Haditha is the tip of the iceberg - Iraq atrocities continue

Originally posted by SpanishFly
lol are u serious...so no one overtakes in iraq lol...cmon

No-one overtakes an American vehicle without getting in serious danger of being shot. It happens rather frequently.

And yes, if you'd followed the links I've given in my previous posts, you'd have found information about the US and UK planting bombs.

I heard a radio programme on the BBC recently in which they interviewed a guy who'd served in the army in Cyprus in the seventies. His job had been to go round resolving conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and he was running around like the proverbial blue-arsed fly.

Then he had a meeting with some US and UK spooks in which it turned out that THEY were the ones who were causing a lot of the messes he had to clear up. They wanted to cause dissension between neighbours who'd been living amicably for decades.

"Our plan is for partition", they said. And so it proved.

The same game is being played in Iraq.

Originally posted by pawnplayer
Nice spin there, richboy. You're just making a long-winded excuse to justify your hatred and criticism of American troops' roles in Iraq.

It is appeared that you're using this thread to blah-blah your long-winded blasts against American troops. I'm outta here, richboy. Go bug a UN peacekeeping soldier while you're at it.

A careful reading of my posts will reveal that your accusation is groundless.

Take your ball and go home.

Interesting article by mister Robert Frisk:

Independant

Could Haditha be just the tip of the mass grave? The corpses we have glimpsed, the grainy footage of the cadavers and the dead children; could these be just a few of many? Does the handiwork of America's army of the slums go further?

I remember clearly the first suspicions I had that murder most foul might be taking place in our name in Iraq. I was in the Baghdad mortuary, counting corpses, when one of the city's senior medical officials, an old friend, told me of his fears. "Everyone brings bodies here," he said. "But when the Americans bring bodies in, we are instructed that under no circumstances are we ever to do post-mortems. We were given to understand that this had already been done. Sometimes we'd get a piece of paper like this one with a body." And here the man handed me a U.S. military document showing with the hand-drawn outline of a man's body and the words "trauma wounds."

Tip of the Iceberg allright...

Just posted that one earlier in this thread, mate... good article, though.

Originally posted by rich23
Just posted that one earlier in this thread, mate... good article, though.

Sorry mate - my mistake; I should have checked if this was posted already or not.

quick ?
The government is obviously keeping track of "enemy kills".
Does anyone know where to find these numbers and are they also keeping track of "non-enemy kills"???

Here are some rights Iraqis should enjoy:

The right to the sovereignty of their country.
The right to safety in their own homes.
The right to drive the roads of their own country without getting shot for overtaking.
The right to their own oil.
The right to sow and maintain their own seed stock.
The right to make their own laws.
The right to own their own infrastructure.
The right to uninterrupted supplies of water and electricity.
The right to safety in their own streets, rather than being the victims of car bombings. (Some of which are the result of US or UK agents provocateurs.)

All these rights and more have been taken from them by the US.

Rich, the above statement is simply flat out wrong. Your memory of Iraq under Sadamm has obviously been terribly damaged in some way.



No-one asked the US and UK to invade.

Also, this statement is far fromt true, as there are countless Iraqi's who invited the U.S. to assist them in taking back their country, which they, and those with the guts to fight along side them, are currently in the process of doing.



Did I mention the electric chair at any point in my posts?

This is simply a figure of speech used in my geographical region meaning to give a sentence of death.

if your leaders prosecuted every single soldier who killed an innocent Iraqi, you wouldn't have much of an army left

c'mon Rich, this is glaring evidence of a skewed belief system, exactly what I am attempting to point out, it appears contempt has robbed one of clear thinking. Hopefully you were being sarcastic here!

When you say "many", how many, roughly? Did none of them kill any Iraqis at all out there? Were none of them on patrol? Did you ask them what they did when they drove past an IED? Or were all of them just painting schools?

and you know Rich, I will not even attempt to stand for, nor uphold, nor prove the dignity of the U.S. service personnell I personally know, to question their ethics and morality is an affront to them, and me. You know my friend, I shall take my ball and go home also, as the fog is much too thick in here for me to see.

All the statements that I made about rights the US has taken away are correct. To take one example: the US bombed Iraq on a regular basis, at least once a week on average, between the war under Bush I and the 2003 invasion. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, civilian infrastructure - water treatment plants and electricity generation facilities - was targeted. Sanctions made it impossible to get replacement parts as they were deemed to be 'dual use'.

Remember that Madeleine Albright, when asked about the effects of sanctions, said that the sacrifice of a half million Iraqi kids was worth it?

The money that was supposed to have gone on reconstruction has gone into the pockets of contractors with precious little effect on the life of the average Iraqi.

Of course I remember how bad things were under Saddam. But because I understand there are two sides to every story, I also understand that, unlike many other arab leaders who simply enrich the royal family and leave everyone else to fend for themselves, Saddam actually had health care and literacy plans for Iraqi citizens. Before the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq had the lowest infant mortality rate of the region - better in fact than in many US inner cities. This is one of the major indicators of public health.

But for the full skinny on how things have got so bad that Saddam's era is now viewed by many Iraqis with nostalgic fondness, you could do worse than check out the facts on this thread.

I also remember that at the time when Saddam was at his worst, attacking Iran, gassing the Kurds (if he did... at least one CIA analyst thinks it was the Iranians), Rummy and Reagan were his big chums. Rummy presented him with a pair of golden spurs from Ronnie, or is your memory the one at fault? I also remember that the CIA got him to try to assassinate Qasim, and they also funded the Ba'ath party.

If you're going to tell me things are "just plain wrong", you're really going to have to do better than that, you know. Unless you can back this kind of thing up with facts, you're not making much of an argument.

However, you are quite right... there were Iraqis like Ahmed Chalabi (wanted for embezzlement in Jordan) who wanted the US to invade, and were prepared to feed the neocons all sorts of BS about WMD to justify this. And there were some people in Iraq who wanted Saddam so badly that they wanted the US to invade. I think those people might have a different opinion on the matter with the benefit of hindsight.

But... why did the US take them up on this request when there are so many other countries groaning under the weight of oppressive regimes? That of course is a whole other thread.

And the fact is, that Saddam's neighbours certainly did not regard him as a threat in 2003. No-one in the international community was breaking the US' door down to get them to go and do it. Quite the reverse. The only country that regarded Iraq as a serious threat was the US, and then only after a prolonged campaign and some utterly misleading juxtapositions of Saddam's name with 9/11.

And I think the word "countless" certainly doesn't apply here.


And I absolutely stand by this statement:

if your leaders prosecuted every single soldier who killed an innocent Iraqi, you wouldn't have much of an army left.

The point that I am making is that war crimes are sufficiently commonplace that if all of them were to be prosecuted, not only would you lose a lot of men, you would utterly demoralise the remainder.

Originally posted by rich23


Personally, with the timing and all, I suspect that MacBeth was a tool of the disinfo crowd out to discredit the real guys. It seems to have worked for you.

Good lord...conspiracy theory number 2,000,000,001.

The guy lied. Rich you make sense 50% of the time and then throw it all away with a statement like this, I hope you're joking. The internet (and world) is full of nuts, some need to be cracked and thrown away instead of eaten as the truth.

Hey, to me, I make sense 100% of the time

Look, I don't know. MacBeth might, just might, have been a lone, attention-seeking nutjob. But the timing of it is definitely suspicious... look at all the stuff that's come out about Haditha. It would be a classic disinfo move. "Oh, these guys going on about atrocities in Iraq are just lying. Our boys would never do such a thing, only the few rotten apples in the barrel."

Remember the anthrax attacks? What did you think of them at the time? Did you think they were done by foreign terrorists? Because it doesn't look that way now.

Originally posted by rich23

Originally posted by pawnplayer
Nice spin there, richboy. You're just making a long-winded excuse to justify your hatred and criticism of American troops' roles in Iraq.

It is appeared that you're using this thread to blah-blah your long-winded blasts against American troops. I'm outta here, richboy. Go bug a UN peacekeeping soldier while you're at it.

A careful reading of my posts will reveal that your accusation is groundless.

I've read most of your posts and it's nothing but anti-American troop GARBAGE! You're browbeating the detractors with your long-winded excuses to justify your criticism on the US troops in Iraq.

Keep spinning your anti-American garbage rants, richboy.

I think what you mean to say by all the above is "don't confuse me with the FACTS!"

It's reality having that well-known liberal bias again, ain't it?

Or was there an actual point you were trying to make there, but forgot to put in any argument or supporting evidence?

Actually, I've just noticed... you quote yourself and then say almost exactly the same thing word for word... you can't even come up with a new way of saying the same thing!

It is, as Bugs would say, to laugh.

[edit on 4-6-2006 by rich23]

Originally posted by rich23
...No-one overtakes an American vehicle without getting in serious danger of being shot. It happens rather frequently...

greetings again

seriously...if there was anything that the us was taking from the iraqis my guess would be oil...and quite possibly their smarts too so that theyre oblivious to it

if true...i think theyre doin a good job at it too...if learned people such as yourself only come up with overtaking us convoys, and seeds etc...

Good Lord, enough of the "oil" point. It's baseless! It's just become a cute catchy thing to say about this "war for oil". If that's true why are Americans paying MORE at the pump than ever before?!? STFU!

On a side note: I've also noticed TOTAL anti-American spews on this website. If Bush sneezes in the wrong direction then every European is all over it. Yet when the MI5 does an "illegal" raid or when British troops in Iraq do something that hits the tabloids it's no big deal. You push it off as "oh, the MI5 got poor information and that's why it's ok" Well, didn't Bush get poor information about WMD's in Iraq??? But that's different because it's those phucking yankees, huh? BTW, i agree that the MI5 was misinformed and anything British troops do in Iraq is "reasonably" excussable because it's a freakin WAR.

Whenever the U.S. does something that gets the rest of the worlds attention then we're the devil. However, if your country has a natural disaster and the U.S. sends MILLIONS of dollars in aid it's EXPECTED. How about cutting us some slack? ...flame away.

Originally posted by Faust
Good Lord, enough of the "oil" point. It's baseless! It's just become a cute catchy thing to say about this "war for oil". If that's true why are Americans paying MORE at the pump than ever before?!? STFU!

calm down...if u cant engage in discussion without resorting to profanity...leave and dont post...geez...go speak to those who will listen to your crap in the corner...pffft

Originally posted by rich23
if your leaders prosecuted every single soldier who killed an innocent Iraqi, you wouldn't have much of an army left

rich, can you provide some stats or something? Most ground troops in Iraq have not even fired a single round down range. And the ones that do will probably only fire a few rounds during one or two attacks with the insurgency. There are a few units (3d Marines, 8th Marines and a few more army units) that have had non-stop fire fights since the war began because they are in the middle of all the hot spots.

To say that we would not have much of an Army left (in your example) is incinuating that most troops who have servied in Iraq have killed at least one innocent person....which is total BS.

Yes, I understand that you are just trying to make a point. But don't use examples that make every other troop in Iraq look like a murderer.

On the 'obeying orders' debate.....

www.antiwar.com...
At the luncheon of the National Press Club on Feb. 17, 2006, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, was asked by his interviewer, John Donnelly: "Should people in the U.S. military disobey orders that they believe are illegal?" Pace's response:

"It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral."

"I was only obeying orders" is not an excuse to commit war crimes and kill innocent civilians. There are certain gray areas, but in the Haditha incident, there are no gray areas. Only black and white, with or without a threat directed at the Marines in this case there is no excuse why so many innocent civilians should have died, unless they were all strapped, which I seriously doubt is the case and if they were they would not be so innocent and killing them would have been jusitified.

[edit on 5/6/2006 by SportyMB]

I'd venture to say that the dead toddlers at Haditha weren't "strapped", as you call it. Furthermore, it's unlikely that the civilian adults weren't either, unless they had the presence of mind to remove their "strappings" after they'd been shot and mortally wounded just to avoid ending up in the morgue in their dirty underwear, so to speak. I don't recall reading anywhere that any of theose civilians were "strapped" or that such items were found anywhere near them or in the rubble.

Frankly, I'm surprised to read that reference in your post. It's as though a hidden bias has suddenly jumped out into the open. Why would you suggest that when there's no evidence whatsoever to support it. It comes across as a desperate struggle to find some justification for the Haditha killings. If the excuse can't be found in the evidence, those who need to excuse these atrocities will conjure one up in their imagination.

If that's true why are Americans paying MORE at the pump than ever before?!?

Because it's a failed war for oil?

I'd agree that the assesment that it's a war only about oil is incorrect, clearly there were a whole set of conditions that led to war, burt it's hard to pretend that Iraq's tremendous oil reserves weren't a mightly motivator.