Iraq Giving Own Soldiers Western Uniforms

I saw this on Fox News a little while ago. Everyone here know I support Bush, I support his decision, I support the troops, and I am not terribly fond of anti-war hippies.

That being said I had this awkward thought: What if we leaked the uniform story because we were planning something and needed an alibi?

I feel dirty just thinking it but would feel better if the story was corraborated.

 

War is hell. There are no rules, for either side, and you can expect evil to spring up everywhere like a terrible weed. The U.S. is going to commit some attrocities as well. That's just the natural way.

Even simple things are going to happen. How many men do you think will cheat on their wives during this war. Its just ugly. It brings out the worst in everyone.

But war is still neccessary in my opinion. It saves lives.

I'm just saying the world should expect the worst. Nothing should really shock us. There are no rules, only the hope for human decency in what will be a living hell.

 

I think that is just too much conspiracy thinking there.

Most of the civilian casualities would most likely come from the air war and bombing within the 1st 48 hours. Bombs missing their targets, Saddam using human shields, incorrect reconaissence(sp?), and so on. I am going to guess that our troops on the ground will kill relatively few civilians simply because they can see who they are shooting and most civs won't be armed with weapons and will probably be waving white flags or begging for our help.

 

After they change their uniforms.. we should make a last second change as well .. Everyone gets a Yao Ming jersey!

 

Our troops will only shoot "civilians" who are pointing weapons at them. You will be able to tell the difference between "civilians" killed by us and civilians killed by the Republican Guard by whether or not a rifle is laying next to the body.

Despite what glynch and his anti-military buddies will try and tell you, we've gotten extremely good at cracking down on troops who unlawfully kill noncombatants. It is a guaranteed courts-martial. US troops have a pretty damn good track record here, especially in the last two decades.

All that said, though, I must warn that the Mukhabarat (Saddam's secret service) apparently has plans to attack us dressed as civilians. Just don't trust first impressions here...

 

or the fact that they will drop a couple thousand bombs on the capital in a couple of days. im thinking not all of them will hit saddam and his 'forces'.

 

they are smart it will only hit saddam's force

 

yeah i know...did you read what i said? if they miss it will most likely be because of mistakes, not because they are trying to bomb civs on purpose. there is no point in bombing civilians on purpose.

 

Oh no! boy has exposed our secret! That we're planning on massively bombing the Iraqi people when the war starts! Sh*t, this really throws a wrench into our plans... Guess we'll just have to call the war off...

boy - I suppose that since we didn't kill tens of thousands in Afghanistan as you said we would, we'll have to make up for the shortfall in Iraq? You know, your track record in predicting these issues isn't too great... Perhaps because you have an irrational bias against the United States spawned by ignorance?

 

Why would they bother to copy the uniforms down to the last detail? If you're close enough to study the minute details of the uniform, won't you also be close enough to see the guy in the uniform is an Iraqi? It isn't unlikely that there will be some Middle-eastern solidiers in American groundforces, but a whole company of them, with no whites or blacks -- well, that might be cause for some suspicion.

Chance, I know what you're saying about an American alibi. It does make it convenient in case we accidentally shoot civilians when you can say, no it was Iraqis pretending to be us. The US has done similar reports for awhile about how Iraq will do all these things to itself and blame America -- telling us now to undercut Iraq's credibility later but simultaneously giving us an excuse if we really do do it. It is going to be a chaotic situation and I doubt we can fully trust anybody when it comes to atrocities.

Treeman, I appreciate your argument about punishing civilian killings. But, accidents do happen, especially when you have an enemy engaging in guerilla tactics (which may happen). Policemen in the States shoot people for holding a cell phone (how accidental those are is debatable, I suppose) so I know it's possible, even probable, for ground forces to kill innocent bystanders. That comes with the territory.

 

JV:

Yes, accidents will happen. It is almost guaranteed. The only thing that really irks me is the contention by some that we will intentionally commit atrocities - that is just straight out of Oliver Stone, and has no basis in reality. Our military is acutely aware of such accusations, and we are also acutely aware of all of the TV cameras that follow us into combat now. Such incidents are a thing of the past.

As I said, accidents will happen (it is the nature of warfare), and there will be occasional nutcases. When such incidents happen, those responsible will be held responsible. But the idea that we would intentionally commit atrocities of the type that people such as glynch and boy accuse - it is just indicative of their general ignorance about how the US military operates nowadays. I also find it offensive.

 

I don't believe American soldiers would intentionally try to kill civilians. Using 300 cruise missles in one day against Baghdad (which is about the amount that was used during the entire gulf war I) might not be intentinoally killing civilians but it sure isn't assuring that civilians don't get hurt. And even the Pentagon estimates that only about 80% of the 'smart bombs' hit within a few yards of their target in Afghanistan. Since Baghdad isn't a desert with a few huts...that number is bound to be higher. Since Baghdad has millions of people...the casualities are bound to be higher. And even in Afghanistan the conservative figures put the civilian death toll at a couple thousand do they not?

 

boy:

So you admit that we're not going to do it on purpose - great. That is a major step in the right direction... You're way ahead of glynch so far.

As I said before - yes, there will be accidents. They are practically inevitable in warfare. As I have also said before (many times, though apparently to deaf ears), we are very conscious of where civilians might be, who our bombs might hit, etc. We are not going to intentionally bomb any building that is not militarily related; we are going to restrict our bombs to places where civilians shouldn't be. If they are in an area where they shouldn't be, then they are either idiots or they were put there by Saddam, either way it will just be too bad... It will not deter us from destroying core targets.

We are also going to use nonlethal munitions wherever possible (although not against core Baathist or RG targets) in order to minimize any collateral damage; microwave bombs, carbon filament munitions, and the like will disable infrastructure without destroying it or killing anyone. The last time around, we made the mistake of regarding the Iraqi army, and to a certain extent the Iraqi populace, as enemies. That was a serious mistake that we are not going to repeat. This time around we are going to regard them as captives/hostages, not enemies. Of course, if they try to fight us they will be destroyed, but for the most part we are going to try to kill as few of them as we possibly can. We are going to have to live with them for a long time.

I realize that you do not trust us, and that nothing I say will change your mind. The results must speak for themselves. And in this case the results will either be damning or reassuring; we are doing everything possible to ensure that they will not be damning.

As far as Afghanistan goes, there were certainly accidents there, and innocent civilians did die. That is regrettable. I would not, however, put too much stock in the 2,000 figure, though; two major factors:

1) Afghan warlords fed us faulty intelligence in order to settle old scores. They used us to murder their enemies. That will not happen in Iraq.

2) The enemy did not wear uniforms, and every Joe had a gun. It is difficult to say who was a 'civilian' and who was not. Undoubtedly many of those counted in that tally were Taliban/Al Qaeda, they simply weren't with a unit when killed and therefore did not count in our 'enemy KIA' tallies. That certainly distorted the figure.

 

Well lets just say I think its very naive to think that you can bomb the hell out of Baghdad and expect the civilian casualty to be 'relatively low'. I don't think they want to kill civilians but I also don't think they'll do everything they should and can to prevent it. Regardless this war is crap. It's disgusting. and regardless Kurds are still gonna get screwed over.

After all how many people were killed in the first Gulf War?

I'm not from Kuwait...and I really didn't hear about that. I think I'll do some research.

 

I can understand how one would think it naive if they had little to no understanding of US military operational procedures, tactics, and weaponry. Like I said, the results will just have to speak for themselves.

Like I said, core targets will be bombed regardless. But aside from core targets, if there is even a possibility in the minds of mission planners then the sortie will be cancelled or turned back. That is common practice, and happens all the time (one reason civilian casualties are *relatively low* when we fight).

How do you figure that? They are going to be an integral part of the new government, will no longer be under threat of annihilation by Saddam, and will likely get rich off of Kirkuk and Mosul. Your statement does not compute...

Civilians? About 3,000 give or take. About 400 in a single regrettable incident (a military intelligence bunker was being used by civilians during an air raid - probably a bad idea which originated with Iraqi military intelligence). In a war in which over a million and a half soldiers clashed, and more tonnage was dropped than during WWII, that is a pretty damn good number. Compare to every other major war since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and it is a *miniscule* number. It should be smaller this time around.

 

slate

How Screwed Are the Kurds?
Anatomy of a sellout.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, March 3, 2003, at 4:20 PM PT


For Kurds, getting screwed is a tradition. Great Britain, France, and Italy screwed the Kurds in 1920 when the Treaty of Sèvres divvied up the Ottoman Empire without making a firm commitment to create a Kurdish state. Modern Turkey screwed the Kurds in 1923 by ignoring what faint assurances had been made at Sèvres and putting down a Kurdish rebellion and, subsequently, by suppressing Kurdish language and culture. (Kurdish rebellions were also put down by Iraq in 1923 and 1932.) Iran screwed the Kurds in 1947 by wiping out the nascent Soviet-backed Kurdish republic of Mahabad; screwed them again in 1975 when it ended a brief alliance with the Kurds against their common enemy, Iraq; and screwed them a third time in 1979 when the newly installed Ayatollah Khomeini cracked down on an autonomous Kurdish enclave in Iran. Iraq screwed the Kurds by failing to abide by a 1970 agreement to grant them autonomy; screwed them again by driving Kurds across the border into Iran in 1974 and 1991; and screwed them a third time—actually "screwed" doesn't really cover it—by gassing the town of Halabja in 1988. This last is the incident President Bush frequently refers to when he says, in justifying war with Iraq, that Saddam Hussein "gassed his own people."


Now the United States is poised to screw the Kurds one more time.

In securing agreement to move U.S. troops through Turkey for an Iraqi invasion, the U.S. government has agreed to pay a bribe of up to $30 billion and has also made certain bargains that it isn't eager to spell out. ("I don't have the details of the agreement," a State Department spokesman told the press on Feb. 25.) The bargains affect vital security concerns for the Kurds in Iraq, who since the establishment of the post-Gulf War no-fly zone have enjoyed autonomy from Saddam Hussein and have nurtured precisely the sort of democratic institutions that the United States wants to introduce throughout the Arab world. This Kurdish enclave lies in northern Iraq, bordering Turkey. The Turkish government fears that Kurds who live on Turkey's southern border, who are already in rebellion, will want to join it.

The U.S.-Turkish bargains are on hold for the moment, because the Turkish parliament failed to ratify the U.S. agreement. But the cash register is still open, and there's talk about taking a second vote. Before any such vote occurs, let's consider how thoroughly the U.S. government plans to sell out the Kurds.

In the Feb. 27 Washington Post, Philip P. Pan and Daniel Williams report that the United States has agreed to let up to 40,000 Turkish troops into northern Iraq (this according to a Turkish government official). According to Owen Matthews and Babak Dehghanpisheh in Newsweek, that's a low-ball. They put the number of troops the United States will allow into northern Iraq at 80,000 and say that the Turks may be allowed to proceed as many as 270 kilometers into Iraq, which is "nearly the whole of Iraqi Kurdistan." Reportedly, another part of the U.S. agreement with Turkey is to disarm Kurdish troops when the war against Iraq is over.

The Turks say their only interest is to secure a buffer zone to control the flow of refugees and protect the area's Turkmen minority. Nobody believes this, least of all the Kurds, who are convinced the move would block formal establishment of an autonomous Kurdistan state within the newly liberated Iraq (by agreement with the United States, the Kurds have renounced any claim to full independence from Iraq). The end result of a war fought partly to avenge Saddam's gassing of the Kurds would be to rob the Kurds of what little autonomy they enjoy today. They'd be worse off than they are now.

In screwing the Kurds, the U.S. government would also be screwing itself. That's because a Turkish occupation of northern Iraq will likely prompt Iran to send in troops to defend its own interests. (Indeed, Borzou Daragahi of the Associated Press reports that some Iranian troops are there already.) Even assuming, then, that the war against Iraq goes entirely smoothly, the United States could easily become embroiled in a second war between the Kurds, the Turks, and the Iranians.

Add it all up, and Turkey's refusal to admit U.S. troops onto its soil starts to look like a very lucky break. The Pentagon says it can fight Iraq without going through Turkey, but that it will be more difficult. But selling out the Kurds would not only be immoral, but dangerous for the United States. If this war can't be fought another way, it isn't worth fighting at all.

 

Two points on that:

1) the Turks would only be allowed in were they accompanied by US troops (who would prevent them from attacking the Kurds). We have been the guarantor of Kurdish safety in northern Iraq for the past 12 years, and we are not about to abandon them to the Turks now. That is pure, 100% speculation on the part of the author with no historical base in reality.

2) Isn't the issue of Turks entering northern Iraq pretty much dead since they refused to support us? They may still try to enter Iraq, but they will find American troops on the ground standing in their way now. Unless they reconsider their vote (and very quickly, I might add) they are no longer welcome in northern Iraq. And even if they were, they would be closely monitored by us.