one has to wonder if Mr. Ritter made any attempt to molest any of those children as well?

Maybe, if this was a prison for 14yr old girls, Ritter would've been more forthcoming.

Waging peace while children suffered horribly. Whatta guy! In his last moments, as his life flashes before his eyes, I hope those horrific scenes linger, knowing that he allowed that child-suffering to go on. I hope the wails haunt him for an eternity.

"All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

In this guy's case, replace "good men" with "inspector jerks".

I heard that Ritter was trying to take all those kids to Burger King.

Its not just Ritter "journalists" and "diplomats" also knew about this stuff. They knew about nuclear sites and a number of other things. These people are all scum. The UN, the media, most diplomats.

MDS -- Scott Ritter is not a good man, and he did not do nothing. He actively worked against the war effort, and by his own admission concealed evidence which might be used by the "pro-war" side. It's also pretty clear he was paid handsomely for his efforts.

Burger King? To Ritter, that prison probably looked like a buffet.

The Truth is poison to the Left!

Scott Ritter = idiocy redefined.

"to Burger King" I meant that is where he apparently likes to lure children to.

3 words for this man: War Crimes Tribunal

What Scott Ritter richly deserves is to be convicted of child abuse in the U.S., and then sent to a rough state prison like Angola.

I can think of no more fitting punishment than the one that would be applied there, by his roommates.

I wouldn't believe anything Ritter "claims" to know. He's self-serving and all about Scott! However, if he did see first-hand what went on in that prison, then he's more of a P.O.S than I would have ever imagined. Regardless, as a pedophile, he's right up there with those who ran the Iraqi children's prison. Please, stop giving this idiot time in the media.

quick word usage count:
children, toddlers, pre-adolescent, offspring.......4 occurrences
my, I'm, I, I, I'm......5 occurrences

Is the paragraph about Scott or the children?

The reference to Burger King is that Mr. Ritter wanted to meet the 14 year old girl he was chatting online with at a local Burger King. Except that the 14 year old girl was a cop pretending to be a 14 year old girl. He was actually warned about this twice, and had the records sealed. He got away with it for a while because his first name is 'William', but he goes by 'Scott', so it didn't click with the media when a person named "William Ritter" was arrested for attempted solicitation of sex from a minor (or whatever the charge was). It was only leaked because the Assistant D.A. didn't tell her boss about it, and she was fired when he found out. That made news, and people put 2 and 2 together. By the way, Ritter originally tried to deny it. Disgrace to his former uniform, and what we used to call a serious dirtbag in the Army. The local NPR station still fawns all over him when he is a guest on their station. Go figure.

For some reason he spoke at the University of Tennessee a couple of months ago. He was invited and spoke at the University Center auditorium before a largely anti-war crowd.

"I've said that no one has backed up any allegations that Iraq has reconstituted WMD capability with anything that remotely resembles substantive fact."

In 98 he said Iraq still had WMD, and does not deny it now, just that noone has proven he has more than in 98.

To quote Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!"

Scott Ritter needs to denounce his citizenship and never return to the US.

If he does return, I hope a real Marine kicks his pedophile ass and caves his skull in.

To think that someone would think that finding out about a prison full of children abusively imprisoned because they are the children of dissentents isn't worth crying out to heaven and every person you know until something is done makes me sick.

Now I find that it's ok to hide this info because someone might find it worth taking action against.

These are wicked wicked behaviors. The more I learn, the more disgusted, sad, angry and nauseated I am. It's a time to wear sack cloth and ashes that we would allow such people to thrive without warning everybody about the evil heart hiding in this section of people who claim to be doing good.

Scott Ritter is a traitor.

This is the same guy who told a friend of his that he has never been wrong in his life. but what liberal ever has admitted that? Looks like he's plenty wrong on this issue!

What a guy! How noble of him to speak out on this issue after so many years. It seems like he might be a carrier of the dreaded "CNN" disease.

So, let me see if I understand this correctly. The peaceful world envisioned by this . . . creature (man is too generous) is a place where adults allow children to be imprisoned and tortured.

Yeah, sounds like a place worth fighting for.

Time to create another verb:

Scott Ritter *CNN-ed* the children's prison.

Mr Ritter would fit right in living in France in Chirac's neighborhood.

Yes, CNN'd is absolutely right.

Anyone who gets arrested for soliciting sex with a minor over the internet should go to jail for stupidity. Anyone on the net that claims to be a teenager looking to get it on with a middleaged man is either 1) a middleaged male pervert 2) a cop or )3 a middleaged male pervert cop.

Scott Ritter is a waste of human flesh. I seriously hope he meets a horrible and painful end. I don't say this lightly either, but after reading that quote, I can't help but feel his own desire to "wage peace" (i.e. line his pockets with Saddam's money) kept him from alerting the world to the atrocities that he witnessed and that he knew were so horrific that they would legitimize a war. He is just as bad as Saddam. He didn't instigate it, but he did nothing to stop it. How could he have remained silent about such a thing?? How could anyone???

Excuse me, I have to go hug my kids now.

Yeah,yeah,I agree with all of you,but isn't it a bit rich to use the word 'unearth' when referring to a friggin' TIME article from just last year.Lots of people read that,and when the news of the children's prison broke out on Tuesday,I posted a link to it on the relevant LGF thread,thinking to myself no one must have thought of that quote.
Well,it turned out I wasn't even the first one to post the link.

Ahhh...but the climate has changed now. Any lawyers out there interested in some pro bono work on behalf of Iraqi children?

Sue the bastard barefoot!

"...Mr. Ritter, you KNEW or should have known that..."

OMG! I am sitting here actually nauseated and tearful. First, I didn't know that there were *toddlers* in the prison (any child of any age is bad enough), second, I hadn't heard about the Ritter pedophile thing, and third, that "Mr." Ritter wasn't shouting from the rooftops about this atrocity. How could so many people know about this stuff and not do something about it? Another example of how inspections had failed - but it wouldn't have mattered anyway because the UN wasn't up to doing the right thing.

BTW, i love the new coined verb here - "CNN'd".

When justifying one's anti-war position requires the witholding of "horrific" information about torturing children, then most people would probably take that an indication that their position is mistaken. But I suppose peaceful folks like Mr. Ritter think on that higher moral plane where regimes that turn toddlers into political prisoners really aren't anything to get people worked up about. I'm so glad they're around to make such decisions for the rest of us, or who knows what awful things might happen?

Were the UN inspectors considered "mandatory reporters" with regard to child abuse, under U.S. law?

Toddlers in prison (shudder).

And my next question is, did anyone take pictures of this or any other children's prison in Iraq, before it was opened?

If so, then we need to plaster those pics all over, and say "Shame on you!" to the Arab and other nations who backed Saddam. Perhaps esp. the French, since they seem to be big on children's rights in their own country.

Public shame; it'll make an impact on the Arab Street, help shock them out of their fantasies. THEN we'll see which way World Opinion flows. Heh.

I've learned so much today. I learned that this country is full of self-centered egoists who are willing to sacrifice much of what I consider good and true and holy on the altars of ideology, comfort zones, and a pure disregard of facts.

I used to think these people were just loonies. NOw I believe their views lead to true wickedness.

Alright right-wingers (not just pro-war):
1) Just because you win the war, does not mean you won the argument.
2) The people on the left who see Sadam as anything less than a sadistic fascist are so few that their numbers are comparable to those on the right who pray to the alters of Jimmy Baker, Billy Graham, etc.

So have fun with your liberal bashing, but don't get to serious about your generalizations. Pigs.

Scott Ritter needs to have shoes whack him in the head for eternity. Truly this person is not hard wired correctly and needs to be muzzled. There is no forgiveness for his lack of action on behalf of those children.

Who is funding Scott Ritter's trips across the country and the globe? Does the military, arms inspecting, and pedaphilia pay better then we realize? Seriously. Does anyone know who bankrolls this guy? Please post if you know.

How could he be so morally bankrupt to believe that concealing a crime of this magnitude serves a noble purpose?

So have fun with your liberal bashing, but don't get to serious about your generalizations. Pigs.

You're saying Scott Ritter is a liberal?

What the hell is BKS talking about?

re: the "left" and Saddam

External pressure (ie. war) was the only way to remove Saddam. That is obvious to anyone who has followed the happenings in Iraq for the past 20+ years.

Anyone who took an anti-war position was tacitly supporting him (and all that implies morally) to stay in power.

z

BKS,

Equating Christians with lefty supporters of Saddam Hussein? Keep following that moral compass of yours, pal.

Nobody knows what BKS is talking about because he obviously doesn't make any sense. I wonder if anybody's ever told him that, here let me help.

BKS you don't make any sense.

I think people are bashing Scott Ritter here, if you think Scott Ritter represents liberals, you are truly crazy.

Who is paying for this POS to do all this traveling around and interviews and rallies and stuff?

OK, I know there's a more sophisticated way to phrase this, but, what a piece of shit this guy is!

Roast in hell boyo, there's my tip o' the hat to ya.

does anyone have this asshole, Ritter's email address? I can't tell anyone but him what a fuckin' peice of shit he is....maybe we all can?

Gotta love the information age, you know :)

BKS is a confused coward, like all peice of crap amoral, clinton loving, soccer playing european/socilaist leaning, pencil neck liberal FemBots! But the great thing about this country is that all of these losers can espouse their worthless scree freely. Only a liberal coward would look the other way when children are in prison!

I find the story about Ritter tremendously appalling. In no way can that sort of comment/action be justified. I came to this site, among others, when I heard the rumor of this comment.

I would like to mention, however, that I am one of the anti-war "amoral, clinton loving, soccer playing european/socilaist leaning, pencil neck liberal FemBots" as was so cleverly stated by ILoveRegan. Though I spent the last five months of 2002 doing development work in East Africa, was opposed to Clinton on several fronts for often in terms of policies saying one thing but actually doing another, don't often play soccer, preferring my 6'5" 220 lb. pencil-neck frame to play basketball. I would also like to introduce a brief tangent. ILoveRegan uses liberal FemBot as an insult. I would assure you that the most sound way to erode fundamentalist repression and bolster democracy would be to empower women. That can't be disagreed with.

Back to the matter at hand. I find this thread's comments about the immorality of the anti-war crowd quite amusing. You tend to speak in generalities, which as you know are quite inaccurate. Anti-war, pro-war, liberal, conservative, everyone can agree that taking one image or one individual out from under a general demographic and applying to the whole is incorrect.

Therefore, let me move from the general to the specific in explaining my lack of support for this war. In no way was it an implicit support of any dictator. Unlike many that speak in support of the war, I have long been active in pressing for the decrying and removal of individuals or governments who engage in brutal and repressive activities. Myself and individuals like me (Ritter definately NOT being of like mind) have long screamed at the top of our lungs that such things as childrens prisons are an affront to humanity. Very rarely has America, or the world for that matter, responded to the call for action.

What action do I promote? I have already iterated my lack of support for armed engagement. War, while seemingly effective, can be hazardous in the long run, and is far less effective in the promotion of democracy than sustained efforts by the world community. I agree that the world--often mirrored in the United Nations--has unfocused on long term efforts, but so has the United States, the administration of President Bush included. The reason for the lack of sustained interest is that creating democracy and removing the spectre of tyranny is a lengthy process requiring energy, resources, and constant vigilance. War cannot create peace and stability, though it initially may seem to push it that direction. For example, Afghanistan now reels under the renewed influence of tribalism and the Taliban only a short time after its "liberation."

I would not leave Saddam and those of his ilk in power. To believe that appeasement of tyrants is the intent of those who are "anti-war" is horribly disingenous. Parse that one category into two camps: those who are passionately opposed now, but apathetic later, and those who genuinely support the ideals of humanity but oppose using war as a way to reach them. It is important to note that this division persists also on the side of those who are in support of military action.

The world is complex. There are many tyrannts and much suffering, even under the auspices of a true democracy. For illustration, Ethiopia, the oldest second oldest Christian nation and one of the early African democracies, is in the grip of a drought worse than that of the eighties, millions may die this summer. Do not allow yourself to be convinced that because of a favorable outcome so far--meaning far less casualties than were feared--we can sit on our laurels. If you truly believe (and again I disagree) that this war was just in order to ride Iraq of a leader the United States, and in particular Ronald Regan supported, you must continue to press the administration toward global social improvement. You will quickly see that this far reaching change is more difficult than can be imagined and can never come on the tail of continuous aerial bombardment or the United States would not have enough men to feed to the mouths of war.