It was none of our business. And it’s not because it was “Muslims killing Muslims.” The ethnicity of those involved is completely irrelevant. I’m not going to let you load the question so that opposition to raiding Fallujah can be framed as some sort of cultural indifference.
The most effective thing we could do to stop that stuff (which I suspect is greatly exaggerated if it’s happeneing at all…in any case, the insurgents in Iraq aren’t accused of doing anything to Iraqi civilians that we aren’t doing to Iraqi civilians) would be to turn over all authoruty to the UN and leave. As long as we’re there we’re criminals. We don’t have the moral authority to impose any order, we clearly don’t have the discipline in the troops to inspire any trust and the civilian leadership can’t be trusted with any facet of the occupation or rebuilding.
Are there any mainstream links about the use of napalm in Iraq (I’ll also note from both of your cites it isn’t talking about Fallujah). I’m not claiming it wasn’t done…just that I’m not going to buy this claim from a non-AP level source.
Reality check DtC…we ARE there. It IS our business because we made it our business to invade in the first place. Whether we should or shouldn’t be there is a moot point now, and has been for over a year. We ARE there…and its now on us to stabalize the situation. That includes taking out cities that are staging areas for the continued insurgency. Sorry that it IS a loaded question…I wasn’t framing it as cultural indifference. I was framing it as a lesser of two evils…i.e. what the US did might have been bad (hell, it was)…having the insurgents remain there was worse.
Leaving aside your assertion that the things happening in Fallujah were greatly exaggerated (I notice you are never one to think assertions against the US are ‘greatly exaggerated’…funny that), I totally disagree that the UN could do anything at all…including find its ass with both hands. Certainly they don’t seem to be doing much of anything in the Sudan worth noting. Granted, we haven’t exactly been top shelf in Iraq, but at least we aren’t talking about high six figures death tolls while we stand around with our collective thumbs up our ass and dither.
Exactly where would the UN get 140,000 odd troops to deploy to Iraq if the US pulled out DtC? Or is it your theory that as soon as the UN comes in the situation will magically stabalize?? Or, perhaps when you said ‘get out’ you only REALLY meant the US leadership should get out of the way and let the UN take over…while keeping our troops there of course?
I know you are frustrated and angry…but keep it real man.
Your wish is our command. Here is an Associated Press story on the subject. As treis noted, it is not exactly napalm, just very much like napalm:
Well, hey, environmentally-friendlier napalm. I guess as an environmentalist, I ought to consider that progress. Somehow it doesn’t make me feel that much better though.
How is he in any way the sovereign head of state? Because Paul Bremer blessed him as such?
If we’re speaking about the “right” to enter Fallujah as DtC referenced, then I think that’s a different story. He who has the biggest guns gets the rights, or something along those lines.
But there is no question about the matter of legality (or in this case, lack thereof) and having a sanction by any head of state from Iraq. Currently, the closest Iraq has are heads of state which would be the Ayatollahs and they were relatively unanimous in their opposition to the operation in Fallujah.
So it boils down to perhaps you had the right, but not the legal right.
I also think that invoking Iraqi “authority” is a tautology. Iraqi authority is whatever we say it is. They ask us to do whatever we order them to ask us to do.
Have you ever seen Bush drink water while Allawi was talking?
Posted this originally in the Pit thread but on reflection it seems more appropriate here. The camera man speaks for the first time about what happened and the aftermath.
Very interesting. Well worth reading the full article.
Far from that.
And in addition: As far as I know Protestants are not considered a deviation and corruption of Christianity, it is an other interpretation of Christianity then say Catholicism.
Wahhabism (as it is known as a sect) presents a severe corruption of Islamic teachings, even as deep as corrupting the commands (and intentions behind them) of Al Qur’an.
I am a bit famous for not giving links to websites ever because I do not consider anything written on the internet to be a reliable source, except when it comes from “official” websites. In this case however, since writing the story of Wahhabism in English shall ask a lot of my time, I looked around a bit and found this.
You misunderstand me, Aldebaran, I was actually agreeing with you. You may not be familiar with the Christian Identity movement in the US. It’s a white supremacist “church” which is, as you put it, a “deviation and corruption” of Christianity. Since it is not Catholic one could say that it is technically a “Protestant” movement, but my point was that such would be an extremely misleading and unfair way to characterize it. I was trying to draw an analogy within Christianity that Americans would be familiar with to understand that Wahabbaism is not really Sunni Islam in the same way that CI is not really Protestant Christianity.
No, never heard of it… I can’t keep up with these movements (counts also to a certain extent for the Islamic ones. You can’t avoid encountering the most amazing new things propagated by the New Enlightened Ones Of The Day)
I thought you were making a reference to the connection between Wahhabism and Shia Islam which an other member wrongly made.
Salaam. A
