Yeah I love reading the debate, but I was away for a time, and missed a section where both made multipiple posts. Now It's really difficult finding out who posted what and was replying to who's quotes.
That's what happens when you occupied another country. That's why the founding fathers believed in isolationism. War is sure different these days, in the old days, the victor gets to murder, pillage and run the people to the ground because it really doesn't affect other countries and they really don't care until you become a threat to them. But in today's small interconnected world, you do something like that and it throws up a flag and everyone else will distrust you and point a couple more nukes your way just in case.
That Marine is a hero!!!, and he should be honored as doing the right thing!!!. He made a choice towards rationale preservation for himself and his squad...The thug terrorists booby trapped dead bodies and the result was the death of some good United States soldiers...It is an extreme low for even the derth of low-life terrorists... "Acting dead" is clearly an act of hostile intent, since the apparent state of death or incapacitation is used by the enemy terrorists as a clearly defined offensive tactic against our brave troops... The awesome fragmentation, and power of the 5.56mm round helped keep the terrorist dead,...Good!
All of the bold text is giddyup, all of the normal text is nyquill. It is much simpler if you think of it that way.
In another reported incident, Amnesty said, some Iraqis had come out of a building waving a white flag. But when a marine approached this group, insurgents opened fire. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1351589,00.html NBC cameraman Kevin Sites, who captured the footage of the Marines 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment, told investigators that a day earlier a Marine from the same unit had been killed when he tended to the booby-trapped body of an insurgent. http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,328145,00.html
Thanks. I had heard of one incident. I hadn't heard that it was wide spread. The white flag thing is slightly different. I was just surprised when some people were saying that the bombs on supposedly dead bodies was a common tactic. I had only heard of one incident.
REally what we did to the whole populace of Fallujah is more important than the one incident. ************* Amnesty International declared on Monday that the rules of war protecting civilians and wounded combatants have been broken by both sides in the assault. It also warned of a looming humanitarian crisis "with acute shortages of food, water, medicine and with no electricity. There are also many wounded people who could not receive medical care becuse of the fighting." A spokeswoman for Amnesty told AP: "According to what we're hearing and some testimony from residents who have fled, it looks like the toll of civilian casualties is high." • An Associated Press dispatch on Monday quoted Marine Sgt. Todd Bowers, who is helping determine reconstruction needs: "It's incredible, the destruction. It's overwhelming. My first question is: Where to begin?" • BBC reporter Paul Wood, embedded with the Marines, also described bodies lying in the streets, which were "starting to become a serious health risk." He had talked to a Marine officer who said that "cats and dogs are now starting to eat these bodies. It is a quite horrific picture which I'm drawing but that is what awaits the people of Fallujah when they come back." The reporter added that he could not imagine "how people are going to feel when they see their city and they see the holes in the mosques and they see the destruction that has been wrought by this battle." • Anne Barnard of The Boston Globe noted that the military says it took every possible step to minimize civilian casualties, but "the methods used -- air strikes and artillery and tank fire from a distance -- make it difficult to know whether civilians are caught under fire." U.S. forces had urged Fallujans trapped in the city to stay in their homes, but "troops using thermal sights often assumed that if there was a 'hot spot' inside a house — indicating body heat — the people inside were insurgents." • Officials with the International Red Cross decried the continuing ban on sending aid and ambulances into the combat zones. Fallujah General Hospital was well supplied but held no patients, as none of the injured had been able to reach it. Equally disturbing: While we are starting to get a sense of the human effects of the "means," we still have no idea of how, when, or whether, this will ever "end." link
I don't believe we are out to colonize Iraq in the sense that 19th C. Brits thought of it but we are certainly out to impose our value systems on them which is almost as arrogant. If I have some more time I'll see if I can find the quote where Rumsfeld said that an Iranian style Islamic republic would be unacceptable. In the meantime I'll put the question to you. What do you think will happen if within a few years the Iraqis end up democratically electing an Iranian style government whose first action is to nationalize the oil industry? Keep in mind that this isn't far fetched because even in countries like Egypt and Jordan religious conservative parties have won when relatively free elections were allowed only to be kept from taking power by the government. In addition to that where opinion polls can be trusted in Iraq most Iraqis have favored having an Islamic government with socialist tendancies rather than a western capitalistic one.
At some point removed, we won't be able to have much influence on what goes on. There are practical limits on what these people can imagine for themselves because of the duress under which they have been ruled for the past 30 years and what they have been exposed to. The American Experiment was so bold because it was geographically insulated by a 2-month voyage and no overnight news reports.
Well we are seeiing it and discussing the execution of the wounded Iraqi. This is how it is playing in Iraq and the Arab World. From the most prominent blogger in Iraq. ************* Tuesday, November 16, 2004 American Heroes... I'm feeling sick- literally. I can't get the video Al-Jazeera played out of my head: The mosque strewn with bodies of Iraqis- not still with prayer or meditation, but prostrate with death- Some seemingly bloated… an old man with a younger one leaning upon him… legs, feet, hands, blood everywhere… The dusty sun filtering in through the windows… the stillness of the horrid place. Then the stillness is broken- in walk some marines, guns pointed at the bodies... the mosque resonates with harsh American voices arguing over a body- was he dead, was he alive? I watched, tense, wondering what they would do- I expected the usual Marines treatment- that a heavy, booted foot would kick the man perhaps to see if he groaned. But it didn't work that way- the crack of gunfire suddenly explodes in the mosque as the Marine fires at the seemingly dead man and then come the words, "He's dead now." "He's dead now." He said it calmly, matter-of-factly, in a sort of sing-song voice that made my blood run cold… and the Marines around him didn't care. They just roamed around the mosque and began to drag around the corpses because, apparently, this was nothing to them. This was probably a commonplace incident. We sat, horrified, stunned with the horror of the scene that unfolded in front of our eyes. It's the third day of Eid and we were finally able to gather as a family- a cousin, his wife and their two daughters, two aunts, and an elderly uncle. E. and my cousin had been standing in line for two days to get fuel so we could go visit the elderly uncle on the final day of a very desolate Eid. The room was silent at the end of the scene, with only the voice of the news anchor and the sobs of my aunt. My little cousin flinched and dropped her spoon, face frozen with shock, eyes wide with disbelief, glued to the television screen, "Is he dead? Did they kill him?" I swallowed hard, trying to gulp away the lump lodged in my throat and watched as my cousin buried his face in his hands, ashamed to look at his daughter. "What was I supposed to tell them?" He asked, an hour later, after we had sent his two daughters to help their grandmother in the kitchen. "What am I supposed to tell them- 'Yes darling, they killed him- the Americans killed a wounded man; they are occupying our country, killing people and we are sitting here eating, drinking and watching tv'?" He shook his head, "How much more do they have to see? What is left for them to see?" They killed a wounded man. It's hard to believe. They killed a man who was completely helpless- like he was some sort of diseased animal. I had read the articles and heard the stories of this happening before- wounded civilians being thrown on the side of the road or shot in cold blood- but to see it happening on television is something else- it makes me crazy with anger. And what will happen now? A criminal investigation against a single Marine who did the shooting? Just like what happened with the Abu Ghraib atrocities? A couple of people will be blamed and the whole thing will be buried under the rubble of idiotic military psychologists, defense analysts, Pentagon officials and spokespeople and it will be forgotten. In the end, all anyone will remember is that a single Marine shot and killed a single Iraqi 'insurgent' and it won't matter anymore. It's typical American technique- every single atrocity is lost and covered up by blaming a specific person and getting it over with. What people don't understand is that the whole military is infested with these psychopaths. In this last year we've seen murderers, torturers and xenophobes running around in tanks and guns. I don't care what does it: I don't care if it's the tension, the fear, the 'enemy'… it's murder. We are occupied by murderers. We're under the same pressure, as Iraqis, except that we weren't trained for this situation, and yet we're all expected to be benevolent and understanding and, above all, grateful. I'm feeling sick, depressed and frightened. I don't know what to say anymore… they aren't humans and they don't deserve any compassion. So why is the world so obsessed with beheadings? How is this so very different? The difference is that the people who are doing the beheadings are extremists… the people slaughtering Iraqis- torturing in prisons and shooting wounded prisoners- are "American Heroes". Congratulations, you must be so proud of yourselves today link
The American Experiment was so bold because it was geographically insulated by a 2-month voyage and no overnight news reports. Yeah the genocide of a hundred million Native Americans would have received negative attention. Oh for the good ol days of the imperilaism of old, Giddy, when we could just have conquered Iraq, slaughtered hundreds of thosands of them (instead of the mere one hundred thousand which seems to be pretty acceptable) and not have to worry about the news mediia.
You're talking about the Wild West. I'm talking about the founding of the country. That's a century apart. I await your apology. You have twisted the point I was making about the role of the news media and used it against me in a perverted way. What makes you think I prefer to increase the general body count of Iraqis. Don't make me call a moderator! I care about dead insurgents who stand in the way of a free Iraq. The fewer the better but in the end get them all if they don't recant. Is there any doubt that technology such as television plays a role in the outcome of modern history? I didn't long for those days; I just observed that the absence of it was a factor in the success of the American Revolultion. 100 Million native Americans? Really? Do you have a convenient link to a bit of evidence about this? That is nearly two-thirds of the current US population. Gee, we (errr Our Ancestors) were awful people!
Giddy that's when the killing started. It didn't start with the wild west. Ben Franklin himself wrote about ways to train/starve attack dogs so that they could send them into Indian villages to wipe them all out. Our founding fathers had no problem wiping out entrie Indian villages including women and children.
I'm surprised to find that out; I'm not sure that I believe it all either. Have you snoped these facts yet?
