It would appear that once again, the infernal practice of blowing off ordnance to congratulate newly weds has run afoul of hair-trigger response.
like similar incidents in Afghanistan the military spokesmen lead with a denial that it was a wedding, run a preposeterous story about coming under fire, and are left trying to explain the several bodies of dead children.
One might well, of course, pull out thatches of hair over the idiotic impromptu fireworks , (partilcularly in a “free fire zone”, and yet…
Given that we (often) snuff civilians, and in view of the present shambles of our policy, ought we not be more forthcoming.
Like we could say,
Hey, We killed your kids–sue us!
This , of course , would represent a giant step forward, subjecting ourselves voluntarily to the tort system for the express purpose of providing the sense of fair redress that only comes after a jury delivers its verdict.
The Debate:
Resolved: The United States should waive sovereign immunity for tort claims arising from its military actions,and open the courts of the united states to litigation on behalf of iraqi citizens -with claims.
Any other way of dealing with “collateral damage” leaves the malfeasor judging his own restitution
Whatever the costs such an approach is the only way to demonstrate a sincere desire to compensate for the damage created by our behavior. Anything else is hypocrisy, and quickly branded such by world opinion.
Do wedding ceremonies usually last until 2:45 in the morning?
Do poor countrymen celebrating a wedding have millions of dollars in several foreign currencies laying about, forged passports from several countries, a large cache of weapons, and satellite communications equipment?
Of course all of these can probably be explained in a completely innocent way, but to me it seems unlikely that what was happening there was innocent at all.
The idea you propose is very interesting, though. It’s certainly true that the US military kills civilians, destroys private property, and generally makes a mess out of stuff quite often in foreign countries. If the military were subject to civil lawsuits from foreign citizens, it might help solve a lot of that.
A problem I see with this idea is with how easily the system could be abused. Fifty thousand lawsuits arising from every military action the government takes is not unreasonable to assume, and the fact that many, or most of the lawsuits could potentially come from people who are not civilians, and whose intent was only to damage the US economy, is disturbing. Our enemies (not civilians) could use our own courts in such a way that they could cause a serious dent in government funding. Simply considering these cases (not even TRYING these cases) would cost a lot of money.
How would you ensure that only legitimate cases are brought to American courts? I like the idea of holding the military responsible to civil lawsuits for its fuckups, but I don’t see a way to legislate it without giving terrorists or foreign armies another weapon to attack us with, this time directly against our economy.
Another good point about this idea is that if a president were held accountable for a large portion of our tax dollars being given to foreigners who successfully sued us for his mistakes, it might end the huge popularity boost presidents have always gotten for making war. Without the popularity of the Iraq war and the operations in Afghanistan, George junior would be a complete failure, and a disaster of a candidate for reelection.
Wedding parties do. At least, they do in Ireland, and I would have thought in many, many other cultures. You guys just don’t know how to party.
Cite for some of the more colourful details? I’ve read reports of “cash” but not “millions of dollars in several foreign currencies”, of “passports” but not of “forged passports” and of “weapons” but not of “a large cache of weapons”.
Why do you assume these people were poor? Cash plays a role in the wedding ceremonies of many cultures or, more pragmatically, it may be common in Iraq to pay for large celebrations, in cash, on the nail, or to give large cash wedding gifts. I see nothing odd about passports. Weapons presumably feature in Iraqi wedding celebrations, if only because we already know of the Iraqi custom of discharging weapons in the air by way of celebration. And the “satellite communications equipment”? Are we talking about a satellite phone, or a mobile TV broadcasting station? Unless we know the answer to this, I don’t think we can draw any very useful conclusions.
We know that US forces have made this mistake at least once before. It wouldn’t be completely astonishing if they made it again. On the information that I’ve read, I think the jury is still out on this.
And the millions of dollars was in fact local currency to the value of 1600 dollars according to a post in a related thread here. Dammit - there’s film and independent reports that verify it was a wedding. Who knows, maybe there were dubious people in a house in a village but that does not justify bombing the place flat.
Wedding parties don’t typically fight back, do they? There was antiaircraft fire and returned fire against coalition forces, according to the Pentagon.
The incident took place 15 miles from the Syrian border - it’d be weird if foriegners, foriegn passports and foriegn money wasn’t present. Hell, they probably needed passports just to get through US roadblocks.
I’m sorry but the word of the US Army on a matter of its own alleged screw-ups is not the be all and end all of the matter. Certainly not when there is plenty information suggesting the opposite.
Either there is a fairly widespread conspiracy to fake a wedding or the US ARMY screwed up. One there is evidence for, the other? Apply Occams Razor as neccesary.
“Trust us!” Yea, right. That well has been sucked dry a long time ago.
Pardon me if I’m having just a little bit of trouble taking the Pentagon at its word these days. I’m gonna wait a bit and see what shakes out, if you don’t mind.
One American citizen gets killed and “let’s kill them all,” “BFD about torture,” and/or “the lowly Arabs weren’t pissed off enough about the ONE murder.” Americans slaugther a bunch of innocent civillians and “so, sue me.” Some wonder why we aren’t too well liked worldwide . :rolleyes:
Your attitude was uncalled for here. And you don’t have to know anything about other cultures to know that yes, people party until the wee small hours.
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Well, perhaps people should think about spending the 10 seconds it took to uncover some basic information before demanding a cite or spinning exculpatory hypotheses.
Or the freakin’ wedding party screwed up. This is a freakin’ WAR ZONE, folks! Shooting off lots of firearms randomly into the air really just isn’t a very good idea right now! Maybe, just maybe, this custom could be suspended until things have quieted down a little.
The “blame America first” attitude is getting pretty tiresome, too.
This incident may have been a mistake, but it was a very understandable mistake. If the lefties want us to take their criticisms seriously, they should make more of an attempt to be even-handed and fair–or at least try not to be so blatant and obvious about their prejudices.
No it wasn’t, it was a very stupid mistake. Despite the similar Afghan incident, are these pilots still not aware of the possibility that weddings and gunfire might be related?
I recognize that there are certain “cultural practices” that we need to learn to respect. But you would think that after the third or fourth wedding party we bombed (because the celebratory gunfire spooked the pilots) that the Iraqis would learn the simple, simple, lesson:
When there are crazy pissed-off Americans in your country who attack out of a pitch-black sky with 500-lb bombs and who seem unable to tell a military target from a civilian target, do not shoot your gun up in the air at night, for lo, that appears to piss them off pretty good, boy howdy.