I don’t think pointing out wholesale inaccuracies and logical fallacies can be defined as “picking on” DT. I doubt you’d be so quick to defend someone making ridiculous allegations against Clinton (or Bush I, or Reagan, or Carter, etc.).
If it is what it is, then why don’t we just say what it is? Why are you defending DT, who is saying that it’s genocide, which is something completely different?
It’s not an exaggeration. “Genocide” has a specific definition, and these events do not meet that definition. Leaving aside the implications of DT’s argument – that the US military is operating in Iraq under orders to execute all military aged Iraqi men – conflating (alleged) murder with genocide is not an exaggeration, it’s a difference in kind. When I tell people that I drive a Ferrari, even though I actually drive a Ford Festiva, I’m not exaggerating. I’m saying something that’s false.
I’ve looked back through the thread, and I don’t see anywhere that xtisme says or implies this. In fact, he said that turning them back may have been the wrong course, and that any civilian casualties trouble him. See, e.g., Post #67. I think you’re creating a strawman here.
Leaving aside the rather gratuitous comparison of the US and Nazi Germany (yawn), I see that you’re now disputing Iraq’s sovereignty. So if they’re not sovereign, then what did you mean by this?
It looks like you’re using Iraq’s sovereignty against the US (“They’re sovereign! You have to let their citizens pass!”) and also using Iraq’s non-sovereignty against the US (“They’re not sovereign! You’re responsible for everything they do!”).
Would it help if I used quotes to limn less legitimate states of national being, as in “sovereign”? Do you want to debate the semantics of sovereignty as it applies, whether or not an occupied nation is truly “sovereign”? My analogy to Vichy France is pretty much applicable, Godwin notwithstanding, and your insinuation if offensive.
We are the occupying force, whether or not we wave our magic wand and declare Iraq “sovereign”. The well-being of her citizens is our responsibility, if the burden is too heavy, tough noogies, we have no legal right there in the first instance.
To turn back citizens into harm’s way who might otherwise leave defiles that reponsibility. Period. Full stop.
More directly to the point, incidents like Falujah make accepting an outrage as being more likely than if such incidents had not occured. That said, I think its very, very unlikely that an official order was ever given. I dont pretend to have the facts at hand, in any degree, but my initial impression, until facts demonstrate otherwise, is they are trying to pull something. If our people or the Iraqi people find such tales plausible, we have none to blame but ourselves.
As this is actually getting back to the OP, I think I’ll leave the other stuff behind at this point. I grow tired of going round and round the mulberry bush with you (I’ll leave it to you to figure out who I think the monkey, and who the weasle ).
I’ll just say that on THIS point at least we are more in accord. I can certainly see why our previous actions in Iraq would spark suspicion…while also seeing this effort by the accused as a fairly transparent attempt to shift the blame, or at least to muddy the waters.
I’m dismissing the possibility that it might be true based on:
Self-serving on the part of those claiming the order existed.
My faith in humanity is great enough to lead me to believe that at least one person, if the order did exist, would present evidence of it to the press, in addition to reporting the originator of that order to the originator’s Immediate Superior in Command (aka ISIC).
The training I received, just as so many thousands and thousands of others did, when we joined the mililtary. That training included, of course, the simple concept that following an unlawful order is also an unlawful act.
Yes; however, if they make false charges against anyone, then they’re subject to trail by court-martial themselves. Even in the military, it’s not kosher to make false accusation.
As I stated above, I do not believe–and I outlined my reasons for such belief–that the order existed. The Article 32 investigating officer would most likely come to the same decision absent any actual evidence of such an order’s existence: false accusation on the part of those who committed a heinous crime.
It makes me wonder about something else, and I ask the question of anyone who even thinks they know something, because I know squat.
I hear occasional reference to a widespread belief amongst our troops that our invasion of Iraq represents some form of “payback” for 9/11. I recall stories about the great statue pulldown, that before the pulldown (by a horde of jubilant Iraqis number in the tens…) the statue’s head was covered by an American flag, a flag expressly brought along because it had flown over the Twin Towers on 9/11.
I find that…disturbing. Put it like that. Anybody actually know anything?
Again, I’m not; that was someone else. I called it mass murder, not genocide; I just pointed out that killing all the males and not the females is a common genocidal pattern. Right out of the Bible - or chimps, for that matter.
Actually, that’s what the accused in the OP said, at least for that operation. I pointed out it appeared to be fairly common, such as driving back the males into a city to be destroyed.
Given the way he bobs and weaves, I don’t believe they bother him.
But then we would have to admit what we are actually doing. We’re like the British Empire; we like to pretend to be civilized, but actually be brutal. We want our targets to “provoke” us into doing something we “regret”, so we can sit back in our comfortable chairs and shake our heads disapprovingly at the foreign barbarians. Nuking a city won’t do that; killing unarmed men as they try to leave the city won’t either. Killing them as “insurgents” or “accidentally” as collateral damage will.
Ya think? The My Lai massacre was exposed by Friends service workers in the area, not by any soldier having a crisis of conscience.
I won’t suggest soldiers are “brainwashed,” nor that Full Metal Jacket is an accurate portrayal of basic training in any branch of service. But it is true – correct me if I’m wrong – that BT routinely involves a lot of shouting, humiliation, and other psychological stressors not obviously relevant to the acquisition of military skills. No doubt that’s partly a matter of tradition, like Hell Week for fraternity pledges. But another, quite conscious and intentional, purpose is to break down the recruit’s personality, to some extent, and rebuild it in a form more useful to the military. That’s necessary, of course. To fight effectively a soldier must internalize military values, must learn to fear the shame of failure in his duty more than he fears anything else, to be ready to obey orders even when obedience means death. But it has another effect, to inculcate a kind of groupthink; the soldier is taught to be loyal to his unit and branch as his family, clan and tribe. That must make it really hard to break ranks and speak out about any order or event that doesn’t smell right, even if they told you back in BT that that’s something you must do.
I dismiss the possibility for a number of reasons giving the following scenarios.
1] The order was given and the vast majority of troops obeyed it despite it being both illegal and utterly repugnant. These two soldiers were the only ones to break ranks and talk about the illegal orders while the rest kept their fanatically devoted lips sealed.
-Were this the case the death toll in the city would have been far far greater. While we will never know the true ratio of combatants to non-combatants killed, we do know that the numbers didn’t approach “all military aged males.”
2] The illegal order was given and the vast [minus the soldiers on trial] disobeyed. If this were the case we could expect some collaboration of the accused soldiers’ stories. After all, if the vast majority were willing to disobey the order we could expect at least a couple to go a little farther and come forward with it.
3] The order was given and some obeyed while others disobeyed. Again, we would expect at least a few of these soldiers who had disobeyed the illegal order and go a little farther to talk about it. There is the possibility of the guilty soldiers pressuring the others to keep silent but unless the guilty soldiers have a large majority [which would bring us to scenario 1] I don’t see this as plausible.
Frankly, the only remotely plausible scenario I see for such an order ever existing is if these soldiers were passed their own “private ROE” by their CO which was kept secret from the rest of the troops. Of course in that case it really wouldn’t be an ROE as much as a CO sending out their own private hit squad.
Thus, I find it far more plausible that these soldiers are lying in order to try to save their murdering asses.
Yes, really. My posting above was not limited to only military people. You’re aware there are non-military folks over there too? I really don’t see them letting slide such an order as that purported by the accused to exist. As you indicated, soomeone spoke up for My Lai and I believe someone would’ved spoken up in this instance if such an order did exist.
Good, because we’re not brainwashed nor is that movie an accurate portrayal.
The military spends a lot of time and energy in training its personnel, even after BCT, in the laws of warfare and the UCMJ and in prosecuting those who violate them. They’re taught that those who violate those are not to be protected but rather are a disgrace to “his family, clan and tribe.”
But for this case, there’s merely an assertion that such an illegal order existed. And that assertion was made by individuals accused of murder. Seems to me they’re not a credible source for believing the order exists. Until and unless they cough up some actual evidence.
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