yes you are Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! see that guy on the left? thats my ancestor /snort
If I put a bunch of pigeons in a cage and subject them to just loud music for a few hours they would peck each other to death. I could feed my moral superiority by comparing the viciousness of one pigeon to the other, rather than focus on why they decided to act on their homicidal urges. I prefer the rational approach however, to moral upmanship and focus on the cage and the noise. And since you are so good at ascertaining motives, do tell us, what you care about here. The Iraqis? The American troops? "Insurgents" like those Reuters reporters? Your profit margin?
Not quite. The ones who fought were born here in North America. However, that side of my family hails way back from Scotland. As for the nobility thing: yes, I did say that a page or two ago.
If there were all born in America, they were Americans. And it was a civil war. And yeah, its getting so, even so called liberals have become nauseatingly defensive of killing.
what are the consequences for fighting an illegal war? when there is no justification to fight and kill, does every instance of death then become a case of murder?
This kind of utter insanity has been around long enough that reasonable people can be expected to have had second thoughts about it. To be actually pointing to the fact that the US has abstained from some available mass slaughter opportunities, as if that were evidence of virtue - that's setting the bar pretty damn low. The US soldiers in Iraq have killed people at a civilian/combatant ratio of more than 11/1. They have killed pregnant women at checkpoints, in such numbers that in Baghdad childbirth complications rose due to home births becoming standard. They have killed dozens of journalists, doctors, wedding musicians, cab drivers, all kinds of people whose employment took them under the US guns. That is the kind of ratio and collateral killing that Americans find necessary to reduce the risk to their own soldiers, after invading and occupying a foreign country. They do not, of course, think of themselves as bullies and cowards, for killing thousands of women and children and other innocents to make themselves marginally safer in a war they started. The obvious point is that the soldiers would be much safer at home, and would not have to kill thousands of innocents to protect themselves. The next most obvious point is that we are not, supposedly, warring against Iraq itself, or subjugating all of its people. Firebombing entire cities - however similar that might be to what happened to Fallujah - is not compatible with our declared mission - it's failure, defeat. So why is our restraint from what we don't want to see happen, our avoidance of admitting defeat and failure and the basic emptiness or dishonesty of our original claims of mission, paraded as some kind of evidence of honor and high character? We do. The kill ratios are so lopsided from what our mission would imply (we might even be losing more solders than we are killing enemy combatants, let alone bystanders, according to our declared mission of establishing order and security) that it calls our commitment to that mission into serious doubt.
come now pande is being quite charitable here. he did not nuke you guys back to the stone age i believe some expressions of gratitude are in order Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Speaking of fallen journalists, does anyone remember my posts about the lovely Hadil Imad..? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! She was a recently wed Iraqi television journalist who was hospitalized after being shot twice by U.S. troops on New Years Day, 2009. She suffered extensive damage to her internal organs and lost one of her kidneys. She and her crew were approaching some troops on a bridge as they met with Iraqi police, in an attempt to tape an interview for Iraqi TV. She alone was shot by American soldiers in cold blood. Her story was downplayed in the Western press... and in most cases it wasn't reported at all. Such random shootings of Iraqi citizens by U.S. troops have become increasingly commonplace, despite repeated denials of such claims. Despite the denials, well over half a million Iraqi civilians have been killed since the beginning of the Iraq war, all of whom were innocent of any wrongdoing (according to the United Nations, the actual estimate is in excess of 600,000 Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the war). Continuing cover-ups by the U.S. military make it difficult to estimate exactly how many of those civilians were killed by Americans. The above photo of lovely Hadil Imad is yet another revolting example of why I am so viciously opposed to the Iraq war... and all who willingly take part in it. None of them are heroes... but clearly, all of them are mass murderers and oppressors. That's a fact... and arguing about it won't make it any less of a fact. TRUTH: More innocent people have been killed as a result of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq, than the total number that Saddam Hussein and his underlings put to death. I repeat: we have killed far more innocent Iraqis than Saddam Hussein ever did. That is not "left-wing propaganda." That is the absolute truth. This illegal and immoral war needs to end -- RIGHT NOW. If you want to support our troops, then here is how you can do it: by bringing them home, not by defending their illegal and immoral actions and allowing them to brutalize more beautiful women in their early 20's.
At this time there is no ethnicity of people on this earth that I could trust to behave well with power. It is plausible but not likely that most ethnicities might be able to behave well with power two hundred years from now. Maybe we can improve. Almost all of us agree that Hitler was evil and that agreement has made humans handle power better now than they did pre-Hitler. Now if we can be as honest about lessor but still real evil when it occurs now done by "our side" then perhaps more progress towards the graceful use of power can be made. The US military wanted to cover up their episodes of misusing power but thanks to WikiLeaks it is not as easy to cover things up as it would be if WikiLeaks did not exist. I hope WikiLeaks does not get screwed with by those who would like to cover up the misuse of power.
No- because we're the ones in uniform here under artices of war to stop terrorists and they are simply terrorists.
Attacked by who?!?! 19 supposed jihad-crazed Muslims who had no problem with boozin it up at strip clubs? 19 supposed hijackers who were from Saudi Arabia who followed orders (allegedly) from another Saudi national who happened to reside in Afghanistan? A wealthy Saudi who had worked with the US government at one time and was considered a vital asset? Osama bin Laden denied culpability in 911 more than once. He said other people were responsible. He is not wanted by the FBI specifically for the events of 911. The most wanted terrorist list on the FBI website says that he is wanted as a suspect for the deaths of American nationals in foreign countries. September eleventh is not on that page. A spokesperson for the FBI is on record as saying they don't have enough evidence to make him a suspect. And what about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? He is constantly touted as the mastermind of 911, that of course after, ahem, special interrogations. How much could bin Laden have had to do with it, other than maybe giving some type of blessing to the operation? The Taliban government had little if anything to do with it, other than being in power while bin Laden lived there. They requested evidence or proof that bin Laden was responsible for the attacks. The US simply provided an ultimatum to turn him over, or face the extreme consequences. They did not invade us. They did not declare war. The Taliban government did not claim responsibility for the attacks. Iraq did not invade the US, nor did they declare war. They were given, yet again, another ultimatum which to many of us was almost certainly impossible to make concessions to. "We know you got them WMD's and the only way to prove it is for us to invade you and stay until we find them in order to justify the invasion." Of course, after WMD didn't pan out, there were a myriad of other justifications that suddenly became the rallying rationale for the invasion. In both cases, the United States was the only clear aggressor. Especially in the case of Iraq. So you may well say that people wanted to defend against the attacks, but defend against who?!? The evidence for war in Afghanistan was circumstantial. I can't say even that for the war in Iraq. It was as if "Let's just make a best guess and trump up evidence and then invade whoever fits the description!"
While actual death tolls are certainly disputed, and I am unsure of which stats to accept myself, there is no doubt that many times the number of people who were killed on September 11th have now died over the decade of the "War on Terror" which is, for the most part, an open-ended, misguided endeavor without real direction or timeline. The really sad part is, even on a conservative level, September 11 could probably have been avoided altogether on more than one front. That's a whole volume in itself. The utterly fanatical reaction on the part of the United States to an Eastern fanaticism on the other side of the world has only made everything worse, not only in terms of lives of combatants and non-combatants alike, but in civil liberties and financial costs. This is a case where if the disease doesn't kill, well then don't worry, because the medicine certainly will! Why did the US support Saddam Hussein's regime for so long, selling him weapons and all that?
When you are invaded, and you are defending your homeland and way of life from an occupying force, then war is justified. I don't know about noble.
If so called terrorists are wearing civilian clothes then shouldn't that increase the quality of information required before engaging? Rather than just opening fire on people carrying guns, cameras, whatever. They look dodgy so kill them all just in case. As for civilians in a van trying to help the wounded, what kind of soldier would open fire on them?
Hmmm. I'll take your word for it on the Marines--you, being one of the few trustworthy members here--but I just don't get how it jives with the insane number of social sensitivity classes Marines have to take now. As to the Marines being trained for bloodlust? Well, um. . . that's sorta what they do. They are the largest "special force" unit on earth. Their job is to go in and kill people. Typically--in most jobs, civilian and not--the single best way to make the employees efficient at their work is to find a way to inspire them and make them like it. If the "widget" they make is death, one would expect death to be glorified. I certainly don't want my Marines to be trained to get all emotional on the battlefield. ~String
