Chemical Weapons found in Iraq....

Great Debates
41

And your point is…?

My point is that the actions being used verge on and probably cross the rules of war in many instances.

Given that the Coalition of the Conned went to war in a manner that was seen as contravening International Will through the UN and thus already heve one strike against them…

then to be seen as getting strike two ignoring intrernational concerns via Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Black Interrogation Centres etc with their use of unlawful imprisonment and torture…

cannot really afford strike three- being careless of rules of war on treatment of civilians and use of banned weaponry.

Not only are the Coalition losing the real war (2000 US dead and rising) in Iraq, but they are losing the moral war in the rest of the western world- gradually any competence or justification they may have claimed is slipping away.

Some of us were predicting this outcome before all this started.

42

Just to re-parse your sentence:
Yep, the Americans killed people civilians on purpose, knowing they were civilians and not caring in a large city in Iraq containing a mixture of insurgents and civilian men women and children and made the false and purposeful self-serving assumtion that they were all enemy personnel. Blew up the buildings containing men, women and children without checking who was in there… Notify the media.

I agree, notify the media. If this was being done by an enemy of the USA, you would be condemning it out of hand.

43

Are you talking about Fallujah? Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I thought the city had been evacuated down to around 50,000 (previously something like 300k), and that all women and children were allowed to leave…it was only fighting age males who were turned back.

You are claiming that the US knowingly targetted civilians…do you have a cite for that incredible accusation? Not that civilians were killed in the cross fire, not that the US made a mistake, or that military targets were attacked knowing that there was a possibility that civilians were in the area…but that the US knowinging and deliberately targetted civilians knowing they were civilians.

-XT

44

Wonderful. Swell. “Only” fighting age males. Are we assuming that each and every “fighting age” male in Falujah has surrendered civlian status by his choice of age and gender? Have we been offered a definition of “fighting age”? 14 to 60? 18 to 35?

Am I given to understand that you regard such as legitimate? Surely I must misunderstand. Surely.

45

Certainly it is estimated that there were about 50000 people left. The mistake is in assuming that all these were insurgents and could be treated as such. Pictures of dead women and children were shown in the follow up (but all journalists were contained or restrained from real reporting on what was going on.

Ordering an evacuation does not mean that people obey, even when they face major danger- just think of Bush’s home grown organizational disaster- New Orleans.

Your argument is equivalent to saying it would have been morally acceptable to raze New Orleans because everybody had been warned to get out. People don’t always do what is best for them, people don’t always have the means to leave, people may need to stay for other reasons.

The reality of the situation is that the US needed to treat a modern and densely packed city as a battlefield so that it could use battlefield weapons. To do this it pretended that there had been a full evacuation and then proceeded to use a variety of weapons that are banned for use on citizens- a useful lie, but one that history will judge and that the civilized world is currently judging- and judging against the barbarity of US actions in Iraq.

46

I believe it was 18 to 55 actually…men of ‘military age’. Yeah, it wasn’t such a good thing. War isn’t a very pleasant thing, is it? I can see both sides of this particular issue. On the one side you don’t want to let the insurgent leaders slip away (though I’m sure some did anyway), or let teams of insurgents escape. On the other its unfair to innocent civilan males to be trapped in the city and basically told to keep their heads down and hope for the best.

Legitimate? Certainly it was legitimate. Now, ask me if it was right or wrong and you might get a different answer…but it was certainly legitimate. Fallujah was a city in Iraq. Insurgents had taken it over and were in control of it. The insurgents had fortified positions in the city. It was perfectly legitimate for the provisional Iraqi government at the time and for the US (who had authority from the UN to govern the country in the interim) to take that city back. Are you making a claim that what the US/Iraqi military did was illegal somehow? If so, can you explain? Or are you simply using ‘legitimate’ in some wierd 'luci way to mean ‘morally right’?

-XT

47

And some have been incessantly, desperately using conjecture and flimsy evidence to construct scenarios of Evil Yankee Aggression most of their allegedly adult lives.

Whatever happened to Pjen’s mighty diatribe about our alleged vast concealment of American casualties in Iraq?

No matter how often his claims get debunked, he’s off and running with every fresh “expose” from the Guardian.

48

Your memory fails you. I merely asked whether the originating cartoon had any cites to support it beyond the single internet reference. We then debated about whether this was possible.

Quote:
It’s all very well posting repeated sceptical debunking posts, but there is still something odd here. Perhaps if we concentrated on discrepancies and asked what has led a nationally syndicated cartoonist to make this allegation, whether it is founded or unfounded, it would be more in keeping with ‘General Questions’ and might lead to enlightenment rather than point scoring.
UnQuote PJen

Quote
*The dailykos site above has a discussion which suggests that the TBR figures may include people directly contracted to the US military as workers, drivers, mercenaries etc.

Now suppose that what we have is two sets of casualty lists- one for serving military and one for military plus camp followers as above. So there is a main list and a ‘Supplemental Report’. The main list is for public consumption, the ‘Supplemental Report’ might be less public- too embarrassing to admit and collect stats on the contractors and mercenaries being killed and injured, but a necessity to provide medical help and to record battle losses.

Now suppose TBR found these ‘Supplemental Reports’ or had them leaked to them, but do not know or believe that they refer to non US non military casualties?

Is that a possible explanation?*
UnQuote

Quote
*Please re-read my threads. I have never said that the TBR lists are counts of US Military deaths. I don’t believe that to be the case.

I am interested in how this information came to be accepted by Ted Rall and what the sources, however doubtful, were.

I would like to know what the additional supports for this were that were claimed by Rall.

I am intrigued about what the status of the documents hidden on the TBR site (the Supplemental reports) actully are- is TBR using the military pro forma to do its own calculations of improbably high military deaths, or are these some other form of accounting used by defense?

I am intrigued by the variation between the Defense, GlobalSecurity and TBRNews presentations of documents.

I note that the term ‘Supplemental Report’ is widely used in the Military and Government (try Googling it).

It would be good to confirm what the true status of the TBR forms is- are they internal TBR ‘recounts’ using questionable information or do they have an official source. Is there a reason why someone might leak falsified documents to TBR. Has TBR just falsified documents and hidden them on their website. What are the motivations of the various people involved?

None of those questions has really been answered, we only have suppositions from differing viewpoints.

I am aware that some people feel so strongly about this that the heat of the matter is causing a little xenophobic fervor.

I suspect that it may take a little more time for further information to come out that will to some extent answer those questions. We shall see.*
UnQuote PJen

If that’s a diatribe I’m a Dutchman.

49

So, to rephrase my earlier question: How do you account for the fact that you linked to an article which quoted a professor of forensic pathology who stated that the wounds to the civilians shown in the video in question WERE NOT CAUSED BY WP?

Do you read your own cites?

50

And you, sir, are responsible for considerable misquoting:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pjen
It is hard to see how you could use these weapons in Falluja without killing civilians.

This looks to me like a convincing explanation of the damage done to Falluja, a city in which between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians might have been taking refuge. It could also explain the civilian casualties shown in the film. (editor’s note - prepare for vast irrational leap) - So the question has now widened: is there any crime the coalition forces have not committed in Iraq?

…Some of us were predicting this outcome before all this started.

Reply With Quote

The words in Green are not mine, but quoted from the cited article. (Post 39)

The words in blue are mine, but cut from another post and referring to totally different subject matter (Post 41):

"My point is that the actions being used verge on and probably cross the rules of war in many instances.

Given that the Coalition of the Conned went to war in a manner that was seen as contravening International Will through the UN and thus already heve one strike against them…

then to be seen as getting strike two ignoring intrernational concerns via Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Black Interrogation Centres etc with their use of unlawful imprisonment and torture…

cannot really afford strike three- being careless of rules of war on treatment of civilians and use of banned weaponry.

Not only are the Coalition losing the real war (2000 US dead and rising) in Iraq, but they are losing the moral war in the rest of the western world- gradually any competence or justification they may have claimed is slipping away.

Some of us were predicting this outcome before all this started."

The editor’s note is hyperbole from Jackmannii.

Totally dishonest quoting and parsing.

Apology sought.

51

:stuck_out_tongue: Do you really want an answer to this? Or to put it another way, how are the Netherlands these days?..

-XT

52

I assume that you are addressing me.

I agree that it is likely that the wounds to the civilians investigated by the Professor were in all liklihood not caused by WP.

I never stated that they were. This was RAI trying to show that women and children had been killed by WP.

I was merely relying initially on the statements of US forces that they had used WP as an attack weapon on supposed insurgents, and later on evidence that many of the people left in Falluja when it was treated by the US forces as a battlefiesl were (and were known by the US to be) civilians including women and children.

The views of the professor on a few bodies he investigated does not contradict the above in any way.

53

So, you start a thread complaining about (a) the use of WP in Fallujah and (b) that there were tens of thousands of civilians in Fallujah, and now you claim that this thread is not about the use of WP on civilians?

If this is the case, I have no idea what you wish to argue about. (On a related note, I still kind of wonder if you have acknowledged that those “supplemental reports” on huge numbers of US casualties are, in fact, forgeries. Last time I looked at that thread, which was some time ago, you seemed very reluctant to do so.)

54

Not all of that came from you? Gosh, who could tell - the author used many of the same weaselly qualifiers that we have come to know and love from you, and which you just cited from your very own quotes in attempting to show your “fairmindedness” on the subject of American casualty reporting:

And on and on and on, despite all the careful and reasoned debunkings of the claims of doctored casualty numbers, you continued with your "is it not possible"s and "could it be"s. If it’s not loud and virulent enough to qualify as a “diatribe” in your book, how about “stubborn moronic persistence in the face of logic”? Better?

This is like many of your previous posts - a hasty grab at something, no matter how dubious, biased or incomplete the source, because it fits your preconceived notions of Amerikan Evil.

Instead of a reasoned discussion about civilian casualties in Iraq and if the U.S. can do more do reduce the ones it has control over, we have another Pjenian diatribe.

I’m supposed to apologize to someone who compares Fallujah to Dresden?

Do you have any knowledge of history at all?

55

While I have no dog in this fight, one thing I am happy about is that I’ll hopefully never have to listen to conservative whining about Waco or Ruby Ridge ever again. What? Excessive force used nearby to civilians? But… I thought that was kickass?! America: FUCK YEAH!

56

If you read the original post you will find that I do not mention civilians, merely that WP shells were used:

" Chemical Weapons found in Iraq…
…trouble is, they are in the possession of and being used by US Forces:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/internati...1643679,00.html

White Phospherus shells were used as anti-personnel weapons.

This could be in contravention of the rules on Chemical Weapons- the very rules we accused Saddam Hussein of contravening.

How culpable are US forces in this? What sanctions should the US face?"

That is the complete OP, no mention of civilians.

There was then a discussion about whether WP shells aimed at personnel could be seen as Chemical Weapons- various contradictory sources were cited- maybe it is maybe it isn’t. Then I post a cite showing that the US Government decribed WP shells used against personnel as being Chemical Weapons when used by Saddam hussein in 1991.

This article also went on to mention that the author considered that Falluja could be seen as a war crime in itself- a bellief I mentioned in passing as being given increasing credence in the rest of the Western World.

WP may have been used on civilians- God knows there were enough on the urban battlefield to make that a possibility. But I never complained about that in my posts, or stated that it had occurred.

Do you have problems with comprehension?

57

If you cannot understand the meaning of quote marks, then how can you expect to differentiate between assertions and cites.

And this is Great Debates. Debating is about raising questions and seeing the response. There has been no proof so far that the casualty lists were forgeries, misunderstandings or descriptions of other deaths and injuries- no proof has been adduced by either side of the argument. It is moot.

Just because uncertainty leads to bad publicity for US Forces does not mean that we should assume that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds- I’ll leave that to Fox News and you and Ravenman.

In retrospect the war in Iraq II will be seen as as bad as Viet Nam- the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong times, and will severely damage the US’s relationship with the Muslim and civilized Western World. Some of us pointed this out in 2003 and feel justified in continuing to point out that US Policy IS Was and Continues to be a Crock of Shit.

Sorry if this offends you.

58

Again a selective misquote.

I was pointing out that like Dresden, Falluja was in reality a war crime, but it will never be officially described as that because of victor’ justice.

My complete quote:

“the Dresden of this war- a great untried and unpunished war crime.”

In both cases battlefield weaponry was released over a period of time on a population that was largely civilian.

Both despicable, both escapable.

Whether 700 deaths or 70,000, the use of battlefield weapons on a city of 300,000 (50000 when partially evacuated) is unacceptable.

59

On a side note, and I’m not trying to be snarky, I would kindly suggest that you put a little more effort into clearly marking quoted text in your own posts. I’m not speaking of the post I am quoting here, but your previous ones involving quoting your OP without quote boxes or even quote marks (which you have done more than once), and that one in which you used different colors for different quotes! It is extremely confusing to me, and I would politely suggest you stick to the quote box convention, which is used by just about everyone around here.

Nonsense. I showed in that thread exactly how the “Supplemental Reports” used different fonts and graphics. That cartoonist guy who made reference to them renunciated them as frauds. There’s absolutely no evidence that 10,000 Americans are dead. The idea that “no proof has been adduced” is to remain completely ignorant of the substantial evidence that these claims are a hoax. The only reasonable reason for not agreeing with the overwhelming evidence is if one has political blinders on.

I could not agree more. This war is a complete disaster. I have been against it from day one. I have called on these boards for a pullout of US troops on a number of occasions. I stand behind nobody in my opposition to this war.

But my political take on issues do not give me license to believe whatever unsubstantiated allegations might arise on the Internet (eg, “Supplemental Reports”), or to ignore a rational analysis of facts (eg, whether WP is a CW), simply because it would lend additional support to my established opinion.

60

At long last, do you not understand use of the question mark? (And on preview, I see that you don’t understand the meaning of the word “quote”). :smiley:

Debate is about having responsibility for framing a coherent, well-founded argument. It is also about accepting solid evidence contrary to one’s position and acknowledging error. You generally fail on both counts.

This is akin to saying “You can’t prove it isn’t so!”. It’s the classic ploy used by cranks and quacks of every persuasion. I just saw a classic example of this form of inanity in a letter to the editor of our local paper explaining why we should allow the teaching of “intelligent design” in the public schools. “No one has proved it didn’t happen!”

How this standard can be accepted as a counterweight to reasoned, factual argument by any regular on this board is mind-boggling.

Resorting to broad-brush associations when your arguments break down is also a poor tactic and virtually diagnostic of one’s failure to persuade.

And so ends another dynamic excursion into current affairs by an exponent of the Civilized Western World. :dubious: