No one may have claimed it but no one truely knows. When the ambush is triggered, the last thing those soldiers are thinking about is, "Wonder how those kids are doing over there?" Instead, they are thinking and reacting to the IED going off and the rounds going overhead. They are returning fire on combatants. Innocent people do get killed. It's a fact of life. This is just the assumption that these kids were innocent. The US has been in that region for long enough for these people to know that if something happens, they should get out of their as soon as possible. I wouldn't doubt these kids were going for souvenirs or even to find some unfortunate American sitting in a burning humvee so that they could spit on him or beat him. If there are any fingers to be pointed, it is as these insurgents, these terrorists, who choose to maliciously ambush American convoys in populated areas. These guerillas purposely do this because they know that if civlians are killed, the media and the anti-American public will eat these stories up and throw support away from the US. Why else would these hate filled animalistic groups of bandits trigger deadly ambushes and engage in firefights in the midst of populated areas? They care more about making the US look bad in the eyes of the world than they do about their own people. That is why they will always kill each other over divisions of their own religion.
I mentioned the fact that a 12-year old with a rifle is a very dangerous animal because I was trying to illustrate a point that sometimes, children are legitimate targets. It's an ugly fact of war. Now in this case, I'm sure either the insurgents killed them or they were caught in the crossfire. The lesson to be learned is this: don't smile and celebrate the deaths of Americans.
nice pictures... It certainly isn't our goal to do this, we want peace and pacificism...The terroristic carriers of the past,...the Islamic religiousity maniac, the common ill-minded thug...These are the 3 main groups linked towards the mantra of terroristic doers...who want no part of the better future in Iraq that we, and the majority of Iraqi people want... We definitely need to work on more cooperation and Iraqis to stand up as leaders, but it is difficult when any true sniff of opposing "leadership" ideals were met with harsher death than any of the pictures could possibly portray times tens of thousands... We are doing good, and fighting magnificiently considering all parameters, and circumstances...the others must remember...freedom isn't free. I am only beyond proud,...True heros (the American freedom fighter) who have lived and paid the ultimate price have embraced this philosophy with righteous action...
FYI, khat (the "stuff" that stains their teeth), is not at all halucinogenic, it is a mild stimulant, slightly stronger than coca leaves (not the processed cocaine, just the leaves). It is not banned in Africa yet because of its longstanding traditional uses, but it is about as dangerous as pot (in that there are no known deaths because of it) and is not particularly mind altering. You are getting as loose as the GOP with your facts.
Khat is a narcotic and it was khat that the Somalis were high on when the events of October 3, 1993 happened.
I never attributed fault, I simply stated those are the pictures they see in Arab media. Most of them predate the fall of Baghdad. Who do you think we killed the first two times the US claimed to have killed Saddam? And we only know about those specific incidents because the Bushies bragged about it.
Khat is extremely mild, much more so than pot. It is not hallucinogenic at all, but it is not surprising that it was being used by Somalis. It is like coffee to them. I call on you to read the literature about the substances you choose to demonize.
Mild or not, the bottom line is that khat is a narcotic that is amphetamine like. It alters one's reality. Americans regularly partake of alcoholic beverages, but there is no excuse for belligerence or the actions taken while intoxicated. The same goes for khat. These idiots get high on khat and do their thing. By the way andy, why are you taking the side of these terrorists and their dirty habits?
All right Mr. Know-it-all, who was there? You or......me? I didn't try the stuff so I don't know whether or not it made them see tracers. But I know it had an effect on them like speed and the dark brown stains on their teeth alone just made me sick to even look at the bastards. They were definitely geeked up on the stuff continually and I guess we all assumed over there it had more of an effect than what it did. This is beside the point. Way......beside the point.
Maybe the Fisk pictures are the results of bombs dropped by our clean well educated pilots flying comfotable climate controlled planes who don't even see the people they kill. We know that they have killed hundreds of innocent Iraqi children. I know these pilots should go back for lunch break with a clean conscience. According to many that is what should be, since they are ordered to do so by Bush who is elected in a domocracy. Futhermore these pilots aren't "animals" or "terrorists" who deserve to die like Iraqi adults or even Iraqi children who think they are fighting foreign invaders. Even in Israel some of the elite pilots were having problems with this type of thinking that many find so comforting.
So in Glynch's world, all of our pilots are baby-killing sadists, eh? Sure...right. We go out of our way (to ridiculous extremes, I might add) to not kill civilians. The Iraqi insurgents know we will respect life and use our kindness against us, as the North Vietnamese did in Hanoi. So do you still think our pilots are evil bastards, Glynch? Every time I turn around you've posted some negative, defeatist crap about the war. Do you really want us to lose this war? Just wondering.
I wasn't implying that you said it was our fault-- just a general comment about anti-war thinking. I don't remember this bragging you speak of. They never said they "got" Saddam until they did. They revealed some of their military actions after-the-fact based on intelligence that had been gathered. I wouldn't call that bragging.... but I understand why you do.
We go out of our way (to ridiculous extremes, I might add) to not kill civilians. Yeah, right. Give me a break. Tunnel vision leads to maroonic comments like this. We just started a war that was unneeded, thousands of miles away from our shores, when sanctions were succeeding in preventing the country from being a threat, against overwhelming world opinion, against the judgment of virtually all major world religious leaders, without UN support, that we knew would certainly kill hundreds if not thousands of innocent children. This after, by most reliable accounts, our policies led to the death of hundreds of thousands of children due to destroying their clean water and sewerage facitlities. Yet we go to ridiculous extremes to not kill civilians. Yet we go to ridiculous extremes to not kill civilians. Yet we go to ridiculous extremes to not kill civilians. Keep repeating it, but this lie won't hold, even if you believe it. More importantly even if half of Americans believe in this Santa Clause type view of our actions, the Iraqis, the Arabs and most of the rest of the world don't which has real world consequences. I guess Macbeth says it best, quoting from Orwell "War is Peace" Elective war , yet Yet we go to ridiculous extremes to not kill civilians. The war folks actually beleive this.
Word, glynch. Excellent post. That's exactly why I almost never post in D&D anymore. What's the damn point? I too read giddyup's post (and others in this thread about how killing innocent - or even not totally innocent - kids was inevitable and LOL necessary) and thought, IT WAS AN ELECTIVE WAR. Folks on the right act like we're heroically defending ourselves against terrorists in Iraq. We chose to be there and, when we did, we invented the bulk of the terrorists that are there now. And all we get from the Uncle Tim's (I wouldn't know about bamabammer - he's on ignore) is how we're doing what we have to. None of this is something we had to do. None of it. Every innocent who dies on account of it dies because George W. Bush preferred this war. Because he wanted it. But what's the use complaining. I didn't even mean to post about the war. It's folly talking about it with the few cranks that still stick up for it around here. Only meant to say great post. Great post.
I am not taking the side of terrorists and if you continue to act like him, I will start treating you like I treat t_j. I was merely making the comment that khat cannot be blamed for those people's actions as it is not a strong drug and is certainly not hallucinogenic, as bama stated. In addition, it does very little to "alter one's reality," as it is analogous to caffeine, though a bit stronger. In addition, khat has been used by these people for centuries, it is like their coffee. My point is that those people (or kids) in Somalia were not "high," they were feeling what you might after 2-3 no-doz.
You were there, not me. Again, I am just saying that you shouldn't blam khat for the behavior of those kids. They were doing what they (or their elders) wanted to do and khat did nothing to coerce or inflame those passions. Soory for the derail, it just pi$$es me off when people go off demonizing substances when it is the PEOPLE that need to be blamed. Aside from substances created specifically for the purpose, drugs do not brainwash people.
Well, smart guy, if we didn't give a damn about civilians, why not carpet bomb Fallujah? A couple of B-1's and B-52's would take care of business nicely. No more insurgents, no more people period. Why waste all that money on precision-guided munitions when you can just obliterate city blocks by the score? Why even send ground troops without raining hell upon a city with artillery rocket launchers, cluster bombs and fuel-air explosives. How about that finger of God, the MOAB bomb? I imagine it would kill some insurgents plus the entire population of a town. If you didn't get my Swiftian satire, well, here is my point. If we wanted to, we could anhilate Fallujah with only a few fast mover sorties. But we don't. Why you ask? Because we are adverse to killing "innocent" civilians. It is no longer acceptable to the American people to bomb civilian areas, even though our enemies will use our kindness against us by hiding combatants and material in "safe" zones in schools and other civilian areas. I know you hate and distrust the military, but seriously, remember, people like me you hate so much once defended your right to parrot DNC talking points and make a general ass of yourself by being on the same side as our enemies. I know you want us to lose in Iraq. But unlike the Rockets, we won't get a higher draft pick out of a loss.
