Ian's crafting a post on the chemical weapon bombing of Halabja, Iraq by the Iraqi government during the Iran-Iraq War on and about this day in 1988 which killed thousands.  Halabja had just been captured by the PUK (Kurd group) with the coordination of the Iranian military.  What I want to know is what was the UN's reaction and how many Hail Mary's will the ICC dole out for various governments alleged complicities? I'm looking forward to reading Ian's post.

“ ... either the atrocity at Halabja was carried out by the Iraqi military against their enemies - with a set of chemical warfare agents that they had a record of use prior to Halabja, and with a proven reputation for using chemical weapons in large amounts against civilians (the mustard gas attacks on Majnun island in September 1984 are estimated to have killed 40,000 people) - or by the Iranians, against their own allies and soldiers in an attack using chemicals that there's no evidence that they ever have had.“ - Glen Rangwala, 2002, from http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg00034.html

In the mean time, here's an excerpt from our side discussion on it:

[11:10] Me: ah, the problems with conflicts we don't want to get involved with.
[11:10] Me: i love that now, the UN refuses to get involved in conflicts we want to be in, a la Sudan / genocide.
[11:10] Ian: we being US we?
[11:10] Me: yes.
[11:11] Me: we being the US.
[11:11] Ian: yeah Darfour seems to have dropped off all radar screens
[11:11] Me: i wonder what the UN was doing wrt the iran-iraq war?
[11:11] Me: probably, looking the other way.
[11:11] Ian: but seems to me more because there are no vested interests there by any major parties, hence no sponsorship other than pure PR
[11:11] Me: strange
[11:12] Ian Hogan: how strange?
[11:12] Me: that's the UN's vested interest, anti-genocide, yet... where is it?
[11:12] Ian: the UN is like the PTA
[11:12] Me: very much so.
[11:12] Me: all waggling fingers and horn-rimmed glasses, calling for more speedbumps
[11:12] Ian: if no vocal parents are bitching about something, no reason to address it
[11:13] Me: unless it's the stupid football coach who's got kids in school, who's also bitching, aka the US
[11:13] Ian: right, like, Iraq wasn't supported cause more countries had a vested interest in the status quo than supporting the US