Surely you don’t believe you are the only truly righteous, non-evil, non-bloodlust, non-racist American in existence, do you? Can’t you accept that there are others out there who are not part of the evil conspiracy machine?
Could it be possible that some of these Americans who have good ideals, values, and intentions could possibly be serving in the military? That maybe they are behind the trigger and faced with impossible choices day in and day out? And that they are not as dogmatic about the whole invasion and occupation as you think? That they are there in Iraq trying to do good and make as much of a positive difference as they can? Maybe they know the whole thing is more complicated and not as simplicistic as you make it sound? That they realize there are decades upon decades of events at play here, and complex polictical, cultural, religious and global socio-economical factors–not to mention the fate and freedom of BILLIONS of human beings (those present and future)–and they can only do their small part in a much grander scheme. One which they can only HOPE ends in a way that brings honor and meaning to their sacrifices. Maybe they’re still holding on to the idea that things will be better in the long run and maybe they have some chance of making sure that it is. Making as much of a difference as one person can do. Maybe they want to be there on the ground because they feel they can do more there in the shit than sitting at home just bitching and making blanket accusations. Hopefully it all wont be in vain.
Do you really not believe there are any such people? Is everything really that black and white?
I personally believe most people and most events are much, much more complex than good or evil.
In GW I, he deserved everything he got. This time, do you think any of your solutions would have worked? He published a detailed report on the destruction of the WMD, which we didn’t believe. The UN inspectors went to the formerly off-limits palaces. They were discovering that there were no WMD in any places our intelligence (Chalabi?) said there were. The state of the Iraqi army as a threat was amply demonstrated during the invasion. About the only thing you can say against him at this point is that he didn’t grovel. It’s like a bully beating a kid up because he didn’t say “You’re the boss” subserviently enough.
What do you think would have happened if Saddam had gone into exile? Do you think Iraq would have been transformed overnight into a splendid working democracy? Either a Baathist general, just as bad, would have taken over, and we would have invaded, or the place would have fallen apart, and we would have “invaded” to keep the peace.
Oh…well, if it was documented then its still not a very good analogy, ehe? Unless he periodically threw out the inspectors, had a veil of secrecy and periodically ranted rhetoric against (some analogue to the US)?
Had Saddam and the Ba’athists surrendered and gone into exile then the first thing that wouldn’t have happened were the strikes on their infrastructure, disruption of their communications, etc. Certainly we would still have moved in but my guess is that had Saddam surrendered and gone into exile then then its more than possible the UN would have fully sanctioned the transition…which may have meant that we would have gotten more support from not only other Eurpean powers but from many of the local nations as well. With peacekeepers instead of an invasion force (and with a lot more troops who aren’t trying to fight their way into the place). This MAY have prevented the power vaccume that occured between when when Saddam et al went off the air (shortly after we started the invasion) and when the US/Allies finally took control…a significant period where no one was really in control and IMHO a huge contributor to the current insurgency.
Cite the U.N. doesn’t keep documentation about its weapons inspections? Just kidding. But that’s what you’re in effect saying.
Clinton “threw out” the inspectors so he could bomb Iraq without putting them in danger. He also changed the condition for the lifting of the sanctions by tying it to the removal of Saddam Hussein. It was originally, under Bush Sr., to be lifted when Iraq was certified weapons free.
Iraq has been weapons free since 1998, at the latest. A large amount of Iraq’s weapon programs were voluntarily destroyed in the years following the Gulf War. What remained was cleaned up by the inspection team. Indeed, Saddam Hussein did try to keep those by lying and playing shell games, but he failed because it is impossible to hide that sort of manufacturing capability, especially under such an exhaustive sanction policy.
No one disputes this.
What Bush was saying was that he reconstituted the program. No evidence was ever given for this extraordinary claim. Powell and Rice as late as 2001 said he had no WMDs. They later changed their tune, after the OSP was set up. When the inspectors were inserted right before the invasion, they found nothing. Bush would later pull them out by his own actions.
Read anything by Scott Ritter on the subject of inspections in Iraq during the 90s. He has several.
No that it matters in the end, mind. Syria purportedly has an arsenal of SCUDs topped with sarin and mustard, with several hundred tons in reserve, with the manufacturing base to make more if needed. Let’s invade! Imminent danger to our allies! 45 minutes! Actually, I better not say that, since there are a lot of people who do want to do just that…
So you really can’t see the difference between the police arresting you and giving you a fair trial for possession of cocaine, and the soldiers just executing you on the spot in Iraq.
You have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about. Iraqis cannot talk to “coalition” (let’s be honest, OK) U.S. forces. The insurgents are always watching. If an Iraqi talks to a US soldier, they are questioned by the insurgents and accused of working with them. The Iraqi must swear loyalty to the insurgency or be killed. Then, to prove their loyalty, they are forced to carry out an act against the Americans. If they refuse their family is killed. My buddy who just got back from Fallujah told me this, and said that no Iraqi can speak to a US soldier.
What a bunch of bullshit. This does not in any way compare to the OP. If someone is driving right at you, you have to shoot them RIGHT NOW or you will die RIGHT NOW. That is not even close to the same as the situation in the OP. Some guy walking away with a detonator cord is not an immediate threat. He is a potential future threat. There are other ways to handle a potential future threat besides shooting him in the back. You could stop him and find out what he’s doing. Or follow him to see where he goes. Are you really comfortable with our soldiers being allowed to kill someone just because he might possibly be dangerous sometime in the future?
How much of the infrastructure was destroyed by attacks vs. looting. Do you think that the guys who had no reasonable plan for the more probable case of the aftermath of an invasion had a better one for the less probable case of Saddam leaving? And, do you think that putting together a coalition - at the last minute - would be faster than having the military and CPA there?
The problem wasn’t that we weren’t in control -kind of - it was that we had no freakin’ clue what to do when we were in control. Plus there weren’t adequate resources to control looters and provide security - do you think Rummy would have approved a troop increase for the case that Saddam left peacefully?
Maybe a miracle could have happened - but I rather doubt it.
Remember “Freedom is messy” ? These people are government-is-bad loonies; I doubt they ever had the intention, much less a plan for controlling the aftermath. Just let everything sort itself out on it’s own and you’ll have a Free Market Paradise. And the casualties are just the price “we”, or rather the Iraqis, have to pay.
BWAH!
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Of course I can see the difference. Are you incapable of seeing the similarity? Soldiers don’t have the luxary of fair trial before shooting people.
It’s not about future threat or immediate threat. Get this:
Combatants can be engaged at will! If they are not surrendering or incapacitated by injury or illness, then combatants can be engaged on sight. If TPTB have deemed that any person carrying illegal and dangerous munitions is a combatant, then that person can be killed. It doesn’t matter if they’re an immediate threat or not. It doesn’t matter if they’re just chilling there relaxing. Combatants are shot on sight. In traditional or symetrical warfare, a combatant could be identified by his uniform. We no longer have that luxary. So we have to define combatants in other ways that both protects soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians. I think “carrying explosives around town” is a pretty good definition.
Was you buddy blind? Or just full of shit? Do you realize that Iraqis actually work on US Bases for the Americans? Not to mention Iraqi businesses selling to and sometimes specifically catering to soldiers. Iraqis and soldiers interact constantly. And as far as snitching and reporting things to soldiers, that also happens all the time too. I’m not saying that certain tribes or insurgents don’t sometimes harrass those working with Americans, but your suggestion that it’s impossible for Iraqis to talk to Americans or that there is some kind of veil of silence between the two is laughable.
A combatant does not need to be an immediate threat. He only needs to be a combatant. Period.
You could, sure. But the problem with a 2-3 man sniper element is that it’s too small a unit to go out and capture people. It takes much more support and even a larger main effort to go capture suspected or known combatants. That’s why we don’t send out sniper teams to capture people. We send sniper teams out to shoot people. I’m betting a large percentage–likely the majority-- of sniper targets throughout history were not immediate threats. Are you saying that we shouldn’t have snipers at all, since they are shooting people who are not attacking anyone at that moment?
I’m comfortable with letting TPTB set the rules of engagement and define who is and is not a combatant and allowing soldiers to engage those individuals. Soldiers in a war zone don’t have to wait for an immediate threat to attack the enemy. Where did you ever get the idea that they had to? That just sounds silly.
Soldiers are not there killing people for Bush. Eventually you will understand that a soldier has an unconditional obligation to serve the American people. If the American people vote for a monster or support a monster’s decision to attack innocent countries, that’s their fault–not the soldiers’.
A soldier does not pick and choose which lawful orders to obey. He does what the American people have asked him to do, hoping each time that it’s for the best and not in vain.
Utter garbage. “I was just following orders” is not and never has been an excuse. Putting on a uniform is not a license to rape and rob and torture and kill and brush all responsibility for it onto someone else.
No excuse is necessary for following lawful orders. Nor is a defense or excuse needed for lawfully executing ones duties as a soldier.
I agree. But nobody has been ordered to rape or rob. Those who committ such acts on their own accord are punished accordingly.
As for killing… well, following lawful orders to kill a combatant is and always has been a valid justification. Utter garbage, eh?
I’ll leave the torturing issue for another thread.
Why, yes, I can see the similarity. And I totally agree that soldiers cannot give people a fair trial before shooting them. Which is EXACTLY WHY they should not be shooting people that have done nothing but pick up something they planted.
Maybe, but we are not talking about explosives. We’re also talking about, according to the OP, detonator cables and ammunition. And these are items that are planted by US soldiers, not things that the person got from some unknown source.
I asked my buddy if he was blind or just full of shit, and after checking which forum we’re in I can’t give you his answer. The part I can say is that he wants to know exactly where you were stationed in Iraq that civilians could report things to US soldiers without fear of reprisal. There might be some places where they can, but it’s not everywhere, and it’s definitely not where he was. He said that if someone would have reported the location of contraband, they would have had to relocate that person to a different part of Iraq for their own safety.
Your logic is so twisted it’s scary. Nobody is forcing US soldiers to plant bait and then murder anyone stupid enough to pick it up. You’re acting like they’re backed into a corner, like they have no choice but to kill these people. They have a choice- they could not plant the bait in the first place, and spend their time going after known threats rather than creating new potential threats. Or, if they really think the bait is a good idea, then they could devote the manpower needed to verify that the person picking it up is actually a threat before taking action. My buddy used bait with his Marine unit, and they usually tried to capture the person rather than kill them. Using bait to capture people seems like a good idea to me. Killing them without even investigating, not so much.
Are you really arguing that picking up something off of the street can turn anyone into a combatant, and fair game to be “engaged on sight”? Your statement “So we have to define combatants in other ways that both protects soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians.” jus doesn’t work. How do you protect the innocent Iraqi civilians by shooting them?
Do you really believe that the only people who are going to pick something up are those who want to kill American forces with them?
Assuming that everybody didn’t get the memo, how do they tell the difference between Iraqis who are picking up the “bait” to kill the “good guys” and those who might be in dire need of weapons to fight the “bad guys”?
Kill 'em all and let [del]God[/del] Allah sort it out?:(?
Add to that the FACT that when he did use his magical jellyfish cannon 20 years ago we did basically NOTHING about it.
It makes our concern seem less about poor villagers covered in magical jellyfish and more about our looking for an excuse, any excuse, to get Cervaise.
CMC fnord! [del]Rick[/del] Saddam: How can you invade me? On what grounds? [del]Captain Renault[/del] The American Government: I’m shocked, shocked to find that WMDs are being made in your country!
(an Iraqi General hands a U.S. company a pile of money) [del]Croupier[/del] U.S. company: Your 22,000 pounds of phosphorous fluoride, sir. [del]Captain Renault[/del] The American Government: (sotto voce) Oh, thank you very much. [del]Captain Renault[/del] The American Government: (aloud) Everybody invade at once! [del]Captain Renault[/del] The American Government: Realizing the importance of the war, my men are making up twice the usual number of excuses.
Oh, they had a plan, all right, and not really a libertarian plan at all. Not a very smart plan, either; the drafters seem to have been completely oblivious to on-the-ground political realities in Iraq. See here.
In addition to ignoring and scorning plans for what would happen if they didn’t throw flowers, they hired incompetent but politically correct people to work for CPA. If you were an expert in the area, an Arab speaker, but a Democrat, screw you. If you were 22 and worked on a Republican campaign and had no experience at all, you were their man.
Reminds me of the Commies, requiring party membership for everything.