Like shooting an unarmed prisoner in the head??? I’m sure they were a huge threat being disarmed and tied up like that. Or storing weapons in children’s schools or hospitals. I’m sure their palaces were too full to bursting with weapons. They, and killing under a flag of surrender are most certainly war crimes. Color me surprised that actions like those would have an apologist.
Yesterday on MSNBC they had “man on the street” interviews in which the interviewer was leading the respondent with questions about the large number of conventional weapons caches (or cachets as the military guys seem to like to call them - they are so prestigious!) that have been found so far serving to justify the invasion. Is this the new spin, or the new talking points that have come down? Because the military of a sovereign nation had stockpiles of conventional weapons, this now warrants invasion? I feel that I fell through the looking glass.
A very merry unbirthday to you.
Although this may sound cold and callous to most people, I am a firm believer in the old adage that “All is fair in war and politics.” Seriously, if you invade someone with little reason, you shouldn’t be bitching when they use tactics that work. War is all about trying to win at any cost, and putting restrictions on what people can do during a war isn’t going to do much. If they are in danger of losing, they can and will do anything it takes to prevent it and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
‘Tactics that work’? Really? Not even the most dedicated of Saddam’s supporters can logically argue that the tactics of shooting prisoners and storing weapons in schools ‘worked’. If they ‘worked’, then our troops would at least have taken militarily significant casualties on their way to Baghdad.
Firstly, your link doesn’t work. At least when i accessed it.
Secondly, you have said nothing new. I said, to quote myself:
*Besides 2(?) suicide bombings, Hussein has done everything (seemingly) within conventional warfare stipulations. *
Nope, this is not a joke. The joke’s on you, Hamlet. I stand by what i said.
Ill treatment of prisoners and the dead and possibly wilful execution of prisoners. Ill treatment of prisioners, that depends very much on your definition. From what i hear, US hasn’t been treating POWs with a bed of roses and a silver spoon either.
And possible wilful execution? I’m not even talk about possibilities here. The US marine could have possibly intentionally killed the women and children in the vehicle in malice even though they posed no threat. Possible, no?
Photographing and humiliating U.S. prisoners of war…blah blah that is a weak point and you know it. So what no, POWs are not allowed to be photographed? Bleargh. Humiliating POWs, I’ve not heard any reports on the Iraqi side (other than showing us a video of Marine greens and going nyah-nyah, we killed them) but US wise, i’ve seen TV footage of how Iraqi soldiers were made to strip and surrender in a line; and a US marine will mark each POW with a number across the soldier, Nazi wise. I’ve already said, humiliation depends very much on your definition, and is as such, a very weak point.
I can just imagine Rumsfeld on the rostrum, poised to take questions.
Reporter’s Question: Why is Saddam Hussein considered a war criminal?
Answer: Saddam Hussein is a war criminal because… because… because… he…erm…yes! Humiliated our prisoners when he caught them!
Reporter to himself: Why of course! The nerve of him!
??? Your point? We should not have expected him to do that? That it was against the law/Geneva convention? Tell that to the US generals which gave the go-ahead to use chemical weapons.
Tell me something new, Hamlet
Quote from you:
*Like shooting an unarmed prisoner in the head??? *
Exactly. To use your example against you, tell that to the 7 women and children who were killed because they supposedly did not stop in time. And they were civillians mind you, not even some unarmed soldier who got caught.
Basically, I share BewareTL’s point of view. If the enemy catches our soldiers, the POWs are theirs to keep. The US crying foul because Iraqi did not treat the POWs with a silver spoon is just hypocritical.
Quote: * They, and killing under a flag of surrender are most certainly war crimes. Color me surprised that actions like those would have an apologist. *
I’ve already ceded the point about suicide bombings. To me, that was the most unconventional warfare Iraq used against the US. And even conventionality is suspect. The Japanese used it; and the Palestinians are using it. (note to myself: hmm…strange that the US does not ‘liberate’ Palestine from under terrorists…i wonder why…)
So. Tell me something new.
Again, not to sound callous, but the people in the military knew what they were getting into when they signed up. Of course before the “war,” it seems, military service had been viewed as little more than a way to get college tuition. But such a reward has its price. They were not forced to join the military, so I have little pity for them when they complain about war conditions. Not that I am totally against the military. I am greatful for the services they do for our country (In most cases), but they have no right, as far as I’m concerned, to complian, as they joined of their own free will. Did they honestly expect Saddam to invite them in for a tea party if they were captured?
How these strategies are effective is harder for me to explain, because I do not agree that they are effective, though many Iraqi soldiers would think otherwise. The killing of coalition POWs is basically used as a morale-booster and as an example of what happens to those who oppose the regime. After taking heavy casualties in a battle, or being defeated, it comforts the troops to know that their enemy is not insuperable, I’d assume. They delude themselves into thinking that the death of one is as valuable as a military victory. As for why some executions are public, it is obviously to prevent the populus from supporting the enemy.
Now, as for storing weapons in schools. It is obvious that the coalition forces would be opposed to bombing these facilities, which prevents the weapons from being destroyed before the army is adequately supplied. In addition, ground forces would also be weary of an assualt due to the danger of hitting civilians.
These strategies obviously did not lead to an Iraqi victory, but they were effective in prolonging the war against a foe with technology that is, for the most part, vastly superior to their own.
(Upon rereading I have noticed that I have obviously used the word “obviously” too much, but I’m too lazy to go back and change it… :D)
sotally tober. I think you are just trying to get a rise out of someone, but, in order to educate, I’d urge you to check out
Human Rights Watch that lists four general categories of war crimes some Iraqis committed including, perfidy, civilian shields, execution squads, and abuses of POW’s. All these actions are in clear violation of the Geneva Convention. And to answer your other questions, yes, Saddam Hussein is guilty, both now, and in the past. I know of not one person, excepting yourself, who has researched the issue and believes otherwise. I would suggest you also go ahead and check out any of the hundreds of websites by Googling Iraqi War Crimes. It should keep you busy for awhile, but, at the very least, it will help educate you.
Llama, if you wish to debate the propriety of the Geneva Convention and the attempts to “civilize” war, I would suggest you start a new thread. In this one, I am merely responding to tober’s outlandish comment “Besides 2(?) suicide bombings, Hussein has done everything (seemingly) within conventional warfare stipulations.”
Why, then, is there not a line of informers stretching around the block waiting to rat out Saddam’s hideout? Telling the Yanks where to find Saddam (alive or dead) would be a great way to curry favor with the Yanks and maybe pick up some cash. For that matter, we * have * had “a line of people around the block” trying to collect the reward for bin Laden, and he’s still eating rats in a cave somewhere.
Information may be valuable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a reliable source will provide it.
Iraq is as big as–what? Texas? California? If druggies in Tennessee can hide dozens or even hundreds of meth labs from the DEA for months or years, then surely Saddam could hide a few nerve gas factories from UN inspectors or US troops for a while.
2 problems with that. Numero Uno, the reward for snitching a meth lab ain’t that great in comparison to showing the Americans where the can save thier international PR butt. If Achmed Ratout can’t get a green card, a million bucks and a hot date with J. Lo, his negotiating skills are weak. After all, the reward on OBL is $25 million! (Besides, how the hell do you know is he’s living in a cave eating rats?)
numero two-o, maybe three four guys tops might know where a meth lab is. A nerve gas factory is rather more complex than that. At least a hundred guys have to know about it, and not one, not one has cashed in.
And you don’t think that’s…a bit odd?
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/14/sprj.irq.labs/index.html
Well, this is the first report that comes from a briefing officer (General talking to CNN), after having fully passed through the chain of command. It does not have WMD, but it has labs buried deep in sand that just happen to match some of the evidence Powell presented to the UN that the inspectors said didn’t exist.
Remember, they’re looking over a thousand different sites, we’ve heard of maybe five, all reported by embedded reporters on the spot. The tests will take at least a week to run. That missile with the yes/no test, for example… is still banded green… and the inspectors have to open up the warhead to see what’s inside, they have not yet done it.
I’m not saying we’re going to find anything yet, but the point is, it’s far to early to say yes or no yet.
Even if Saddam has some deep buried WMD the weapons inspections obviously kept him from putting them in a position to deploy them. So why was this war necessary again?
Given the paucity of information available so far, this is sheer speculation. Apparently these things are shipping containers with some expensive lab equipment inside. Is it packed up in crates, or all arrayed in a neat little hi-tech bioweapon assembly line ? Until we see more details, it might as easily be the parts for a sophisticated dog-turd mummification and polishing facility, as a mobile bioweapons plant. There are plenty of good reasons to hide million dollar cargos in wartime. Some of those reasons have nothing to do with WMD. Just look at the state of the Iraqi national museum in Baghdad.
I bow before no poster in my disdain for Fearless Misleader, but in all fairness there is another explanation: that the information was false, but the Bushista’s bought it because they already believed it. “Intelligence” tends to be that which affirms your prejudices.
Consider the “uranium” fiasco. Any Tom Clancy fan would have seen through that precious bit of hokum in about two seconds flat. As of yet, we have no clear explanation as to where this intelligence regarding Saddam’s dreadful WMD’s derived, it might well be the same source. Just to cast a wholly unjustified aspersion, Mr. Chulabi, the Pentagon’s darling to run Iraq, has been long credited with haveing extensive anti-Saddam contacts within Iraq, and providing “intelligence”. Or perhaps Mossad cooked it up (we’re their best friend, I’m not sure they’re ours). Or perhaps Iran, they most likely didn’t shorten all the SAVAK personnel. But I digress…
But they believed it. At least partly because they wanted to, but, nonetheless, they believed it. Possibly at some point they got some conflicting info, but it was too late, they clung to thier certainty, as most men do.
When challenged to submit intel to the inspectors, they did. And the inspectors came back complainng about the chase of the grosse canard. Now, if I’m right, the Bushistas were probably stunned! They thought they had solid gold and released it with grave reluctance only to find out…t’was l’merde.
So what to do but Nixon it out? They claim certain proof, but can’t show it even to the inspectors, they circle the wagons, they tough it out. Because they know, and constantly reassure each other, that of course! Saddams got WMD’s, he’s an evil old bugger so he must have them. Once we get in, we’ll find them, because for sure he’s got them, and then we say “Yeah, that’s where they were, all right. We knew that. Couldn’t tell the Democrats, you know how they are.”
Hamlet, contrary to popular opinion, i’m not trying to get a rise out of someone, nor get a kick out of trying to do so. Seriously, i’m on this board to learn and i’ll bet you are too.
Just to clear things up:
"Besides 2(?) suicide bombings, Hussein has done everything (seemingly) within conventional warfare stipulations. " I do realise now that the above sentence is inappropriate.
However, my point was to contrast Iraqi actions against what the US would have us believe Iraqi troops would do, namely the use of chemical weapons and/or WMD as well as widespread bombings on oil rigs. To my knowledge, the Iraqis did not do this.
Not to turn this into a anti-US thread but the US has also contravened the Geneva Convention provisions. (with the same site you provided me with)
I also realise that further pontification may not directly pertain to the OP hence i’ll refrain from commenting further. Hamlet if you feel the need to please feel free to contact me through email.
I amazed that you would think that this:
is comparable to this:
I have not read a single source that claimed that Iraqis used chemical weapons or WMD. Although there were seven oil wells set afire, I have not read a single source that claimed they were widespread either.
Personally, I think it’s still too early to squirm about the non-existance of WMD evidence. If the evidence is not uncovered in 6-12 months, then I’d be somewhat concerned.
I am starting to think that what evidence is discovered will be fairly unspectacular. I’m starting to think that a lot of stuff was destroyed incidentally in the process of hiding it.
So just because we haven’t found the wmd’s that were trumpeted during the “diplomacy” stage, that means that there aren’t any?! That is just about the biggest simplification I have come across on these boards!
The man and his army had nearly 30 years to find every nook and cranny in the desert to hide whatever he wanted. It has already been said by Tommy Franks and Don Rumsfeld that until someone steps forward and says “Hey guys, you know those weapons you were looking for? They’re over there behind that rock”, or “in that ravine”, or even “under that daycare, school, or hospital”.
Christ it has only been 3 weeks since we have been in country and everyone is already yelling becuase we don’t have concrete proof of every little freaking thing that has been said about Hussein and his men!! They had 3 decades!! If I wanted to, I could hide something in my neighborhood that would take longer than 3 weeks to find, and they have an entire country.
Not to mention the fact that they have already found plenty of evidence. Trucks set up for biological warfare, explosives buried in trenches (goes to show there are probably plenty of more trenches, with plenty of more weapons, some probably illegal), we know for a fact that they were firing SCUD missiles, which are banned by the UN. We know for a fact that at one point in time, Saddam and his men had nerve gas, anthrax, a nuclear program, among other things, that have never, ever been accounted for. He freely admitted to having them at one time, but could not show where they are or when they were destroyed.
As far as it goes, the WMD’s may not even be in Iraq anymore. They could have been moved to Syria, or Iran, or Labanon, or Saudia Arabia, or your mom’s house.
We may never know what exactly happend to Saddam’s weapons, but that really doesn’t matter at this point. We know Saddam was an evil man, we know he tortured his own people, we know the people of Iraq wanted him gone, and there have been plenty of wars started and ended under similar pretenses.
Some people will never believe that we did a good thing in Iraq. Some people will never believe we did a good thing anywhere in the world, because they are set on calling out Bush and America on every thing that they do, thinking that they are the foremost expert on geopolitical affairs, and that the Bush admin should model their foreign policy on their belifs alone, and not the combined work of the many different intelligence agencies, some not of American origin, who have been saying for years that Saddam is going to use his weapons some day.
So just because we haven’t found the wmd’s that were trumpeted during the “diplomacy” stage, that means that there aren’t any?! That is just about the biggest simplification I have come across on these boards!
The man and his army had nearly 30 years to find every nook and cranny in the desert to hide whatever he wanted. It has already been said by Tommy Franks and Don Rumsfeld that until someone steps forward and says “Hey guys, you know those weapons you were looking for? They’re over there behind that rock”, or “in that ravine”, or even “under that daycare, school, or hospital”.
Christ it has only been 3 weeks since we have been in country and everyone is already yelling becuase we don’t have concrete proof of every little freaking thing that has been said about Hussein and his men!! They had 3 decades!! If I wanted to, I could hide something in my neighborhood that would take longer than 3 weeks to find, and they have an entire country.
Not to mention the fact that they have already found plenty of evidence. Trucks set up for biological warfare, explosives buried in trenches (goes to show there are probably plenty of more trenches, with plenty of more weapons, some probably illegal), we know for a fact that they were firing SCUD missiles, which are banned by the UN. We know for a fact that at one point in time, Saddam and his men had nerve gas, anthrax, a nuclear program, among other things, that have never, ever been accounted for. He freely admitted to having them at one time, but could not show where they are or when they were destroyed.
As far as it goes, the WMD’s may not even be in Iraq anymore. They could have been moved to Syria, or Iran, or Labanon, or Saudia Arabia, or your mom’s house.
We may never know what exactly happend to Saddam’s weapons, but that really doesn’t matter at this point. We know Saddam was an evil man, we know he tortured his own people, we know the people of Iraq wanted him gone, and there have been plenty of wars started and ended under similar pretenses.
Some people will never believe that we did a good thing in Iraq. Some people will never believe we did a good thing anywhere in the world, because they are set on calling out Bush and America on every thing that they do, thinking that they are the foremost expert on geopolitical affairs, and that the Bush admin should model their foreign policy on their belifs alone, and not the combined work of the many different intelligence agencies, some not of American origin, who have been saying for years that Saddam is going to use his weapons some day.
Neither have I. I would be amazed if you did. That is my point. Re-read my post. The Iraqis did NOT do it. The US have led us to believe that Iraqis would probably do it, but the Iraqis didn’t!
I would think that if WMDs were moved, it would be a carefully thought out process such that no accidental detonations might occur.
I think that for the same reason, nucluear weapons are carefully guarded by those who have them. Besides, most weapons have ‘failsafes’.
That said, even if they were destroyed accicdentally, wouldn’t the explosions/fallout be big enough for the US satellites to detect?
(sorry about the double posts, it kept giving me the “cannot find server” error so i had to resubmit)