Right of conquest, Diogenes, right of conquest. It still exists, you know. At present the Coalition is the only sovereign authority in Iraq, and I have never heard the fiercest antiwar critic question its sovereignty in a legal sense.
Besides the fact the the US occupyer have no right to formulate any decree: Can someone tell me if the US made the effort to tour Iraq for bringing that Great News to every Iraqi in every single remote village?
Seen the fact that even up to this day people in the country’s capital still struggle with interruptions in everything what is supposed to be normal, like there is: electricity. How do you think the chances are for having such things in a remote village? If there ever was such a thing as electricity in the past.
By the way: There is a thread running on the BBQ-thing where we see all the “arguments” made about Iraqis being such idiots. (for having traditions that aren’t known in the poster’s nations).
I’m not going to repost the posts I made there… One time fighting such stupid and ignorant arrogance at the same message board is quite enough for me.
Salaam. A
My cousin was involved with the targetting of the “wedding party” attack in Afghanistan a year or so ago (or was it two? I forget now). He never really said much about it except right after it happened. His comments were to the effect of from what he observed, it was clear it was not a wedding party and that it was really a military caravan. He had absolutely no doubts about it from what he had seen inside the Pentagon. He was involved and was 100% sure that the military took the correct course of action. Who am I to doubt him based on incomplete media reports?
The fact is, the people like him in the military who have access to all the information know much better about this stuff than our news media. Hell, I’ve been present at events and then read the media reports the next day and was amazed at how badly it was reported. I’m not trusting them to get the facts straight here.
We are sitting around debating whether or not it was a real wedding party with a very incomplete set of facts. We probably know, at most, half the story, and will probably never know what really went on. I’m willing to give the military the benefit of the doubt, since they have access to a lot more information than we have. Coudl they have made a mistake? Sure, but we can’t condemn them when we don’t have the facts.
Ok, couldn’t read the OP’s link as it requires registration. I assume that this CNN link is to the same story though.
Reading through the CNN story I find:
Ok, from reading the article its pretty clear that it probably WAS a wedding. I’m not buying that it was a ‘terrorst safe house’ being shielded by a wedding party with women and children.
However, I just can’t see this reflexive America is always in the wrong attitude here either. Lets look at the facts WITHOUT the rose colored glasses. Its a small village in the ‘middle of the open desert’ near the Syrian border(!!). Its 3 AM in the morning(!!!). Despite what the Administration says, anyone with a clue knows that Iraq is far from settled, and colition forcer are constantly under attack. This leaves the soldiers a bit skitish when they see fire in their direction, no? Especially at 3am near the Syria border.
Appearently the military was in the area following up on reports there might have been a terrorists ‘safe house’ in the area (we all know how reliable military intellegence is generally). Suddenly out of the night they see fire. Its frigging night guys…how do THEY know where its directed. Were they suppose to just walk up and ask if there was a wedding going on?? Come on, just a BIT of common sense here, please.
I’m sorry for what happened, but I have to say that if I were an Iraq with the current state of things, with the knowledge that Americans are under fire nearly every day, and that they are on a hair trigger because of it, I think I’d be a BIT more circumspect when having a wedding at 3 am and firing indiscriminately into the night with automatic weapons. It just doesn’t seem a smart thing to do. If I’m a hispanic in Watts and I pull out a squirt gun that looks realistic and point it at a cop, I’m guessing that the cop would certainly be wrong to blow me away. Hey, it was only a squirt guy officer! However, it wouldn’t be the smartest thing I could do, ehe?
This has already been addressed by other posters like BrainGlutton, but my 2 cents is…get real. Of COURSE we have the right to make decrees in Iraq. Who else does? Ok, you don’t agree with the war. More power to ya, I agree. Ok, you think it was illegal. I don’t agree, but thats neither here nor there. We ARE there, we ARE in charge…its called reality. And the Iraqi’s are abliged to follow our orders not only from common sense (which these guys showed a distinct lack of IMO) but because we ARE the only legal authority in their country right now.
-XT
That’s really tangential, and I wouldn’t know how it is done in Irak, but this question puzzles me. In all the wedding ceremonies I attended to except one, the party lasted well after 2:45 in the morning. So, I’m not sure what you’re thinking is intriguing here. Personnally, I would expect newlywed people and their guests to celebrate all night long. It’s not like you get married every other day. Once again I wouldn’t know how it is done in Irak, but in Morroco for instance, a marriage ceremony can be several days long.
Hmmm…If you drop a bomb on my place and on my family, and I happen to have a weapon handy, I suspect I would be likely to return fire. Wouldn’t you?
Do you really expect to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people by justifying the deaths of innocents with this arrogant logic? We may win the battle, but we are losing the war.
Sure. Feeling concerned about a score of people being killed is being “sensitive new age guy”. May I know where I should apply.
Try to remember the last wedding you attended to, and figure out the same number of people lying in their blood. Give them familiar faces. It should help you understand, unsensitive cave ages guy.
Sure I would…who wouldn’t. However, the military is saying (and no one is denying this) that they were resonding to INITIAL gunfire (the Iraqi’s are saying it was ‘celebratory gunfire’, but not denying they did it). In other words they thought they were being fired on. Again, it was 3 am near the Syrian border…and unfortunately ‘celebratory gunfire’ looks a hell of a lot like REAL gunfire, especially at night.
For the duration of the conflict (or until the US pulls out and Iraq goes into total melt down), the smart money is on NOT provoking the US military and keeping a low profile. Firing automatic weapons at 3 am is not the best way to do this.
Or, maybe a system could be worked out where weddings and celebrations like this are reported to the coalition so that mistakes like this aren’t made in the future.
-XT
If ground forces have been the ones calling in the air support, one might suspect they could have had a good reason to do so (though actually, they might have stopped a kilometer away and stated “yes, indeed, there are armed people firing there”)
Your post proves two things. You don’t know how to party and you don’t know shit about other cultures. Let me instruct you. In Argentian no wedding party stops before 8 am. in fact no party ends before dawn. They also start pretty late.-
The same is true in all Latin America, and it seems middle east people also like to celebrate way into the night… at least until the american army invades them (according to the link above).-
Depends. If it has been 100 yards away froma military base, maybe. But since it was in some remote place, they didn’t necessarily expect a plane to fly over their heads right at this moment. In which case it might not have been as stupid as you say.
Another scenario could that it was indeed a marriage, guys had weapons to celebrate properly , and some of them decided to shot at the plane when they saw it just for the sake of it. I’ve no particular reason to believe it’s what happened, but it might be possible.
Its easy to criticize. Do you have a viable alternative that doesn’t entail the US pull out?
Arrogance? I don’t see it. The Iraqi’s KNOW we are patrolling their country. They KNOW that the coalition forces are under constant attack, which puts our soldiers under constant stress. Ok, they don’t like us there, no doubt about it. I don’t blame them for not liking us there either. But the reality is we ARE there. So, unless we fort up and stop patrolling at all (basically relinquishing the countryside to the rebels), we are going to be out there…and under fire. Therefore, I think its not arrogance to ask the Iraqi’s NOT to have such gatherings, and NOT to fire guns in a celebratory fashion. I think its not an unreasonable request.
If they choose to ignore this, then I dont think its arrogance on our part (or my part) to say that, while the action was regrettable, it was an understandable mistake by the military, and that some of the blame flows back to those that disreguarded common sense. Perhaps in the future people over there will start realizing that as long as this insurgency continues its not safe to do things as they were done in the past, and that a bit of prudence might be in order when dealing with the 800 lb gorilla in your back yard. Or perhaps they won’t and such incidents will continue, and continue to turn the population against us.
As for winning the hearts and minds…I dispair that this is ever going to happen. I don’t think it was ever really possible to do so, while a minority were so bent on fighting it out reguardless. In addition, I don’t think the people of the area are pre-disposed to reguard American’s fondly no matter what the circumstances…and certainly not when they invade their country.
Its very difficult to be nice and win hearts and minds in the midst of a hot insurgency like in Iraq (or Vietnam). One of the reasons I don’t like to see America get into these kinds of things is that its a no win situation…damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Its one of the main reasons I’m so pissed off about the war…because I think it was so unnecessary, and being unnecessary, was so fucking stupid to do.
-XT
Guess this means no Second Ammendment for Iraq.
I mean, seriously?
OK, there is a law about not firing weapons into the air in celebration. The best way anyone can figure out how to enforce this is by carpetbombing the general area? No one considered, I dunno, contacting the local police to go in and ask them to stop and maybe arrest a few people?
I hope no one in my neighborhood celebrates New Years in that style (which is a distinct likelihood)… the Army might level us!
Personnally, I wouldn’t bold the word “all”. I really have no reason to believe that people in the Pentagon, though they are (hopefully) more informed than you and I, have “all” the informations.
Please provide a link to a facsimil of the convention signed by the terrorist ™ or shut up. The U.S. is a signatory of that convention, as such they have to abide to it, evildoers ™ don’t. Even if the “freedom haters” ™ violate the laws of war, it doesn’t mean that the American army can.-
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.
[/QUOTE]
A simple question was asked. There was no demand of a cite or spinning of anything. Chill out already.
So, I guess its your contention then that the military KNEW it was a wedding, and chose to attack it to enforce a no celebratory firing rule, ehe? Because if this is NOT your contention, then sending in the police into a possible terrorist area to ‘arrest a few people’ would be pretty fucking stupid, wouldn’t it?
This is all of course on the assumption there WERE police in the middle of the frigging desert near the border of Syria in some remote ass village. Seems likely to me…
Don’t have it in the middle of a war zone and you should be fine. Or, conversely you could hide out in your basement thinking they will be along to get you any time…
-XT
If anyone calls in air support, one might suspect they could have had a good reason to do so. Unfortunately, one would sometimes be completely and utterly wrong to suspect such a thing, this case being an example.
I agree. My point was that the occurences were not necessarily due to poor communication. There are other scenarios, all of them bad, in my opinion.
Ooooooh, is “carpetbomb first, ask questions later” an OFFICIAL US policy, or something you made up to justify killing anyone who looks at you crosseyed?
I dunno, maybe they had a local sherrif who gets into gunfights with train robbers and stuff. It’s the Wild Wild West, baby! No laws, no law enforcement, people acn do whatever they want with no repurcussions!
Well, this IS Los Angeles, and there IS a War on Drugs going on. Can never be too careful.