No worries. I’ve forgotten my link many times before myself. 
I will miss your trenchant analyses…
…bah. Besides being a Godwin, your comparison and parallel to the Nazis is beyond ridiculous. And Gum is quite right to say that it serves no purpose to debate with people who show such a tenuous grasp of history and the appropriate use of comparison and a willingness to engage in such demagoguery. Very disappointing, because for all your eccentric posting style, I had actually thought you better.
(and now Israel too is like the Nazis – I have a particular fondness for people accusing Israel of using Nazi tactics on par with Jew ovens. Anyone else you had in mind to put in the Nazi category? Don’t be shy, let it all come out. I’m thinking Belgium. They’re a little bit Nazi’iss down there aren’t they? Canada? Bunch’a Nazi lumberjacks I tell you. And let’s not even get started on Paraguay!)
Ignorance is an opinion now? (not you, their’s). Looking at history, there is no reason to think the US will remain in Iraq with anything other than a few military bases. Or are you suggesting that the vote in Iraq is rigged and their constitution will be meaningless because it had foreign influence?
Saddam killed many people while he was in power. There is no reason to believe that if one of the factions gained control of Iraq, they’d benevolently rule the rest of the country. Quite the opposite would more likely be closer to the truth.
I agree with this. Iraq should probably have been divided up into the separate groups (better yet, not invaded in the first place).
They are evil and stupid. It would be better if they put down their weapons and helped each other rather than killing people. They stop, the US stops, everyone stops.
Nitpick: The people in fact died in gas chambers. The bodies were cremanted in ovens.
Double nitpic: except when they were in a hurry. And just creamated the babies alive.
Seems unlikely.
(c.r.e.m.a.t.e.d)
For some reason I get a lot of holocaust denial sites when I try to google it, but that is what I have been taught, that that was exactly what happened in the last days of the death camps. In the days before being overrun by the Russians the camp guards were in such a hurry that many babies were thrown in alive into the ovens.
Shooting at invaders is “helping each other”.
The US won’t “stop”; the only reason we are able to stay there is because we are willing to kill.
I am pointing out that there are multiple groups in Iraq who firmly and genuinely believe that the members of Iraqi Ruling Council were U.S. puppets, that the constitution was created under the watchful eye of the IRC and the U.S. military, and that the election was probably fraudulent. Regardless what people who hold up the U.S. as a paragon of virtue might believe, many people in Iraq are likely to believe differently. (Given the willingness of the U.S. to impose the thief Chalabi on the Iraqi people (before his involvement with Iran came to light), and the fact that the U.S. allowed Iyad Allawi to bribe his way into office, I would say that even if they are ultimately mistaken, there is still evidence at this time to support their views.
I agree that there would be a power struggle and that the odds on some strongman taking power are good (whenever we eventually leave), but my comment was in response to your statement that appeared to claim that that sort of blood bath was what the insurgents desired rather than the projectable outcome based on history.
Well, other than the historical record that shows the U.S. enforcing a hostile occupation on the Philipines for over 20 years, the hostile occupation of Nicaraugua for a similar period, the repeated occupations of Haiti (always leaving a new oppresive strongman in our wake) throughout much of the 20th century, the destruction of self rule in Iran, and the encouragement of a bloody civil war in Guatemala that lasted around four decades?
And none of them had oil.
I put to you that by inviting the No.2 man of the terrorist organization Al-Qaida into their home they were knowingly aiding and abeding an enemy of the United States and are therefore knowingly and willingly guilty after the fact. The deaths of any and all ‘so-called’ non-combatants is therefore the responsibility of those who put them in obvious harms way thru their own deliberate and active cooperation and support of a globally-known mass murderer.
Translation: You lie down with dogs, you die with the rest of their fleas…
You do realize, by the same logic you could excuse nuking Washington D.C. to get Bush ? After all, the people who live there are free to leave. Many no doubt voted for him.
“aiding and abetting” are concepts germane to courts of law. I have elsewhere deplored the adoption of the flawed if energizing “war on terror” model. I notice that you have not invoked the legitimate military target/approved candidates for collective punishment meme, but are speaking to the criminal liability that would attach, potentially, to the responsible adults who were killed.
I believe my question directed your attention to the children, who (per more recent dispatches) were between the ages of 5 and 10.
Remember, your client, the soldier whose finger engaged the missile that killed the children, is charged with their murder. Will it suffice for his defense to allege that some parent of one of the dead victims had potential accessory or accomplice liability in some
bad act of the intended target.
I don’t see how your client is any better off than the three cholos who are to be tried (per my example in the op) for blowing up the house they THOUGHT contained their enemy gang.
Let’s give you better facts.
Lets say that the house was not the wrong house–Lets say that two sureno gangbangers who had killed a Norteno captain in a drive-by yesterday were, in fact, in the house and were blown up.
But they had three little sisters, ages 5, 6, and 7. Also blown up.
Even the most tortured definition of self-defense would not excuse the murder of the gangbangers, let alone their sisters.
Thus far, counselor, your predator operator is heading for the Big House.
Do you wish to consider negotiating a plea in return for cooperating in the prosecution of your client’s superiors?
Let’s assume you are correct and this is what they actually believe. So what? Yes, you could end up like Haiti, but you could also end up like Japan and Germany. It is much more likely to have a positive result if you stop killing people, both US soldiers and fellow Iraqis. As I’ve said before the insurgents are only doing this for their own particular reasons that have less to do with getting the US out of their country than with making sure they get their own piece of the pie.
I used the pseudo-legalese only in response. This is why it is pointless to talk of laws and charges of murder in war. Legal jurisdiction ends at the border.
This is most definitely a real war. It matters nothing that there have been no official declarations between countries. This sort of ‘gentlemenly formal’ nonsense has very limited meaning/usefulness.
We are at war with the radical muslim world. Political correctness denies officially declaring this, but there it is. And it is a just, inevitable and long overdue war as the radical muslim world has been engaged in not only a brutal, selfish, ridiculously dogmatic, but openly and gleefully declared war with us infidels for decades now.
This even meets John Mace’s narrow definition of terrorism, because your intent in killing civilians is to cause them to disassociate themselves from terrorists. You have become the enemy.
Umm, OUR legal jurisdiction ends at OUR border.
Pakistan, a country, (our ally, at present… ) has legal jurisdiction over this homicide. What if they demand to extradite captain X. How is our response “we are at war with the radical muslim world” and we found what we thought (or maybe even what were) radical muslims in your country, so we snuffed’em. Sorry 'bout your kids…"
different from:
Check it out, esse–these vatos, you sabe, these surenos, they were killing us off one by one; we couldn’t stand on a corner for five minutes, but one of us is down, esse. Lo siento mucho, those little girls man, we never wanted to hurt them, but you know, payback is a bitch, and they shoulda’ picked different uncles, esse.
Now you will not be heard, I hope, to argue that because captain x was wearing a uniform he is protected from the murder beef–his gang has a monopoly on the use of force WITHIN our jurisdiction–but that Pak gang has the monopoly on the legitimate use of force within their borders, and we haven’t declared one of our de facto free fire zones there yet, so it’s really out of line to be doing our drive-by’s there.
It’s not my definition. It’s the definition.
Not in the dictionary.
weren’t you guys playing over there?