Look murder requires intent and foresight to kill. Do you contend that this administration has killing civilians as its goal? Do you also contend that this administration planned to kill civilians?
Who says we are O.K. with that? We are just arguing that they aren’t war crimes nor is it murder.
If you think war crimes are occuring that is fine. What you can not do is contend that war crimes are being commited and then also claim that the soldiers are innocent of these war crimes.
The vast majority of civilians are not doing this but even if they were, we are in their country illegally. If someone breaks into your home and kills your children you are entitled to to fight back by any means possible.
In order for the soldiers to be culpable they would have had to know that the justification for the invasion was a lie. They didn’t know that. Therefore they are innocent.
There are anywhere from a low of 15,365 to a high of 100,000 or more, dead civilians in Iraq. If it makes you feel nice and cozy inside to think that each and everyone of those deaths were “accidents” don’t let me stop you. But don’t ask me to share in your fantasies that the US is not directly responsible for the majority of them.
One needn’t be Nostradamus to have warned about those numbers prior to your* illegal and inmoral invasion* – and one did. You drop bombs, people die in large numbers. You want to wave them away…hell, the US doesn’t even bother to do “body counts.” Well, I, and many more like me, are here to remind you of what’s being done in your name.
15 to 100 thousand innocent men, women and children, killed. In your name. For a pack of LIES.
The US is directly responsible but that does not mean the US is murdering them.
Foreseeable deaths do not fall under the classification of murder rather they fall under manslaughter. Unless you contend that this administration intended to kill civilians.
First off ignorance isn’t a defense.
Second off are you saying that if this war was justified the US would not be guilty of mass murder?
Swing and a miss! Timothy McVeigh intended to kill as many people as possible while the U.S. has no intent to kill civilians.
There seems to be some belief that “intent” is what defines murder. This is absolutely wrong. If you get in your car, wait for someone to come out of their house and cross the street to run them over, that’s considered premeditated murder. If you’re driving like a damned fool and kill a pedestrian in a crosswalk whom you didn’t even know existed until that moment, it’s still considered murder (or at least vehicular homicide which is just a more specific term for murder).
The war is illegal, the subsequent occupation is illegal, and by extension, the civilian deaths (whether accidental or intentional) are illegal. They are undoubtedly murder. One’s intent only describes which type of murder they have committed.
Are the U.S. soldiers unwittingly involved in war crimes? Yes. But if one of your friends has broken a law and you are truly unaware and give him a ride, you have a valid defense against the charge of accessory. The soldiers did not know that this action was illegal when it was launched.
With all due respect, your dancing around semantics doesn’t make him incorrect.
I’m not trying to polish a turd. I think the Iraqi war was a bad foreign policy choice, immoral, and a tremendous waste of resources. However, I don’t think you can meaningfully call it “illegal” when there’s no entity capable of actually enforcing any laws that war itself may have broken.
A legalese semantic difference which actually means the same thing; an unlawful killing of another human being.
The fact that has come to light that they knew their case was weak and that WMDs were “what everyone could agree on” makes it quite conceivable that they did indeed intend to kill civilians (although perhaps not as their primary focus).
It most certainly can be. An unwitting participant in a crime may have an out if it can be proven that were truly unaware they were involved in a crime.
If this war had been legal and there were no incidents like Dresden or Hanoi or Cambodia, then it would certainly be much harder to make the case.
“Justified?” According to many Americans (and even some outside the U.S.) it is justified. That doesn’t make it legal.
Cite? If he intended to kill as many people as possible, he would have blown up Wrigley Field when it’s full, not some federal building.
Then look up second degree murder.
Metacom:
Oh, that’s brilliant. There’s no doubt that laws and treaties your nation is a signatory to have been violated, but since no one’s big enough to give you the punishment you so richly deserve, then “it can’t be called illegal.”
Wrong. It is indeed illegal, whether you get punished or not.
It’s not a matter of whether you get punished or not, its whether you can be punished or not. Until there’s an organization that the US either recognizes as having a valid say on the matter or who’s willing to enforce sanctions against the US for breaking international law, then the law is meaningless for the purposes of determining whether someone is a murderer by it. It’d be nice if the UN or the EU had the balls and or power to reign in the US, but they don’t…
Just because you can get away with doesn’t mean it’s not a crime. The US government is guilty of mass murder in Iraq. We are going to have to own that. History is not going to let us off the hook.
That’s my point. The U.S. can be punished. The fact that the EU, AU, or the UN don’t have the testicular fortitude to punish you doesn’t change a damn thing. If you break a law, you are committing a crime. Just because you get away with it, for whatever reason, doesn’t mean it was somehow legal.
But I will agree with you to the extent that the net result is almost the same as if it were legal.
RedFury:
Sank yoh. Think we’ve made a dent in that mountain yet?
This whole thread is a mess. My only point was that labeling it a ‘campaign of genocide’ was stupid, false-to-facts, insulting, inflamatory, and trivializes actual campaigns of genocide.
I didn’t want to debate the ultimate legality of the Iraq invasion, or even if those we kill over there are murdered or what not. That’s outside the scope of my OP.
So please, let the thread die. It’s served its purpose. Ashes to ashes, photons to photons.