It’s our collective fault that they are there, and that the people who put them there are still in power. So yes, I blame America. Past a certain point the institution deserves as much blame as the individual, and we are far past that point.
“First, we will prove that you never rented this car. Second, we will prove that it was already damaged when you took possession of it. Third, we will prove that it was in perfect condition when you returned it.”
And fourth we wil prove that the car never existed.
To return to the topic: Apparently these soldiers are alleging that the ROE said something (which I aould agree with others appears genocidal, and contravenes Geneva Conventions and the rules of war). The spokespeople for the military do not seem to have contradicted this, and that in itself is worrying.
I’m not too familiar with the subject, but off the top of my head it could be security related.
That takes balls coming from the king of nonessential quips.
Humane? Hardly. It WAS a war zone after all. They were turned back because the US did not want a bunch of potential insurgents flooding out of Fallujah…and flooding INTO other parts of the country to cause mischief. Had good ole ‘Red Shirt’ said that I would not have uttered a peep. But no…he had to make the (unsubstantiated) claim that they were turned back solely so they could be slaughtered. In itself this makes no sense…as if we were going to simply slaughter them where they stood we WOULD have slaughtered them where they stood. Instead they were turned back with the injunction to keep their heads down and hide until the fighting was over. Humane? Hardly. The US bent on forcing them back with the sole purpose of slaughtering them all? Hardly. But thats Der Trihs in a nut shell (forgive the pun).
:smack: … :smack: :smack: :smack: !
If the soldiers were following orders and within the guildlines of the ROE…what do you suppose exactly would be the militaries case for putting them on trial exactly??? See…if the soldiers WERE following orders, and the ROE claimed WAS in force, then the military would have no case (at least against these soldiers). Get it?
BTW, do you have something to back this part up?
For a moment lets assume (contrary to logic and reason) that in fact the soldiers WERE under orders to kill all males on the island, and the ROE was relaxed that they could engage targets reguardless of if they were a threat or not. This was a small island that was known to be in the hands of insurgents, a designated military target (at least from what I’ve read in the one cite so far). How would this order be either ‘genocidal’ or ‘contravenes Geneva Convention’ and ‘the rules of war’ exactly? Again…did anyone actually READ the fucking article? This was a raid on a specific location…not a theater wide operation encompassing the entire Iraqi nation (or widening to the entire WoT thingy). Even assuming the ROE WAS changed ( :dubious: ) for this one opperation, that orders WERE given ( :dubious: ) to shoot all ‘males of military age’, how does this in any way constitute ‘genocide’??
-XT
Ah, so every male is a potential insurgent.
But then we couldn’t pretend we were doing anything else but simply massacring them. We wanted them in the city, where they could be called insurgents or collateral damage. I recall the news stories from the attack where US helicopters and snipers were killing whole families that tried to flee over the river, how we shot people trying to aid the wounded, how we occupied the hospitals and let them die rather be saved. We were not doing anything but mass indiscriminate murder; we didn’t care if anyone was an “insurgent” or not.
In other words, “Go hide so we can kill you later with no witnesses, or where a bomb will fall on you”.
That’s pretty standard in a genocide; kill the males and children, rape the women. Right out of the Bible.
For a start, it’s against the rules of war because you don’t kill people who have surrendered and laid down their arms. As stated, the ROE don’t even allow for that possibility.
And it’s genocidal because it’s about killing all of a segment of the population of a place.
If you think they might be insurgents, but they are not currently offering a threat, then take them as prisoners-of-war and assess them later. (Without, of course, torturing them or taking them to Gitmo). And if you don’t have the personnel to take them as prisoners-of-war, what are you doing in Iraq?
Ah, XT performs the Dance of the Defintions. (Kind of like Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils, except that the view becomes increasingly more disgusting…)
True, turning back young men into a shitstorm does not explicitly mean they are intended to get killed, after all, our troops might have simply shot them out of hand, on the spot. So, yes, you have acheived the sacred “wiggle room”. If all you mean to say is that Der Trihs has exaggerated the horrible into the more horrible, well, really, why bother?
Der says the US Cavalry disbursed six smallpox infected blankets to American Indian. XT rushes in breathlessly to shout “Stop! Lies! It was only five infected blankets!”
What a triumph, you must be so proud!
But he’s not done yet, folks! Nosiree, Bob! We now are permitted to gasp with awe and wonder at his capacity for parsing the term “genocide” (a much overworked term, to be sure…) It’s not genocide if you only kill the men! What precise term fits such an extreme act of hygiene we are not given, only that Der Trihs is wrong, wrong, wrong! to call it “genocide”.
Here’s the catch, XT: just because Der is wrong by reason of exaggeration, does not make you right, by reason of having no leg to stand upon.
Der Tris, kindly stop throwing around vitriol and wild accusations. It’s not helpful in the least. I’m not in favor of this fiasco in Iraq. Never have been. I hate the fact that my government has involved us in a situation where our military is in a position where attrocities are going to happen. They happen in all wars, which doesn’t excuse them and I frankly hope some of this administration ends up in prison for war crimes, along with any of the troops on the ground that commit them.
But if you want to discuss Fallujah, open your own thread, either in the Pit where you can rant your head off, or here in GD, with links to supporting evidence that isn’t just left-wing conspiracy blog speculation, okay? I opened this thread to discuss this case, which I wanted to learn more about specifically.
I’m interested in Monty’s view of this.
Just a sec, there, Xmac. While it may be true that the incident at Falujah has no direct bearing on the matter, still, it reflects a wider disinterest in the well-being of presumed civilians.
At present, I lean strongly to the opinion that, no, no official order such as “Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out” was actually delivered. I suspect that it is an attempt to muddy the waters. That said, I must also note that there was a time, not so very long ago, that I would have rejected the notion out of hand. No more. Not after Fallujah, Haditha, and other horrors as yet unrevealed.
So…while such incidents as Fallujah are not directly relevent, they do speak to a pattern of disregard for civilians.
Very good…I agree. Now…would you have me believe that of the battalion, only these 4 soldiers new about this change of the ROE? Or that every other person of the battalion is in on it…and willing to frame these four schmucks and leave them holding the bag over this? :dubious:
Um, no…its not. If the ROE had been changed to kill EVERY Iraqi male, THEN you may have a case that its ‘genocide’. Killing all males on a single raid, while illegal (as you pointed out), would not be genocide by any but the most radical stretch of the imagination.
Well…yes. Of course. Thats kind of why, you know, these four soldiers are on trial and all. Did I dispute that it was a crime somewhere?
Um…not quite, though you get points for style as always 'luci. More like ‘Der rushes in to claim that the US intentionally and purposely distributed hundreds of blankets with small pox, after raping and murdering anyone else they could get their hands on. XT points out that there is no evidence that any of this ACTUALLY happened (save in Der’s fevered anti-American mind), and makes the reasonable claim that, you know, the Indians COULD have contracted smallpox in myriad other, non-evil American™ ways’.
Though I’m sure the distinction is lost on Der, I’m equally sure that its not on you…though you seem to really be drinking the kool-aid since you’ve come back so maybe I’m giving you too much credit.
To the faithful, such as yourself 'luci, I’m sure I don’t have a leg to stand on in this…
-XT
:dubious: You new here? The GD way to challenge the factual basis of a poster’s assertion is, “Cite?”
Cite?
Actually it was **alphaboi867 ** who called it that first; all I said was that killing all the men fit the pattern of genocide. Do I think it is genocide ? Not . . . quite; not yet. America’s behavior is rather incoherent; too much so for a really effective plan of genocide.
Precisely, which is why I brought it up; perhaps I should have been more explicit.
No evidence for what ? That we’ve killed lots of people ? That we don’t seem to care who we kill ? Are you claiming we didn’t kill anyone in Fallujah ?
Exactly. It’s perfectly all right to plead a case that way.
Obeying an illegal order is a crime.
What? Are you trying to drastically reduce his post count?
{Note: I’ve no idea why the last sentence above is italicized. I couldn’t get it to “un-italicize.”}
-
Yes, it’s against the rules to kill people who’ve surrendered. That’s known as murder and, of course, is against the law. Common misperception aside, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (aka UCMJ) is not a special law created by the military. Rather it’s a code of United States law which applies to the military.
-
If one believes that a particular person is an insurgent, apprehend them and make an assessment. What you don’t do is kill someone “because you don’t have the personnel to monitor prisoners.”
-
Why are you interested in my view of that?
For everyone’s edification:
- I do not, for one moment believe the accused who are asserting that the ROE are what they say it is. As they are the ones asserting that, it is incumbent upon them to prove it.
Okay, let me make a confession here: I am a member of that sad, ragtag fugitive fleet that is still using dial-up. I googled around, but could not find any other facts or account of this from anybody, only the AP report at the heart of speculative editorials or the AP report itself. I want more facts. Did the military make a statement denying their claim? What is the testimony of witnesses? How many were killed and does anyone know if this supposed terrorist camp was all alone on this island or if there were civilians there as well?
I think there are a lot of questions left unanswered, but it is worth noting that the accused are accused of changing their stories. I went back and reread carefully and I am drawing this conclusion, based on the story as is:
- Faulty intelligence strikes again.
-
There was no enemy engagement, period. If there was combat, wouldn’t they make some mention of it? It looks very much to me like the troops were told they were going to be meeting the enemy. They expected to be fired on, so I can see them shooting some poor schmuck who peered out the window to see what the hell was going on. But after they invaded the house with a family in it, and were not fired on or attacked, they remained committed to the idea that these were the bad guys. Hey, it’s possible they were bad guys, just not attacking at that moment.
-
The ROEs were not to kill all Military Aged Males. It seems more likely that there were orders, or at least instructions at some point to treat all MAMs as potential insurgents, who might potentially attack. If there were orders to kill all MAMs, why were they trying to arrest them? Why are they in trouble now? Why would they have even been questioned about the incident if the whole unit was in on these orders?
It seems the more likely scenerio to me that this group of soldiers, psyched up for battle and frustrated by not finding one, screwed up, panicked, lost their tempers or something while making an arrest. They knew they had done something wrong, implied by the obstruction charge.
That’s the best I can do with so few people willing to discuss it and the press sitting on its hands as usual. So I’m appealing to the dopers with better research savvy or more military or legal knowledge, help me make sense of this. 