so your saying that since these people are immoral, that gives some US Army soliders the right to be immoral ? eye for an eye type deal?
Yes. We lost it when Bush made the decision to start the war. Oh, there's no doubt we'll win all the battles we fight, but the war was lost a few days after 9-11.
so your saying that since these people are immoral, that gives some US Army soliders the right to be immoral ? The thinking goes like this. Let's look at Sadam's worst crimes. As long as we don't do quite as bad or if we do, but not on as big of a scale we are still the good guys, just doing what we have to do to prevent greater evil For instance, if our actions lead to the deaths of 200,000 Iraqis it is still for the best since Sdam killed 500,000, hew might have done it again so we are really saving the Iraqis. Besides they will probably thank us for it in 20 or 30 years.
What I'm trying to get at is the nature of propaganda during a conflict and how the manipulation of information is used to influence people's opinion. These pictures are an example of that. They are a blatant attack on the American sense of morality. We can look at the violence and keep emotionally removed but if an aspect of sexual humiliation is emphisized we see our own troops as monsters. What's really a bigger story, people dying or sexual humiliation? It's people dying!! And it's not even close; but the perpatrators of this story know you can't influence the American public with violence. The story on the mutilated soldiers bodies stayed on the front page less than a week, but throw a little sexual perversion into the fray...now you've got some outrage. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
Excellent observation. Andy, I have no idea why you take the time earnestly to debate this ass monkey. It has occurred to me recently that his posts are indicative of psychosis. I'm beginning to believe that he is seriously unhinged. In any event, he's clearly not very intelligent, and he's most certainly unwilling to partake in meaningful exchange around here. Max, on the other hand, and even the somewhat dull basso, are perfectly willing to dialogue, and I appreciate that quite a bit.
how can we in good faith preach (to the world) that we are morally above the terrorists, if we act like them?
These Baathist bastards are the same people that poisoned thousands of Kurds and tortured their own people. Did you see that we are putting a general, one of Chemical Ali's (he who gassed the Kurds) in charge of our Iraqi army to pacify Fallujah? link
andymoon, your silence after me asking you the questions regarding the War on Terror is quite telling. I guess you have reconsidered your position on the issue? Do you now agree that Iraq is part of the WOT? I guess so, otherwise you would rebut the very salient points that I raised.
I think that in the near future, men won't fight wars of violence. They will fight wars of public opinion using armies of Photoshop technicians. Less people will die but more good names will be shamed.
GP -- we expect death in combat. this isn't combat. these are prisoners. and there are rules for the treatment of prisoners...rules we expect other nations to follow when we have our own troops captured. when you don't play by those rules, you should be held accountable.
DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR: [n] a delusion (common in paranoia) that you are much greater and more powerful and influential than you really are. See Also: delusion, megalomania, psychotic belief
two words, Gene: Geneva Convention Max, one of the frustrating things dealing with some of these folks is that they don't recognize any international law. I've noticed that some of my friends who support Israel are threatened by the very notion of international law as Israel flaunts it so often. I'm not sure some of these folks would recognize the limits placed by the Geneva Convention, as the other side might not respect it. This and other instances show that especially when you are dealing from the strength that the US has it is best to follow it, if for no other reason than it allows you to not ony to appear but to remain the "good guy" and that in the long run is always important for our country. Not following it and trying to maintain spin will not work in the long run. People need to underatand that international law, the Geneva Convention, the Just War Theory etc. have been developed after 1000's of years of war and atrocities and aren't something to be disregarded because one supports Sharon, Bush and current leader or even a country.
A large percentage of the problems were perpetrated by contractors. They do not fall under any jurisdiction in the chaos that is Iraq. I think that is part of the reason the Bushies like using so many of them. Also , apparently the defense some of the soldiers plan on using is that no one told them what the Geneva convention was.
And besides, we threw out the rules of the GENEVA CONVENTION when we set up Gitmo. No telling what's going on there...
I'll let George's daddy do some of it for me... "We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome." And here's Clarke... "One lesson is that even though we are the world's only remaining superpower — as we were before Sept. 11, 2001 — we are seriously threatened by an ideological war within Islam. It is a civil war in which a radical Islamist faction is striking out at the West and at moderate Muslims. Once we recognize that the struggle within Islam — not a "clash of civilizations" between East and West — is the phenomenon with which we must grapple, we can begin to develop a strategy and tactics for doing so. It is a battle not only of bombs and bullets, but chiefly of ideas. It is a war that we are losing, as more and more of the Islamic world develops antipathy toward the United States and some even develop a respect for the jihadist movement. I do not pretend to know the formula for winning that ideological war. But I do know that we cannot win it without significant help from our Muslim friends, and that many of our recent actions (chiefly the invasion of Iraq) have made it far more difficult to obtain that cooperation and to achieve credibility. What we have tried in the war of ideas has also fallen short. It is clear that United States government versions of MTV or CNN in Arabic will not put a dent in the popularity of the anti-American jihad. Nor will calls from Washington for democratization in the Arab world help if such calls originate from a leader who is trying to impose democracy on an Arab country at the point of an American bayonet. The Bush administration's much-vaunted Middle East democracy initiative, therefore, was dead on arrival. We must also be careful, while advocating democracy in the region, that we do not undermine the existing regimes without having a game plan for what should follow them and how to get there. The lesson of President Jimmy Carter's abandonment of the shah of Iran in 1979 should be a warning. So, too, should we be chastened by the costs of eliminating the regime of Saddam Hussein, almost 25 years after the shah, also without a detailed plan for what would follow. Other parts of the war of ideas include making real progress on the Israel-Palestinian issue, while safe-guarding Israeli security, and finding ideological and religious counter-weights to Osama bin Laden and the radical imams. Fashioning a comprehensive strategy to win the battle of ideas should be given as much attention as any other aspect of the war on terrorists, or else we will fight this war for the foreseeable future. For even when Osama bin Laden is dead, his ideas will carry on. Even as Al Qaeda has had its leadership attacked, it has morphed into a hydra, carrying out more major attacks in the 30 months since 9/11 than it did in the three years before." ---------- "Occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." Looking at history, this doesn't have much chance of working out well for the occupying power. At some point, we'll have to pull out. We'll be haunted by this for a generation or more.
Have you ever heard of the word context? I know it's rarely used in political discussion. But the world would be a better place if people would keep comments in context. I'm as conservative as they come, but I can't stand someone pulling a comment made in a specific situation and trying to apply it across the board, even though the other person's general convictions are clear to anyone who wants to honestly evaluate them.
A couple more notes: * The military brass has known about this since January. It has only become publicly known because of the photos. * One of the more senior officers involved in this affair said in an interview with Dan Rather that this was merely a reflection of the overall attitude towards Iraqi priosonersthe from top down. Remarkably, one of the people accused of this atrocity earlier complained about unfit conditions of Iraqi prisoners, and of the lack of rules regarding soldiers behaviour in dealing with them. He says the word he got back was: ' We don't care if they ( Iraqi prisoners) have to sleep standing up.' and despite numerous complaints, no rules were ever sent down regarding treatment of Iraqi prisoners.
if true, i have very real problems with this. it's inexcusable, particularly for a country that plays the, "we're the best nation..we're fairer than others...we're for truth and justice...we demand the same of the world...card over and over again." i'm troubled by all of this.
