an escape attempt from American authorities.)
J.S. wrote:
"The only way would have been for Saddam to be shot "by accident" back in 2003...(or shot as he presumably made an escape attempt from American authorities.)"
Agreed. The same outcome, ultimately with less time effort and MONEY spent.