# US military kills babies in Iraq **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 11, 2004, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584 "2004-07-11T18:01:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/41 "2004-07-13T06:52:40Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > And if you can’t see anything wrong with killing innocent civilians of any age, you must be a neo-conservative. You _must_ be posting drunk. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/42 "2004-07-13T10:09:10Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > Spoken like someone who’s never been a parent. > > And if you can’t see anything wrong with killing innocent civilians of any age, you must be a neo-conservative. No, that’s not it at all. My point is that babies are not worse than a 22 year old civilian. They are equally atrocious. And if one _had_ to be worse, I’d say it would be the 22 year old. But people are rather sentimental about babies. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/43 "2004-07-13T10:16:29Z")
[QUOTE=rjung] Spoken like someone who’s never been a parent. [QUOTE] Does the 22 year old not have parents who will cry when he’s dead?? The parents have known and loved him for a very long time. They’ve watched him grow and have long fond memories. They don’t have that with a 6 month old. All they have is their desires and hopes of what will be to come. And _any_ 6 month old they have can have that same potential. Why is it worse for a child that you’ve known for 6 months to die, then one you’ve know half your life?? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/44 "2004-07-13T10:55:44Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > Sorry, maybe I’m just really, really, insensitive and unemotional. Can you explain logically to me why it’s a bigger deal??? It is not “logical”, indeed. It’s purely emotional. We’re probably hard-wired, and at the very least socially conditionned to be protective of children and babies. Also, babies and children are defenceless, hence, though it doesn’t change much in the case of a bomb dropped on a house, since adults are similarily defenceless in such a situation, killing a baby is perceived as cowardly, sort of. Babies are also considered as innocent, they can’t have possibly done anything wrong for which they could deserve to die. Adults could. The stronger human ties, usually, are between people and their children. The death of one’s adult brother won’t cause as much grief as the death of one’s children. So, people projecting their feelings on other people’s children, these death will appear much less bearable. And so on…I think one could give dozens of other similar reasons. If it wasn’t so, people wouldn’t be all worked out by child rapists, either, for instance. But if you want to stay “logical”, then tell me why it makes any difference to kill a 22 y.o. (or 2 y.o., for that matter) civilian rather than a 22 y.o. soldier, who, in most case, didn’t have a say in the matter and would probably rather not be there. Both have relatives who will mourn them, both had hopes for the future, etc… Actually, I tend to think this way. And to think that a deathtoll doesn’t become significantly more acceptable if only soldiers are killed. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/45 "2004-07-13T11:33:43Z")
Of course Americans killed babies over there. Tens of thousands of babies. What do you think the purpose of this war is, to get rid of Saddam or somethin? Dummy! The war’s purpose is to provide a source of baby meat for the huge market in America. All Americans eat baby meat. It’s what’s for dinner over here. Baby meat, yummie! We eat it from a can Or we fry it in a pan Americans are all bad, mean people. Citizens of all the other countries in the world are nice, kind people. We really should feel terrible about this, but we don’t. :wally ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/46 "2004-07-13T11:44:46Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > We really should feel terrible about this, but we don’t. Yee haw! Go the Pubbie dick-brains! ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/47 "2004-07-13T12:48:12Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Yeah, all those baby-starving Americans. I mean, Saddam was insisting we use Iraq’s resources to feed the babies, but we insisted on building more palaces for him :rolleyes: Not the point. When someone says _“Well, the UN sanctions in the early 90’s cost a lot of baby lives too”_, the response is not _“That may be, but Saddam built palaces while his people starved to death”_. The response is _“So why was the method to which you object so much prematurely replaced by a more violent one that **ensures** civilian lives will be lost, including those of babies?”_. You’re comparing a perceived external evil to a (rather objective) internal evil. The valid comparison here is between _two_ perceived external evils: economic sanctions vs. invasion. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/48 "2004-07-13T13:20:26Z")
**John Carter of Mars** , you Fat Bastard… ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/49 "2004-07-13T13:38:51Z")
In a series of stories called ‘The Killer Elite,’ published in Rolling Stone (and the dot come version), there is a situation where American Marines killed a baby when the father refused to stop and kept driving toward an American checkpoint at night. ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/50 "2004-07-13T13:52:36Z")
That was most probably in self defense. Imagine yourself a car with a father and family driving on a road and the driver has no clue what those weird US Heros are shouting to him or maybe he had no night vision on his clumsy eyes and even didn’t see that they were actually US heros. I mean, I just came to the conclusion that the whole globe has to know and understand English perfectly… So why on earth didn’t he stop immediatly to step out of the car and bow for the New Rulers of his country. His own fault they shot his baby thinking the kid was a conceiled road bomb. Salaam. A ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/51 "2004-07-13T13:53:22Z")
Very much the point, though, **Coldfire** , if there was collusion in the sanctions sceme that benefited Saddam Hussein directly, at the expense of his people. The U.N. Oil for Food program was incredibly corrupt, and directly enabled Saddam Hussein to build his palaces and resupply his regime elements. Sanctions and palace-building can’t be considered separate evils here. They went hand in hand. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/52 "2004-07-13T14:10:09Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Very much the point, though, **Coldfire** , if there was collusion in the sanctions sceme that benefited Saddam Hussein directly, at the expense of his people. > > The U.N. Oil for Food program was incredibly corrupt, and directly enabled Saddam Hussein to build his palaces and resupply his regime elements. > > Sanctions and palace-building can’t be considered separate evils here. They went hand in hand. Do you have some sort of argument and evidence here? About actual collusion and corruption? And I don’t mean just the obvious point that the U.S./U.K sanctions were so hopelessly badly thought out that Saddam still got the money whilst the people of Iraq were denied food and medicine. And don’t forget, it was **grienspace** , i.e., one of you stupid right-wing assholes, who first advanced the baby starvation argument in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/53 "2004-07-13T14:12:12Z")
Listen, I’m not arguing for or against here - I’m merely pointing out the more valid comparison. And c’mon - it’s not like Saddam abused his people to the point of death only _after_ economic sanctions were imposed upon Iraq. I’m not saying the sanctions were a 100% sure-fire, foolproof solution to the Iraqi stand-off. They obviously weren’t. Then again, so far the invasion doesn’t turn out that way, either. But again: that was not even my point. My point was the relative validity of the two comparisons, without even attaching any value judgments to either solution (although it’s probably clear which one _I_ favoured). ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/54 "2004-07-13T15:37:06Z")
> [@Aldebaran](#): > > That was most probably in self defense. Probably. Never said otherwise. Still a darn shame. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/55 "2004-07-13T15:56:41Z")
> [@Desmostylus](#): > > Do you have some sort of argument and evidence here? About actual collusion and corruption? And I don’t mean just the obvious point that the U.S./U.K sanctions were so hopelessly badly thought out that Saddam still got the money whilst the people of Iraq were denied food and medicine. > > And don’t forget, it was **grienspace** , i.e., one of you stupid right-wing assholes, who first advanced the baby starvation argument in this thread. [Here you go. Have fun with it.](http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/oil_for_food_ripoff_040420-1.html) It’s not like I’m just making this stuff up, you know. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584/56 "2004-07-13T19:35:54Z")
That’s only an _allegation_ of wrongdoing. As far as I have been able to determine, none of the charges have been **proven** yet. Yeah, I know, crazy idea here, “innocent until proven guilty” and all that… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-kills-babies-in-iraq/254584.md?page=2)