The US, UN & Iraq II

Gautam and Steve

This is the 5th day of the war and our guys are on the outskirts of Baghdad----most of the action has taken place at night when you brave souls are tucked safely in your beds after you have stuffed yourselves on pretzels and beer while watching the war unfold. Tell me about the accidents and the civilian casualties rigged by Saddams thugs. Why don't you show the people with their tongues cut out by the thugs(barbarians) of the most odious regime since Stalins.

Your self righteous squealings are more likely to receive sympathy on Arab forums---why don't you try those.

Wilso - Please add a label to photos like that! I really didn't want to see that.

I'm still waiting for the outrage from you good people toward the execution of our POWS

I'm still waiting for the outrage from you good people toward the execution of our POWS

Are you holding your breath?

Stick to the facts. They are tragic enough. You dont have to add fiction to it.

Perception,

- They are at the "outskirts" of Baghdad - 100 miles away the last time I heard.
- There was no doubt abt the fact that the allied forces will win this war. Afterall, when you use, improbable as it may sound, but true in this case, a machine gun on an ant, does the ant has any chance of survival ?
- Yeah, we are safely tucked away in our beds. Is that wrong ? Or do you want us to sit in front of the American and British propoganda machines at night as well ? How excatly are you spending yr nights my friend ?
- Thank god I dont eat pretezels, I am afraid I might choke on them and faint
- Cutting off tongues is not the reason why Iraq was invaded - was it ?
- Maybe you can take yr posts to the "I love Bush" type of boards. Remember, always practise what you preach. As far as I am aware, there are more antiwar people here than pro war - not that it is a popularity contest.

And finally, the outrage you see on these boards are against the lies and spin which are being propogated by our leaders. Not against the brave soliders, who are in our thoughts and prayers, fighting an unneccessary war to promote interests of Bush and his cronies.

And before you turn blue from holding yr breath, there is no proof that those soldiers were "executed". Even if they were - remember what pro-war people said somewhere on this discussion - collateral damage of innocent lives cannot be avoided....well, each life is precious, and outrage should be expressed at every life lost, soldier or civilan, executed or not.

Reading through the past few pages of posts, I get the same feeling I've had throughout the onset and progress of this war. I keep thinking of a description of a rape in which one side says, Aw, it's too bad she has to be raped and I'm sure the guy will do his best not to leave bruises. But WOW, look at the guy's prowess, the clever moves he's making. We watched a previous rape twelve years ago and the moves he's making now are so much more impressive, so much more sophisticated and practiced! Look at that damn woman. She's trying to scratch his eyes out. Now isn't that typical. What aren't you people who are defending her even noticing that. What a bitch. What a bunch of phoney anti-rapists. Look what she's trying to do to him!

Gautam wrote:

And finally, the outrage you see on these boards are against the lies and spin which are being propogated by our leaders.

I think your leaders in India would object to this comment just as I do. Could you be more specific about the actual lies that you have been told?

From a short debate between Richard Perle and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the European Parliament's Green party.

http://foreignpolicy.com/issue_mayjune_2003/debate.html

Thus we here in Canada probably have a bit of extra time, what with France having to be 'dealt with'.

I think we have covered this ground before perception. You know that I strongly believe that the whole reason for this war is spin and lies. Oh, and when it comes to lieing and spin - Indian politicians take the cake.

Well, you've got mine. If these POWs were indeed executed, that is an outrageous and needlessly cruel act.

Now what, though? What has me saying this proven to you or shown you, that you couldn't already have assumed?

I'd also agree that if it is true, it would be merely in line with the behaviour Saddam Hussein has demonstrated throughout his regime as a brutal and unscrupulous dictator.

Now my instinct is to say: now what about you, what do you say of those 70-some innocent civilians torn apart by shrapnel and the like? But I know that it is a senseless question, because we come from different places.

Many of us here, me too, consider this war both illegal and unnecessary. Iraq has conspicuously not been proven to pose a clear and present danger to the US or to world security of any of the acuteness that would warrant breaking off the UN process when only a few more months were asked, violating the wish of the Security Council. Without the support of the Security Council, this war is according to many legal experts and even soem UK administration officials plain unlawful. For those of us who think so, therefore, every civilian casualty is a crime - a victim of illegal aggression. Which would make me ask for your outrage about them. But to you, considering this war to you seems both necessary and legal, they're just excusable collateral damage. No matter how many of them there will be.

Regarding collateral damage, you might want to take a look at this. So far, the Washington Post is the only online source I've seen.

Nimb wrote:

<Now my instinct is to say: now what about you, what do you say of those 70-some innocent civilians torn apart by shrapnel and the like? But I know that it is a senseless question, because we come from different places.>

This implication "because we come from different places" really disturbs me. The premise being that you are more civilized about collateral damage and that we are very callous and willing to shrug it off. You didn't seem to worry about collateral damage to Germany when we were trying to free your country from Hitler.
Your memory is very short and your lack of gratitude is conspicuouly absent.

You are correct with your recent post saying that I would be disappointed by your responses to me.

Most anti-war people were predicting civilian casualties in the hundreds of thousands---we were going to incinerate Baghdad---so far even the Iraqi Propaganda machine can only confirm approximately 200 civilian casualties.

I also object to your implication that execution of POWS is no more serious than collateral damage----your possession of the moral high ground just turned to quicksand as do most of your other arguments.

Timber

I'm sure you're right, its early days yet, unfortunately. A lot of us bought into this war because we naively believed those who told us Saddam's regime was brittle and would fall like a house of cards. Its not.

You say about the apache gunship



well it wasn't that controlled a landing, as it put down in enemy territory.



Were not the 6 soldiers captured from a mechanics/support unit bringing up kit to the front lines?

I have no wish to spread gloom and despondancy, just trying to be realistic about the situation.

Fact: The initial attempt to decapitate the regime failed. Saddam still had a head this morning
Fact: Raising the Stars and Stripes in Umm Qasr was a mistake. A totally needless gesture which immediately gave the impression, however misguided, that this was indeed an aggressive war of conquest and not a liberation. That gesture will cost many lives.
Fact: The Iraqis are not rushing out to shower our troops with flowers. They may hate Saddam, but they are dubious about coalition motives, and they don't like their country being invaded either. They will fight, for Allah and for Iraq.

Perc

you say



I state what I understand to be facts. I make it clear when I am stating an opinion. The indignant squeals tend to come in response to what I write, not from me.

and



I have no wish to see such pictures myself, but for those who are interested, I'm sure they will find them, if they exist.

More odious than Pol Pot? These comparisons are really not worth pursuing. When this war is over, do doubt N Korea will be the most odious regime since Saddam's.

Perc., what is the source of the collateral damage estimates by the anti-war people? I am curious, for I have read very different polls. Actually heard, NPR was making their own survey on how people estimate the number of dead in this war. Highest number that was mentioned was 'somewhere in thousands'.

But you may well be right. It depends on what is exactly cosidered 'collateral damage'. Is it just people who are killed directly by the coalition weapons? If so, it will surely not exceed a few thousand, hopefully it will remain on the level of just a few hundred. But those that will die of starvation and dyhadration, will they be counted in? They will surely not make it into an official number, but I can see how anti-war activists may include them in theirs. I certainly will not forget them. Or should we shrug and conclude it is overall better for the iraqi people in the long run? Many will keep dying after war, until the humanitarian aid won't be resumed (we're looking at weeks if not months). I don't like any people being killed anywhere, and if they are POWs, it is a breach of Geneva Conventions to which Iraq is a party, I believe. But I am with nimh. It is outrageous, but what does our outrage prove or change?

Dagmar

My point is that the civilian casualties are not in the tens of thousands as predicted by the doom and gloom prognosticaters.

To put it into perspective---we have probably lost more people on the highways of the US during this same period of time---all are tragic of course.

The humanitarian supplies will commence as soon as the possibility of mines in the harbor has been minimized. We have purposely left the lights on in Baghdad to alleviate the lack of water and reduce the possibility of pollution of that water system.

Dagmar wrote in response to my request to show outrage for the execution of our POWS

<It is outrageous, but what does our outrage prove or change?>

It proves that we are still civilized and the perpetrators are not.

OK, if there's one thing I can't stand it's when people don't read what I write, but what they apparently expect me to write, instead.

I did write "because we come from different places", and I proceeded in the very next paragraph to explain what these different places would be. There was nothing about the moral highground there, either. I was trying to explain that, though we would all agree that the execution of American POWs would be a crime, it wouldn't be worth to ask you back about those Iraqi deaths because they mean something different to us. Not because we are supposedly more civilised than you are. But because to us, who think this war is illegal, every civilian casualty is a victim of a crime. To you, this war is both legal and necessary, and considering any war brings about casualties and this war is a just one, these deaths can actually be reasonably excused as collateral damage, just like that of those Germans in WW2 you mention.

<shrugs>. Different places, as I said, with such a conceptual (as opposed to normative) disagreement between them that we wouldn't even agree on what it is we're seeing, when we see the images of dead Iraqi's on TV.



<grins>

Well, I'm not that old, so yeh, memory would be short, in that sense. Anyway, to deal with this quickly:
a) yes, I'm very grateful that the Canadians liberated my hometown . (Perhaps if they were with the US in this war, too, I would feel a lot more reassured).
b) my gratitude to the American role in liberating Western Europe in WW2 is great. It is also nothing but that: I'm grateful to President Roosevelt for having made the US forces liberate W-Europe; I don't see why that would have anything to do with agreeing or disagreeing with President Bush when he embarks on a war I consider unnecessary and illegal.
c) there's always worry about collateral damage. "Bomber Harris", who set Dresden alight in firestorms when there was no reasonable military reason to do so, would be considered a war criminal nowadays, and rightly so, I believe.



Good. I heard a figure of even 500,000 in an estimation beforehand and that seemed an awful lot, considering only 800 people were killed in the prolonged bombing of Serbia. Last time in the Gulf there were many tens of thousands of deaths. That would be many tens of thousands too many for a unilateral and probably illegal war. This time it does seem things might go better, though of course it's very early yet, too early for sure to boast about "only 200" casualties in the first 5 days of a war when it might last months.

In any case, you probably overlooked my post above in which I noted that in a paradoxical way, the bold military tactics championed by Rumsfeld do indeed actually seem to be saving civilian lives, considering they have replaced the weeks of 'preparational' bombing that constituted the more cautious Powell doctrine of the last Gulf war. Got that from an article I linked, interesting one, you'll like it.



To those who consider this war illegal, the victims of the war are victims of crime - of transgressions of international law - and in that sense they are comparable to the POWs, if they have indeed be executed. Still, that's a bit legalistic. In practice, no, of course they are not the same thing, because the intent of those who execute POWs is different from those who shoot at what they believe to be a strategic target during struggle. Only when attacks would deliberately aim for humanitarian targets like Bomber Harris did, would they be a moral equivalent.

I still wonder what it was you were trying to prove with your question, though. What have you proven now that I share your outrage at the possible execution of POWs? That I'm not a Saddam-loving GI-hater? Did you really expect to find any of those here? I was at a demonstration last weekend, and even there noone uttered a word of sympathy for Saddam. No, that's not true, there were three Moroccan kids with a ghettoblaster that walked by yelling "Go Saddam, go Saddam". They were rebutted with a well-meant "**** you!" by the girl walking ahead of me.

By the way, my screenname is nimh. "no - its me, habibi."

Actually, nimh, I feel your posts are almost always well reasoned, extremely well written (always), and usually give fair consideration to the various viewpoints. I look forward to your presentation of sometimes opposing positions.