'Life over' for tragic family

owi, WELCOME to A2K. Many of us on A2K are against this war in Iraq. However, since the war has already begun, and our military has no choice but to serve as directed by our president, second guessing how a war is fought is unproductive, especially since our coalition does its best to minimize collateral damage. **I hate that word! War is not a "fair" fight. It isn't even ethical. What would you have our military do? Fight with slingshots to give the enemy a fighting chance? c.i.

thanks for welcome, In this case i don't like the phrase "dirty tactics", I would call it "act(s) of desperation".

..."minimize collateral damage": for me it seems the military or those behind the military don't want victims, which can be connected directly to the war. If they really want to "miminimizeocollateralamage", they would not use DU-ammunition.

"Efforts by the US/UK to keep depleted uranium off the agenda of the UN Sub- Commission on Protection and Promotion of Human Rights failed this August(2001) as the Sub-Commission clearly decided that depleted uranium weaponry qualify as weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and authorized a prominent member, Justice Y. Sik Yuen (Mauritius) to prepare a study on the topic."

the whole article is available here: http://www.cadu.org.uk/info/campaign/8_3.htm

If they really want to minimize collateral damage, they would not use Cluster Bombs either.

If they really want to minimize collateral damage, they would have let the inspectors do their job while constantly increasing pressure!

War includes death, and he who starts the war - Bush - is the owner of all the dead bodies, on both sides!

the full text of what i wrote. notice the last paragraph.

i don't think the weapon inspectors would have found much if anything. reports of buried weapon caches, chemicals, etc. and a report this morning from npr is that missles capable of carrying chemical warheads were found near the baghdad airport.

saddam and his inner circle are as much to blame as anyone else for not coming clean and therefore subjecting the iraqi people to danger.

We all knew from the very beginning that Saddam and his henchmen were lying about not having any WMD's. I still would have prefered to see the UN inspectors in Iraq looking for those weapons than the loss of life from this war. Thousands would still be alive; the fact the Saddam is a tyrant has been true for 35 years, and he was essentially hamstrung by the inspectors where he was no danger to anyone. We are now responsible for thousands of deaths. There is not ethical purpose that justifies that many deaths to remove one dangerous tyrant from this world. c.i.

owi-Your definition of dirty tactics is "weird" to say the least. I agree that war is nasty, and it would be great if there were none. That, however, is not the case, and when you are in one, the object is to outdo and outgun the enemy. By your logic, it would be unfair for a tank whose gun had a four mile range to take on one whose gun had only a three mile range. I don't believe wars were ever carried out in so gentlemanly a fashion.

flyboy...well, they don't have many possibilities to defend against the invasion forces. "Suicide attacks" is one of these possibilities. Should the Iraqi army go out in the desert and wait there for the secure death and making it easy for the invasion-troops?

I think that we all can agree that it is in war's nature being dirty. The discussion of which side is using "dirtier" tactics might be unnecessary?!? But talking on the one side of "dirty tactics" and on the other side of "high-precision collateral damage minimizing weapons/tactics" makes me feel queasy.

owi--We're pretty much in agreement there. Dirtier and dirtiest are rather meaningless in this context. To me the only "dirty" tactic is hiding behind civilians or placing military assets among civilians without giving them an opportunity to leave. There are probably others that don't come immediately to mind. I feel so strongly about this that I, even though an ex-aircrew member, never thought it wrong to shoot someone parachuting from a disabled plane unless he was sure to be captured when he landed. This extreme position was not shared by most of my fellow airmen.

This war (sic) is such a ridiculous situation - I would compare it to the Los Angeles Lakers playing cities my high school team. We got so much to be proud of!