No Limits To U.S. War Crimes

Honestly, I'd like to see a advanced degree in military science or a related field before anyone answers "how the war's going to end". Otherwise it's Joe Nobody and Bob the asshole down the street sitting in their underwear at 3 in the morning typing down their "professional assessment" of the situation in Iraq. Why do these topics come up? Who is at all qualified to make a statement regarding the end to this war based on their intense study in this field?

I can understand debating "U.S. War Crimes" and such, but to answer a question regarding the future of this war is ridiculous in every possible way. Megara took the smart way out, and made the only reasonable answer I can think of.

 

Now let us see if I understand this, we, as citizens, can debate "U.S. War Crimes" without holding any qualifications in law or international relations. However, we should refrain from offering an opinion as to the likely outcome of our country's foreign policy. Am I alone in seeing something wrong with this picture?

 

We have too many Joe Nobody and Bob the Asshole in the White House and the rest of the federal goverment. Too much 'the war will go on as long as it takes but not a moment longer' mentality, if you get what I mean. "You're doing a heck of a job, Joe Nobody".

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Oh Shaggie!!!! Here comes Ken Kaniff with just one more whiff!!!!

 

If I understand your post correctly, you're saying we should can this entire thread because no one really knows what the hell they're talking about? Sure.

You can take it any way you'd like hippypaul. my meaning is that anyone knows what murder is. anyone knows what treason is. it's something you can look up in about 20 seconds if you don't. debating the future outcome of something that hasn't happened is pointless. my point: there's a difference between talking about something you have a grasp on and talking about something you really have no clue about.

i really don't care one way or another.

 

Wanna know how I know the war will end?
Simple.
History repeats itself.

An unpopular war thousands of miles away, U.S. slaughter of civilians, an eventually unsustainable cost in $$$ and human lives, the parellels are endless.

For those too young to remember Viet Nam, we the people were told by the gov't (both rep's & dem's) that we "had to fight them there so we wouldn't have to fight them here."
And we were only gonna be there long enough to help the S. Vietnamese puppet gov't "protect their country" against Communist insurgents (70's-speak for terrorists).
We were told that the survival of the United States was dependant on killing millions of S.E. Asains in their own countries.

What did the war in Viet Nam accomplish?
The war in Iraq will accomplish the same.

 

Debating the future outcome of something that has not happened is the point of most discussions or problems. Should I get married? Should I buy that stock? Should our country have troops in Iraq? All are questions that involve predicting the possible outcomes of future events. I have to go to Little Rock today I have no clue if I will come back safely - do you think I should stay home? I have no real grasp (in a personal sense) of murder or treason. Yet you say we can talk about it. I have a real grasp of what fighting a useless war is like (in a personal sense) yet you say I should not discuss that. I guess I am still too dense to grasp your point.

 

Would anyone here be willing to wager a lot of their own money that Iraq will turn out a nice democracy?

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People don't want to put their money where their mouth is.

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1. The Germans were beaten and they knew it.



2. Iraq was occupied by an "unstoppable force"



3. The portion of the German public that were hard core Hitler followers had fled or been killed.



3. We had the help and support of most of the rest of the world.



4. We had a plan.



5. German resistance (such as it was - a few incidences with werewolf units) had no outside support.



6. The average German did not belong to a group that viewed each allied solder as "unclean"

 

Then you wouldn't mind explaining to me your personal grasp on this war? And then explain how you can understand something as complex as war, but not have a grasp on something as simple as the meaning of murder?

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by MagicMedicine
Honestly, I'd like to see a advanced degree in military science or a related field before anyone answers "how the war's going to end". Otherwise it's Joe Nobody and Bob the asshole down the street sitting in their underwear at 3 in the morning typing down their "professional assessment" of the situation in Iraq. Why do these topics come up? Who is at all qualified to make a statement regarding the end to this war based on their intense study in this field?
Quote:
Originally Posted by MagicMedicine
If I understand your post correctly, you're saying we should can this entire thread because no one really knows what the hell they're talking about? Sure.
You can take it any way you'd like hippypaul. my meaning is that anyone knows what murder is. anyone knows what treason is. it's something you can look up in about 20 seconds if you don't. debating the future outcome of something that hasn't happened is pointless.

Your original point was to deny that anyone without special qualifications could discuss the probable ending of the war.

Then you stated that anyone could discuss treason or murder but not future outcomes of events.

Then you ask about my personal grasp on the concept of war vs. murder.



My personal grasp on war comes from having been in one. I see many similarities between the war I was in and the war that is going on in Iraq. And no, my information is not limited to MSM. I know folks who are sill AD. I have no personal concept of murder. I have never killed a man. I carried an aid kit during my war up until the point that someone blew a hole through my chest. The Red Cross I was wearing did not help a lot.

However, all that is beside the point. Anyone in the world can have an opinion about the current policy of this administration. I deny the point that one must have special qualifications in order to comment about an issue.

If you will remember the media coverage of Gulf War I and II there was 100's of retired general officers giving their opinion on just how the conflicts were going to play out. My recollection is that most of them missed it badly.

In my opinion, we have an inadequate number of troops in a large hostile area. We do not have secure logistical lines. We have not prevented the enemy’s access to weapons or munitions. The indigenous force that we are supporting is of mixed loyalty and is not, by our choice, drawn from the most adept portion of the local population. We are involved in local rivalries that we do not have a large enough number of troops with the linguistic or cultural training to apprehend fully.

All of this has direct correlation to our last experience in letting ourselves get involved in a "peoples war". I do not see an endgame to this conflict that does not result in more suffering to the region and a useless loss of blood and treasure on our part.

Their are people on this forum who are more qualified than I to discuss the issues that I have raised. I hope to hear from them. I have been wrong before in my life and undoubtedly will be wrong again.

However, I will not be told that I do not have the right or qualifications to express an opinion on the US foreign policy.

 

a cursory glance at human society seems to show that the secret to getting along with each other is a set of rules and even when we don't get along with each other we still have rules. once the rules are thrown out the window then everything goes belly up and people get angry and upset. you see once someone decided to throw the rule book out the window and invade another country despite what was decided at the UN for example, this was the first step to failure. then once the geneva convention was thrown out by redefining the meaning of war (apparently iraq isn't a war) then all sorts of silly things start happening. the whole iraq thing is going to end in tears you know, no matter how much the tv presenters might smile and say otherwise. of course the people pointing this out will probably get thrown into gaol, the prize of accepting the poison chalice of commonsense, history shows that the messenger always gets shot. the way out of this mess? once every couple of years joe dirt gets to exercise his democratic right to elect his "leaders", make the wrong choice and joe is a fool to himself. when the next election comes round , try and make the right choice. the americans are in the unenviable position of getting their elections rigged like the best of the third world nations. maybe its time they go back to basics and start reading their constitution.

 

Well said

 

Alright

1. Since WW2, America has taken no military action not of self-benifitting nature (either protection of property [ie: Gautemala] or suppression of communism [Vietnam]). Often these are at a terrible expense to the local population (amounting to war crimes/genocide).

It follows therefore that America has no moral right to invade Iraq.

2. America armed Saddam and kept him in power for years (at the expense of the lives of the Iraqi Population [after all, you supplied him the weapons he used to kill the Kurds, and continuted supplying him afterward]).

Therefore, until Saddam makes an overtly aggressive attack against America, there is no excuse to infringe upon Iraqi sovereignty. Especially breaking international law.

Conclusion: There was no legitimate reason to invade Iraq.

3. America's military has a long, well-known history of terrible war crimes. Therefore it holds that anyone who joins, if not conding these crimes, is at least neutral on the matter. Which leaves them as killers in my eyes, or at the best members of a rabid mob.

I feel no sympathy for any American death. Or any I do is buried under the mountain of empathy I have for all the Iraqi dead.

Iraqis die in a ratio of roughly 10-1 against Americans. Therefore every American death saves 10. Which means their deaths are a good thing.

 

A --- All wars including WWII or over benefit or property. Some like WWII would have been hard for the US to avoid but all wars are a bad thing. America not only had no moral right to invade Iraq. There was no gain or reward for doing so. It was an evil action taken by a corrupt government.

B --- Stipulated above.

C -- America has a history of war crimes, as does every country that engaged in warfare. I do not believe that America is the worst offender in that regard. However, war in itself is a crime and training men to kill other men does not lead to law-abiding behavior. People join the American military for many reasons. I joined because I was 17 years old, board with school and because my family had a long military tradition, which I had heard about all my life. I also felt that military service was part of the duty of a citizen. I carried an aid kit as a member of an infantry squad. At no time did I see anything close to he behavior of a rabid mob. I can think of nothing less effective in combat than a bunch of rabid killers. If you look at the history of war crimes, they usually are one of two types. They are a deliberate policy of the military such as Japanese troops in Nanking or they are a result of poorly trained troops. My Lai or Kent State comes to mind. Much of basic training in most armies is to weed out killers. Drill instructors get up in your face and scream at you. They have you do stupid things over and over again. All of this is to weed out folks who cannot control their temper. The purpose of an armed force is to apply just the level of violence that has been ordered. You only get to shoot who they tell you too. A maniac would be a horrible danger to anyone around him and would probably be shot by a noncom. Disobeying orders in the face of the enemy is a crime that can get you shot on the spot.

D --I am not sure how you get the ten to one figure. I do not believe that on a given day that three American troops were killed that 30 Iraqi citizens were killed by direct American action. I suspect that you are counting a total number of Iraqi deaths from multiple causes and dividing it by the 2000 American deaths so far.

I feel sympathy for any early death; it is a loss to us all for any man to die. However, the one dead American saves 10 is just hyperbole. Wars do not work like that. There is an old saying in the military “Vets do the killing, newbie’s do the dieing” We are losing a lot of truck drivers and support troops in Iraq. Very few of the dead or wounded have ever killed a man. You would be amazed how infrequent it is in combat for one man to actively shoot another man. Most of the time both sides are firing to keep the other sides head down.

I do not think he US should be fighting in Iraq. It is an evil war with no benefit to any average American citizen. However, I believe that the American troops that are there are serving in my name, and until the government can be forced to bring them out, are deserving of my respect.

 

i would agree on your assessment about how troops are trained. as you said they are trained to obey orders to limit unecessary death and destruction (and i feel would ultimately will prolong the war). unfortuntely shows us that the same training can be used to undermine humanity, this was the case in ww2 , the germans were just "following orders". when a military is perverted by unclear commands,objectives and justifications and orders that contravene the geneva convention, war crimes are a natural result. as far as i'm aware the american model has the us president as chief of the military, this is why choice of us president is critical. with this kind of power being wielded by one man and his cohorts all sorts of strange things start happening.

 

The "just following orders" was a claim that was made by war criminals that were associated with the German army. The German army in general was not atrocity prone. They respected Red Cross marking and white flags. Their treatment of allied prisoners was unpleasant but not inhuman. The Japanese however were a different story. They had a far different culture and different standards of training. It is almost a given in the military that atrocities are the mark of untrained troops. It is not often remembered that the most notorious incident in Vietnam was stopped by an army Warrant Officer who threatened to shoot Lt. Calley’s troops if they did not put down their weapons.
There are indeed, as you say a greater likelihood of illegal incidences when unclear and confusing directives come down from the top. The command decision in Vietnam to reward "body counts" led to many abuses. However, the vast majority of troops in the military service of democratic countries serve with distinction and under orders.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/11/26/afghan.us.soldiers/index.html

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"Non-judicial disciplinary action". Can anyone say "slap on the wrist".