Two wrongs doesn’t make a right. These hostages aren’t responsible in any way for whatever wrongdoing commited in Irak.
These wrongdoings might explain why there are para-military groups engaged in such hostage takings, they can even justify shooting at soldiers, at “civilian” security personnels, perhaps even at some contractors who are wilingly trying to make some profit out of the situation, but I can see no way it could justify kidnapping/killing people who volunteered to work in hospitals or such things.
I’m not sure it’s the same, since in some circumstances, there are not merely individual, but whole parts of the society which turns overnight from ordinary citizens into sadistic slaughterers (see the Rwanda, for instance).
Do you say the same for the population of Iraq? Or are ambulance drivers military targets? This is the blog of Rahul Mahajan, a man who is currently in Iraq, documenting what’s going on there. Scroll down to the 14 April 11:45 AM entry and look at the photographs. Two bullets, and only two bullets, clearly aimed at the driver’s head. His job was to provide aid and assistance to the wounded, yet he was obviously treated as a military target by US forces. Now look at the 13 Apr 10:50 AM entry, immediately below it. The Abu Hanifa mosque was being used as a collection center for food relief donations, yet the American forces had no compunction about spoiling three tons of food, and desecrating the mosque, in a purported search for smuggled weaponry. All they found were three Kalashnikovs kept on the grounds for security purposes.
If the occupation forces continue to treat everything they run across as a military target, they shouldn’t decry their opponents for doing the same thing. Bush may have declared an end to the hostilities earlier this year, but the war clearly hasn’t ended. I am saddened by the death of Mr. Quattrocchi, but such things are an unavoidable cost of war. And that is exactly what the coalition troops and the Iraqi people are fighting.
Although it keeps getting said around here, apparently most people in the world still haven’t figured it out:
If all you’re carrying is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
The USA has the most powerful military the world has ever seen (well, since the sinking of Atlantis, anyways), and can’t be defeated by any other in the world. So, of COURSE the military is the solution to everything.
Olentzero That would be the same Rahul Mahajan who said: “United for peace and Justice is a very broad organization. The core organizers come from many different backgrounds – leftist, anarchist, liberal.
But there are also over 600 organizations around the country, mostly grassroots groups, that are members of UFPJ. They are a slice of America – mostly white and middle-class, unfortunately, but covering a very broad left-of-center political spectrum.” bolding mine [http://www.islam-online.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=wN1z0s]
Correct? The same Rahul Mahajan that urges us to buy his books, the same Rahul Mahajan who ran for the Greens, but wasn’t chosen, the same Rahul Mahajan who writes for the India Times and apparently, for Islam Online, correct?
Forgive me for not taking his pic of an ambulance-window [with no notable wounded] seriously.
What I don’t get is how people can say that burning a few innocent civilians alive in an attempt to turn foreign opinion against the occupation of your homeland can be wrong, when they see nothing wrong with us burning hundreds of innocent civilians alive in an attempt to occupy a foreign nation. Their tactics actually seem more humane - they are trying to get the most effect out of a few killings, and if they continue to do this they have a good chance of succeeding at their goal, which is to get us to leave them alone. They are making sure that the killings are getting as much public exposure as possible. We do everything we can to make sure the hundreds we burn to death go unreported.
As for the french journalist, since I read a detailled account about his abduction :
-He was present in a combat zone (which in itself isn’t surprising for a journalist), and eventually find himself alone, caught in cross-fires. So, it’s not like they were deliberatly searching a journalist to abduct somewhere.
-After being captured (actually he accepted to get in a police-like looking car, since despite him being warry, he thought he was going to be killed by the cross fire if he stayed there), he was actually thoroughly interrogated, the interrogatory being led by someone who seemed (to the journalist) accustomed to this kind of thing (so I would suspect a former police/secret police/military officer). He was apparently suspected of actually being a spy working for the US and not an actual journalist (they would tell him that the US used supposed civilians for this purpose). The interrogatory lasted apparently for quite a long time until they were satisfied with his responses.
So, it seems that he wasn’t caught as a potential hostage, but as a potential spy in a war zone and treated as such. Which is, IMO, entirely different. However, some Irakis (not the people detaining him, but people who wandered in for one reason or another) did want to shot him. An Iraki cleric who was present would have prevented it by saying that they would be criminal, sinners, etc…if they did so.
Another thing…I’ve seen some people mention that the tactic of kidnapping and killing foreigners has the negative result of making people think the Iraqis to be ‘subhuman savages’. I think this is exactly what they want. How are we justifying our current occupation of Iraq? We say the Iraqi people deserve to live in a free country, that they needed rescuing from a brutal regime. They WANT the world to say ‘Why bother?’, because when the good of the Iraqi people is not a factor, we have no legitimate reason to be there.
[QUOTE=gobearEvery option we have is a wrong one, and we have to choose the least wrong in a very confusing situation.[/QUOTE]
You know, call me clairvoyant or something, but it was pretty obvious what type of shitstorm invading Iraq would bring. Many people, myself included, saw it turning out pretty much exactly how it has. Anyone who thought these people would welcome us as liberators should be considered a fool of the highest magnitude.
Another pretty obvious prediction is to throw out this June 30th bullshit. Any power transfer will be solely for appearances, but I think things will be so fucked up, they won’t even try, they’ll just come up with some bullshit spin.
You know, call me clairvoyant or something, but it was pretty obvious what type of shitstorm invading Iraq would bring. Many people, myself included, saw it turning out pretty much exactly how it has. Anyone who thought these people would welcome us as liberators should be considered a fool of the highest magnitude.
Another pretty obvious prediction is to throw out this June 30th bullshit. Any power transfer will be solely for appearances, but I think things will be so fucked up, they won’t even try, they’ll just come up with some bullshit spin.
