Speaking just about Fallujah what would you propose? What is the optimal course? Let the insurgents hold the city rather than risk civilian casualties to take it back simple because the insurgents are willing to fight in areas occupied by civilians? What level of civilian casualties is acceptable? From the tone of your post I suspect your answer is ‘none’…in which case this brings up some rather disturbing implications for the future were we to make this our official policy. Exactly when and how is force necessary in such a situation?
Perhaps this is true. I would submit though that people in glass countries probably would be advised against throwing stones. Our Euro brothers in particular ring a bit hollow in their shrieks of agony over the plight of Iraq…especially considering their not inconsiderable role in bringing about the current mess in the ME.
Just got back from a trip to Germany in fact (business of course) and surprisingly managed not to get lynched or have rotten tomatoes thrown at me despite having a dreaded US passport. So…I’ll take the thousand. Feel free to send it along anytime…
Dunno. I guess I would propose the most difficult: that if the military importance rise to the point where it is worth risking the most perilous approach, house to house search and destroy, then you do so, short of that, you do not. Tacticly, the use of artillery, air strikes, etc. is sensible: kills them, preserves us. But if the point of the endeavor is to lower the level of resistance/insurgency, infuriating the local population is, well, less than optimal. Way, way less.
Yes, their hypocrisy is very distressing, especially when compared with our own patient nobility and restraint. You know, how we exhausted every possible avenue before we launched an invasion to eliminate the threat of nuclear anthrax pink unicorns. Really, they should be ashamed of themselves.
I have no real philosophical or moral individual problem with the use of any form of warfare which is allowable under international law or international accepted methods of carrying out war. Or at least I do not need to exercise it in this thread which is intended to demonstrate how US actions are damaging the US’s reputation abroad. I am extremely anti the Iraq adventure, but that is beside the point. My original questions were: How culpable is the US and what sanctions should the US face. These are facile questions when considered legally- the US is happy to rescind any restrictions of international law unilaterally when it suits them. However, in the field of international relations- and how US citizens will be viewed from abroad- I believe that Western opinion is holding them culpable for a series of contraventions of the spirit and letter of international obligations (ICC, Kyoto, Geneva Convention, Nuclear Proliferation treaties, the UN and now Chemical Weapon treaties). I believe that the ‘sanction’ will be lesser credibility with your putative allies and lower moral status for the nation and its citizens.
My whole point is that the US is extremely susceptible to criticism on this matter because of its recent history in the way that it treats its international obligations.
Additionally, I am aware that each episode of less than acceptable behaviour is gradually eroding any moral ground that the US once held.
I do not believe that many Americans understand how their reputation has been dragged down (with cause) since Bush and the neo-cons took over. If you think that Bush is an unpopular president in the USA, then you should consider the view of the ctizens in your major allies. A considerable amount of coverage of US actions in Iraq and elsewhere receives persistent negative coverage in most (even conservative) European news sources.
Using WP, having your forces on record as saying they fired it directly into personnel, and boasting about it leads inevitably to further negative coverage.
Firing the round into an enemy position differs from using it to illuminate or create a smoke screen. By the soldier’s own admsission it was fired into a position with the intention of spraying white phosphorus around among humans. In some interpretations this would be seen as the use of its chemical properties.
As noted above, I don’t really care about the niceties of whether it was or was not in accord with any treaty or other understanding about usage of CW. My question was, given that it is being interpreted and understood as such, what effect would this have on the US forces image and their sustainability in Iraq?
In short, Pjen, you’re not interested in the truth, just in shouting loudly about lies.
I don’t think you understand how unhappy we are about this war, about the way we’ve been lied to, and about Bush. That said, you’ve just proven yourself to be about as useful to rational debate as tits on a bull.
Next time, bring something useful to the table. I’m afraid you’ve been talking to a straw man of your own creation, the unenlightened, stupid American who is just waiting for you to be led to the light.
Little clue, Pjen? At least here, very few of us are stupid and unenlightened. Some of us may actually disagree with you, and not be wrong, either.
Generally speaking, we know how Bush has squandered our goodwill. We know what the ‘average’ citizen, from your perspective, feels about America. Some of us don’t care. Some of us do. Some of us feel that it’s not going to get any better for a few years. Go figure.
And… the answer to ‘what effect does a mistranslation of an italian news article have on the sustainability of American forces in Iraq?’ Jack. Nothing. None.
The description in the article was that of an artillery version of a flash grenade. Nowhere did it mention the weapon was used to spray anyone with phosphorous. There is no mention of anyone being burned by it or complaining about the potential to be burned by it. This may be in part because the people it was used against were killed in combat (as opposed to US/British troops).
Since there is no indication of anyone actually being burned in the article your argument falls into 2 categories: concern for the future wellbeing of enemy combatants, and concern over world opinion. I’ll leave you to the first. As a general rule I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about people who deliberately murder children, mosque attendees, wedding guests or funeral mourners. I’ll worry about World opinion when it aligns itself with the interim Iraqi government and the people voting to put it their.
Your pious disdain for deliberate slaugher as opposed to “collateral damage” massacres is noted. Perhaps you imagine that the survivors of an air strike oopsy! rush out of doors, look to the skies and say “Well, bless their hearts, they mean well”!
Your second statement seems to carry the message the “world opinion” will become relevent as soon as they have the good sense to align those opinions with American foreign policy. A more cogent example of American exceptionalism and arrogance is difficult to imagine.
We had, at one time, friends and allies. There was a time when people who didn’t even like us all that much held candlelight vigils in sympathy. The Leader pissed them away playing Tough Guy.
We invaded Iraq to eliminate a dreadful threat that, it turns out, didn’t exist. Now, it pleases us to revise history to read that our sole concern was bringing freedom and democracy to He Who Sits in Darkness. And you want to suggest that a reluctance to revise thier thinking to fit our shifting Party Line shows some moral or intellectual failing on their part?
"But Col Venable said it had been used to dislodge enemy fighters from entrenched positions in the city.
“White phosphorus is a conventional munition. It is not a chemical weapon. They are not outlawed or illegal,” he told the BBC. “We use them primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases. However, it is an incendiary weapon, and may be used against enemy combatants.”
Asked if it was used as an offensive weapon during the siege of Falluja, he replied: “Yes, it was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants. When you have enemy forces that are in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on, and you wish to get them out of those positions, one technique is to fire a white phosphorus round into the position: the combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so you can kill them with high explosives.”
You started by questioning whether use of white phosphorus rounds could be contrary to accepted conventions on weapons use - jumping immediately to what penalties the U.S. should face (for this possible violation).
You’ve shown no interest whatsoever in viewpoints that contradict your hypothesis, as they weaken your perpetual “no moral high ground” refrain.
As noted, there’s been plenty in connection with the U.S.'s Iraq misadventure to lambaste the Adeministration about, including morally reprehensible behavior. However, by rushing to champion dubious and baseless accusations, you are weakening and eroding your own “moral high ground”.
Yeah, seriously. If the WP was actually intended to kill the targets, as pjen keeps asserting, then why are the troops following up the WP rounds with HE? Seems to me that if pjen were right, the HE would just be blowing up corpses.
Yeah, that must be it! They were firing the WP rounds of artillery in “safe” mode, to alert the civilians that they were in a dangerous area! Then, while we blow up all their houses killing the bad guys, they can be gathering flowers to strew in our path!
Its all so simple, when you look at it the right way!
Unless I’m in the wrong thread we were talking about the use of WP and ground attacks in lieu of large air strikes. I’d think you’d be pleased with it.
I guess you can imagine anything you want but there was no hidden message in it. Iraqi’s are willing to risk death to vote. Those are the people who matter in the long run. However, if you want to go down that road you might ask yourself why Germany and France are now leaning toward a more conservative vote. Then ask yourself why Lebanon kicked the Syrians out. Or why Libya bowed out of their WMD programs. The world is changing and it’s not because we continued down the old road of wait-and-see.
Really? So we should pull our troops out of Bosnia and then apologize to Serbia for overthrowing their government? Sounds like fair weather friends if they’re just happy when we go to war at their bidding.
WP was being used to flush insurgents out of foxholes and out of buildings. The reason WP was used first was to get the targets out of their cover, HE was used next to kill the targets.
Ah, the ever popular “excluded middle”. Instead of killing several hundred civilians and making enemies of several thousand, I should be pleased at killing only a few hundred, and making only a thousand or so new enemies. Gee, that’s swell. The George Armstrong Custer College of Strategic Deployment.
Indeed, they are also the people who matter in the short run. You apparently think actions like this are simply bound to endear us to the population at large. On what basis, I can’t imagine.
Because of their love for George Bush? What are you smoking, rat poison?
Lebanese politics is rather more complex than that. Way more complex than that. But here’s a clue: just because they don’t like the Syrians, doesn’t mean they love us. In the ME, generally, we are about as popular as lard.
Libya was conducting negotiations on those programs for months before the war with Iraq. You could look it up.
Got that shit right, for once. One of the reasons its changing is because our good buddies, Pakistan, has been conducting a nuclear weapons tech Amway sale. Good ol’ Pakistan, when you’re fighting for democracy and freedom, you can hardly have more loyal allies than a military dictatorship. Trujillo, Batista, Pinochet, Musharaff…its a long tradition.
I cannot answer your last riposte, cause I don’t understand it. Who are these “fair weather friends”? The French and the Germans? The people you claim are voting more conservative now due to their mad affection for The Leader? Huh? Wha? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
I’ll reply to your original post since you felt fit to repost it several times.
Yes the use of WP shells could be in contravention to certain treaties relating to chemical weapons. However if you’ve read the Army Field manual and the Laws of Land Warfare it states:
In general WP is an incendiary weapon and its use would fall under the above passage. We could perhaps have charges drawn up saying these rounds were used to cause unnecessary suffering. But the argument in a courts martial would come down to people saying their use was necessary to flush the targets out of foxholes and it was not felt at the time that they were using them in a way to cause “unnecessary” suffering. Anyone tried by said courts martial would most assuredly be found not guilty, if the case even went that far.
The Army Field Manual will also inform you that it is generally illegal to wage war in any manner that goes against treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory. Since the U.S. is not a signatory to any treaty which bans the use of white phosphorus against personnel, its use is not specifically banned by any military regulation or U.S. statute, it can be safely said its use is not criminal in nature (the Battle Books of the Staff College does not constitute law.)
Is it possible for WP to be used criminally? Definitely. Legitimate weapons can be used in illegitimate manners, using WP to flush insurgents out of foxholes does not fall under the category of illegitimate use.
To expand the argument a bit more, U.S. forces are as culpable (legally) as the military says they are. Only the U.S. military has the authority to prosecute its members of war crimes (under a courts martial.) So it’s basically up to us to determine whether or not a crime was committed, how it will be prosecuted, and what the sentence will be. Since no legal action has been taken, then we have to assume a crime has not been committed, or there is not enough evidence to levy charges.
The international community and various international courts have no authority to take legal action against U.S. military members.
As for the sanctions argument. Any economic sanction damages both the countries that levy said sanction and the country that is being sanctioned. When most of the free world sanctions Iraq, yes that does cause marginal harm to the sanctioning parties because economic markets are now closed to them. But it causes immense harm to Iraq. Sanctions are useful in those cases.
Economic sanctions against the United States would be disastrous due to the size of the U.S. economy. If Europe or the international community wanted to levy serious economic sanctions against the United States it would result in serious economic tragedy across the globe, and everyone would be vastly worse off for it.
International politics is conducted based on State self interest. Since it could never be in a State’s serious self-interest to make any sort of meaningful sanction against the United States, such sanctions won’t happen.
Sure, this war has hurt our reputation and all, but loss of global reputation shouldn’t be called a sanction as it muddles the term.
As for how important the U.S.'s loss of reputation actually is, I feel it is minor. States act out of self-interest, and the U.S. is a big market and the U.S. also supplies a lot of consumer goods. So what, Europe won’t want to help out in the case we have to act against a country without U.N. approval in the near future. It’s not like this situation is likely to come up again any time soon.
Saying we’re losing the war militarily is ridiculous. We’ve lost 2,000 troops. Every single month our soldiers kill more insurgents than we’ve lost soldiers in the entire conflict. If we want we can sustain the military presence in Iraq indefinitely without ever having to do anything drastic like institute a draft. There’s lots of reasons this war will never be considered a second Vietnam. One of them being this war is a success while Vietnam was a failure. But this whole line of argument is just getting very off-topic.
Any other point you make in this thread is just that of a very anti-American person who seems to be gleeful in his/her misperception that the U.S. is having a bad time right now, so I’ll dismiss them carte blanche.
