Full Version: Atrocities commited by US Troops in Iraq
Each Times columnist has their little niche style of reporting -- Kristof trots the globe, Maureen Dowd stays home and snarks over the news coverage -- but my personal favorite, Bob Herbert is a master of publishing and interpreting reports to the outside world. this morning he came through with this tidbit first printed in The Nation:
He ends with the quip "it’s one thing to lose a war. It’s much worse for a nation to lose its soul."
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
How can we keep this from happening?
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
QUOTE
The combination of recklessness, wantonly destructive behavior born of panic and deliberate acts of cold-blooded violence by G.I.’s are believed to have cost the lives of thousands of innocent Iraqis, the article says. The soldiers interviewed said they believed that only a minority of U.S. troops engaged in objectionable behavior, but the toll of their actions has been huge.
The article describes soldiers and marines frustrated and fearful in an alien environment in which the enemy hides among civilians and uses acts of terror as the primary tactic. “The mounting frustration of fighting an elusive enemy and the devastating effects of roadside bombs, with their steady toll of American dead and wounded, led many troops to declare an open war on all Iraqis,” said the authors, Chris Hedges, a former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times, and Laila al-Arian...
....Kelly Dougherty of Cańon City, Colo., who served in Iraq as a sergeant with a National Guard military police unit, remembered investigating an incident in which a military convoy ran over a boy, about 10 years old, and his three donkeys. When she and others from her unit arrived at the scene, the boy was lying dead by the side of the road. The donkeys had also been killed.
“We saw him there,” she said, “and, you know, we were upset because the convoy didn’t even stop. They really, judging by the skid marks, they hardly even slowed down.”
Accidents, even those caused by recklessness, are bad enough. More disturbing are the incidents described in the article in which G.I.’s routinely abused civilians. Among the worst abuses have been the shootings of innocent civilians and the improper arrests that have occurred in the course of raids carried out by soldiers and marines looking for insurgents.
There have been thousands of such raids. An extraordinary number of them — the vast majority, according to the interviews for article — were exercises in futility, yielding nothing but grief and terror for the innocent families whose homes were invaded.
“So you have all these troops, and they’re all wound up,” said Army Sgt. John Bruhns of Philadelphia, who participated in many raids while serving in Baghdad and Abu Ghraib. “And a lot of them think once they kick down the door there’s going to be people on the inside waiting for them with weapons to start shooting at them.”
In most cases, there is nothing more than a terrified family on the other side of the door. In instances in which unarmed civilians are shot and killed in raids, which happens frequently, it’s not unusual for G.I.’s to plant weapons by their bodies and to arrest survivors on false charges of participating in the insurgency, the article says.
The article describes soldiers and marines frustrated and fearful in an alien environment in which the enemy hides among civilians and uses acts of terror as the primary tactic. “The mounting frustration of fighting an elusive enemy and the devastating effects of roadside bombs, with their steady toll of American dead and wounded, led many troops to declare an open war on all Iraqis,” said the authors, Chris Hedges, a former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times, and Laila al-Arian...
....Kelly Dougherty of Cańon City, Colo., who served in Iraq as a sergeant with a National Guard military police unit, remembered investigating an incident in which a military convoy ran over a boy, about 10 years old, and his three donkeys. When she and others from her unit arrived at the scene, the boy was lying dead by the side of the road. The donkeys had also been killed.
“We saw him there,” she said, “and, you know, we were upset because the convoy didn’t even stop. They really, judging by the skid marks, they hardly even slowed down.”
Accidents, even those caused by recklessness, are bad enough. More disturbing are the incidents described in the article in which G.I.’s routinely abused civilians. Among the worst abuses have been the shootings of innocent civilians and the improper arrests that have occurred in the course of raids carried out by soldiers and marines looking for insurgents.
There have been thousands of such raids. An extraordinary number of them — the vast majority, according to the interviews for article — were exercises in futility, yielding nothing but grief and terror for the innocent families whose homes were invaded.
“So you have all these troops, and they’re all wound up,” said Army Sgt. John Bruhns of Philadelphia, who participated in many raids while serving in Baghdad and Abu Ghraib. “And a lot of them think once they kick down the door there’s going to be people on the inside waiting for them with weapons to start shooting at them.”
In most cases, there is nothing more than a terrified family on the other side of the door. In instances in which unarmed civilians are shot and killed in raids, which happens frequently, it’s not unusual for G.I.’s to plant weapons by their bodies and to arrest survivors on false charges of participating in the insurgency, the article says.
He ends with the quip "it’s one thing to lose a war. It’s much worse for a nation to lose its soul."
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
How can we keep this from happening?
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
Sources?
How can we keep this from happening?
Kill the enemy and get the hell out of there (in that order).
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Have they? Unlinked articles that use words like "frequently" without sourcing, or "an extraordinary number of raids" (in a war??) again without sourcing how many raids or how many would be "ordinary" and I can't comment about the reporting status.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
Um, not really.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
War is not about high moral ground. It is about defeating the enemy. Unfortunately, we have been too bogged down in thinking such as this in the fanciful hope that people will like us. Kill the enemy, that is the objective of war. Do it while following the rules of war (which are very fuzzy on this type of urban insurgency). Forget about the moral high ground. The enemy does not have the same morals as us.
Sources?
How can we keep this from happening?
Kill the enemy and get the hell out of there (in that order).
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Have they? Unlinked articles that use words like "frequently" without sourcing, or "an extraordinary number of raids" (in a war??) again without sourcing how many raids or how many would be "ordinary" and I can't comment about the reporting status.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
Um, not really.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
War is not about high moral ground. It is about defeating the enemy. Unfortunately, we have been too bogged down in thinking such as this in the fanciful hope that people will like us. Kill the enemy, that is the objective of war. Do it while following the rules of war (which are very fuzzy on this type of urban insurgency). Forget about the moral high ground. The enemy does not have the same morals as us.
QUOTE(Amlord @ Jul 10 2007, 10:58 AM) 
War is not about high moral ground. It is about defeating the enemy. Unfortunately, we have been too bogged down in thinking such as this in the fanciful hope that people will like us. Kill the enemy, that is the objective of war. Do it while following the rules of war (which are very fuzzy on this type of urban insurgency). Forget about the moral high ground. The enemy does not have the same morals as us.
You're dead wrong Amlord. This is absurd.
We should walk the streets of Baghdad yelling "come out come out whereever you are". Don't you know anything????
THEN- we should 100% believe everything the NYT posts. It's an objective source and of course they've never been known to lie or keep people on staff known to lie.
HA!
Seriously. Some people live in a vacuum. I'd love to see one of these fruity NYT reporters go to a Marine Colonel and read this report about his men without some objective proof. Again- liberal media bias... and some people like to act like it doesn't exist.
Lets try and keep posts constructive and civil so this discussion can find its feet. Comments like "fruity NYT reporters" add nothing to a discussion, and take a great deal away.
I find the two responses to this post totally callous. I hope that a chorus will join me in renouncing this vile rhetoric which attacks humanitarian care as a symptom of weakness in our counter-terrorism effort.
Look, I recognize that war is a fallen state of human existence. There are people that are trying to kill us and, in our effort to track them down, it is more than likely that we will kill innocents, and even "plant weapons by their bodies and arrest the survivors as members of the insurgency."
But that doesn't mean that smart foreign policy cannot:
-limit the number of civilians who die
-Publicly Atone for those that do
Resonable people can agree or disagree about whether we should stay in Iraq. We can certainly disagree about the quality and bias of the new york times, which even I, despite my appellation here, will admit is flawed (though I would argue the Times suffers less from the weight of its errors than the pedestal it is placed on and the scrutiny it attracts -- but that's a different discussion, and I don't see how implying the homosexuality of a writer wins the debate.)
Are Amlord and I living on a different moral universe? Forget about the high ground? What is the purpose of a War on Terror that allows the United States Military, in whatever capacity, become an instrument of terror, and thus breed more terrorists? Seems to me the crux of any anti-terror crusade is to capture terrorists and win over the population... not kill wantonly in the hopes that the terrorists cells die in the flames... that's life-sized chemotherapy, not counter-terrorism.
I'm honestly taken aback by the fantasy these kind of responses evoke. How can we call ourselves a Christian nation, let alone a decent one, if we are not able to to look ourselves in the mirror and assess the evil along with the good we have sowed on this earth?
I recognize the brave acts our soldiers are performing as well as the necessity of those acts. And I recognize that naturally, innocent people will die in war.
Moreover, I'm not imagining that Iraqi civilians should love us dearly and come out with flowers to greet us-- that's Donald Rumsfeld's strategy, not mine.
But I'm just asking what we can do to limit the number of civilians we are needlessly killing and arresting. That's a humongous middle ground that you leaped over, Amlord.
It frightens me when human events are viewed and discussed with such recklessness.
Can we please restart this debate as a constructive analysis of what our national response should be to our mistakes on the ground; and how we can limit those deaths in the future?
Look, I recognize that war is a fallen state of human existence. There are people that are trying to kill us and, in our effort to track them down, it is more than likely that we will kill innocents, and even "plant weapons by their bodies and arrest the survivors as members of the insurgency."
But that doesn't mean that smart foreign policy cannot:
-limit the number of civilians who die
-Publicly Atone for those that do
Resonable people can agree or disagree about whether we should stay in Iraq. We can certainly disagree about the quality and bias of the new york times, which even I, despite my appellation here, will admit is flawed (though I would argue the Times suffers less from the weight of its errors than the pedestal it is placed on and the scrutiny it attracts -- but that's a different discussion, and I don't see how implying the homosexuality of a writer wins the debate.)
QUOTE
War is not about high moral ground. It is about defeating the enemy. Unfortunately, we have been too bogged down in thinking such as this in the fanciful hope that people will like us. Kill the enemy, that is the objective of war. Do it while following the rules of war (which are very fuzzy on this type of urban insurgency). Forget about the moral high ground. The enemy does not have the same morals as us.
Are Amlord and I living on a different moral universe? Forget about the high ground? What is the purpose of a War on Terror that allows the United States Military, in whatever capacity, become an instrument of terror, and thus breed more terrorists? Seems to me the crux of any anti-terror crusade is to capture terrorists and win over the population... not kill wantonly in the hopes that the terrorists cells die in the flames... that's life-sized chemotherapy, not counter-terrorism.
I'm honestly taken aback by the fantasy these kind of responses evoke. How can we call ourselves a Christian nation, let alone a decent one, if we are not able to to look ourselves in the mirror and assess the evil along with the good we have sowed on this earth?
I recognize the brave acts our soldiers are performing as well as the necessity of those acts. And I recognize that naturally, innocent people will die in war.
Moreover, I'm not imagining that Iraqi civilians should love us dearly and come out with flowers to greet us-- that's Donald Rumsfeld's strategy, not mine.
But I'm just asking what we can do to limit the number of civilians we are needlessly killing and arresting. That's a humongous middle ground that you leaped over, Amlord.
It frightens me when human events are viewed and discussed with such recklessness.
Can we please restart this debate as a constructive analysis of what our national response should be to our mistakes on the ground; and how we can limit those deaths in the future?
QUOTE(drewyorktimes @ Jul 10 2007, 01:38 PM)
QUOTE(AMLord)
War is not about high moral ground. It is about defeating the enemy. Unfortunately, we have been too bogged down in thinking such as this in the fanciful hope that people will like us. Kill the enemy, that is the objective of war. Do it while following the rules of war (which are very fuzzy on this type of urban insurgency). Forget about the moral high ground. The enemy does not have the same morals as us.
Are Amlord and I living on a different moral universe? Forget about the high ground? What is the purpose of a War on Terror that allows the United States Military, in whatever capacity, become an instrument of terror, and thus breed more terrorists? Seems to me the crux of any anti-terror crusade is to capture terrorists and win over the population... not kill wantonly in the hopes that the terrorists cells die in the flames... that's life-sized chemotherapy, not counter-terrorism.
We are not living in different universes, moral or otherwise. However, winning over the population is an iffy proposition and one that hasn't succeeded all that well so far. I think we can agree that, if anything, this is where we have failed in Iraq.
The President has made a mistake in trying to use the military in a capacity it does not have expertise in.
We should absolutely follow the Rules of War. We should not terrorize civilians. However, we should not be coddling them either. We have a job to do. Let's do it and get on with the business of defending our country.
QUOTE(drewyorktimes @ Jul 10 2007, 12:38 PM)
It frightens me when human events are viewed and discussed with such recklessness.
Can we please restart this debate as a constructive analysis of what our national response should be to our mistakes on the ground; and how we can limit those deaths in the future?
Can we please restart this debate as a constructive analysis of what our national response should be to our mistakes on the ground; and how we can limit those deaths in the future?
I'd love to Drew York, but I don't see the evidence that there are atrocities as you might elude to?
Frankly, being a soldier and the son of a soldier, I have seen combat and understand military doctrine as well as most. The idea that Marines are out there killing people unnecessarily is absurd.
ACCIDENTS do happen. I don't deny that. Friendly fire accidents, innocent people get shot in error, things explode, trucks and tanks crash, etc.
Sadly, even accidents can ruin an officer's career. People are kicked out all the time for mistakes alone. What leads one to believe that we're needlessly killing and arresting people? Have you been to Iraq? Have you read credible sources?
Please feel free to post some information that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the NYT writer's statements that you posted are correct. Objective information please.
We'll be happy to debate that.
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
There is no way to compensate the victims; they are too many. But where we can, we should.
How can we keep this from happening?
You can nibble at the margins by educating the troops better. In Iraq, we better need static infantry/military police battalions than the assault battalions that we have in place. But our army is not constituted with many of the former. Fundamentally, there is not much to be done about this.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Yes, of course. However, behavior of this kind may be much less prevalent when correspondents accompany the troops, and few have, given the dangerous situation on the ground.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
I am all for immediate withdrawal, but no, it does not lend "evidence" or other weight to the argument for that. It does suggest that we should be more sparing in our praise for "our heroic troops," and less willing to assume that our enemies have little reason to hate us.
This was all known before, of course, by anyone who understood the nature of war -- particularly a war of counter-insurgency. But the general opinion of our troops and their conduct has been absurdly rose-colored.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
There is no "moral high ground" in war, and it is absurd to pretend that there is. Particularly since there was no international consensus in favor of our doing so, we lost the "moral high ground" on the day we invaded Iraq.
I don't think that most civilian deaths in Iraq are caused either by Al Qaeda or by misbehaving U.S. ground troops. I think that most are caused by gangs and militias; second most by "collateral damage" from U.S. artillery and air strikes. The unfortunate fact is that we do not have nearly enough troops on the ground in Iraq to maintain a routine police presence throughout that country. Since we don't, we are forced to rely on in-force patrols and sweeps, backed up by artillery and air power. That is a recipe for high civilian casualties, and for increasing hatred of the United States among Iraqis. That is one of the many contradictions inherent in U.S. Iraq strategy (or lack thereof).
There is no way to compensate the victims; they are too many. But where we can, we should.
How can we keep this from happening?
You can nibble at the margins by educating the troops better. In Iraq, we better need static infantry/military police battalions than the assault battalions that we have in place. But our army is not constituted with many of the former. Fundamentally, there is not much to be done about this.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Yes, of course. However, behavior of this kind may be much less prevalent when correspondents accompany the troops, and few have, given the dangerous situation on the ground.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
I am all for immediate withdrawal, but no, it does not lend "evidence" or other weight to the argument for that. It does suggest that we should be more sparing in our praise for "our heroic troops," and less willing to assume that our enemies have little reason to hate us.
This was all known before, of course, by anyone who understood the nature of war -- particularly a war of counter-insurgency. But the general opinion of our troops and their conduct has been absurdly rose-colored.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
There is no "moral high ground" in war, and it is absurd to pretend that there is. Particularly since there was no international consensus in favor of our doing so, we lost the "moral high ground" on the day we invaded Iraq.
I don't think that most civilian deaths in Iraq are caused either by Al Qaeda or by misbehaving U.S. ground troops. I think that most are caused by gangs and militias; second most by "collateral damage" from U.S. artillery and air strikes. The unfortunate fact is that we do not have nearly enough troops on the ground in Iraq to maintain a routine police presence throughout that country. Since we don't, we are forced to rely on in-force patrols and sweeps, backed up by artillery and air power. That is a recipe for high civilian casualties, and for increasing hatred of the United States among Iraqis. That is one of the many contradictions inherent in U.S. Iraq strategy (or lack thereof).
QUOTE(Amlord @ Jul 10 2007, 02:02 PM)
We should absolutely follow the Rules of War. We should not terrorize civilians. However, we should not be coddling them either. We have a job to do. Let's do it and get on with the business of defending our country.
So, what is that job that we have to do? "Defeat our enemies?" Please, please provide something more specific. You will never get to the second part of your plan ("get back to business of defending our country") until reasonable goals are stated; as long as we stay in Iraq, the supply of our enemies will be limitless. Like Hydra, two new heads will grow in place of each one that we cut out.
At least it's refreshing to see that you tacitly admit that whatever it is US military is doing in Iraq has nothing to do with defending our country....
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
Both, although, of course, these are only symbolic gestures. Until we, as a nation, realize the gravity of our actions of the past several years, these tokens are meaningless.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Absolutely. What is the reason to believe otherwise?
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
We lost "high moral ground" long time ago. Don't get me wrong, I actually DO recognize the threat of militant Islamism and do not believe in "appeasement" strategy. We, however, do not "fight" militant Islamism at all in Iraq; our invasion and continuing occupation (ehem... "liberation") of Iraq is the golden mine for their PR.
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
Offering an apology or compensation first requires that the nation take responsibility for its actions, and I don’t see that happening in my lifetime. After all, it took 40+ years for this country to admit its responsibility for the horrors of Japanese internment camps. I imagine the blame for Iraq will be bounced around for many, many years.
How can we keep this from happening?
Remove our troops from what should be a law enforcement action in Iraq unless the powers-that-be own up to the fact they want to be a colonial occupying force for the duration. The increasing incidents of the abuse of Iraqi non-combatants is symptomatic of a stressed military trying to do a job for which they are not trained – occupying a hostile country. Soldiers are trained to fight wars. The actual war was over the day Bush got up there in his borrowed flight suit and arrogantly proclaimed mission accomplished. What wasn’t and still isn’t accomplished is bringing a bunch of rag-tag, rebellious individuals to heel without demonizing and victimizing the rest of the population.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Yes, because they are sniveling lapdogs of the conservative right. Instead of the American public being told constantly about the horrors of war (as they were during Vietnam), we are fed soft stories about Paris Hilton going to jail, or the latest celebrity getting divorced/getting married/giving birth.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
I will answer this question with the following quote:
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
We gave up the moral ground 4 years ago.
As for you, aevans176, I have four words: Haditha, Mahmoudiya, Ishhaqi and Hamdaniya (Iraq Occupation Report)
and this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
Offering an apology or compensation first requires that the nation take responsibility for its actions, and I don’t see that happening in my lifetime. After all, it took 40+ years for this country to admit its responsibility for the horrors of Japanese internment camps. I imagine the blame for Iraq will be bounced around for many, many years.
How can we keep this from happening?
Remove our troops from what should be a law enforcement action in Iraq unless the powers-that-be own up to the fact they want to be a colonial occupying force for the duration. The increasing incidents of the abuse of Iraqi non-combatants is symptomatic of a stressed military trying to do a job for which they are not trained – occupying a hostile country. Soldiers are trained to fight wars. The actual war was over the day Bush got up there in his borrowed flight suit and arrogantly proclaimed mission accomplished. What wasn’t and still isn’t accomplished is bringing a bunch of rag-tag, rebellious individuals to heel without demonizing and victimizing the rest of the population.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Yes, because they are sniveling lapdogs of the conservative right. Instead of the American public being told constantly about the horrors of war (as they were during Vietnam), we are fed soft stories about Paris Hilton going to jail, or the latest celebrity getting divorced/getting married/giving birth.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
I will answer this question with the following quote:
QUOTE
The Cut-and-Run Frame put forth as a reason why we cannot withdraw from Iraq fits a gallant war. It does not fit a failed occupation. When you have become the villain and target to the people you are trying to help, it’s time to do the right thing — admit the truth that this is an occupation and think and act accordingly. All occupations end with withdrawal. The issue is not bravery versus cowardice in a good cause. The Cut-and-Run Frame does not apply. Rockridge Inst
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
We gave up the moral ground 4 years ago.
As for you, aevans176, I have four words: Haditha, Mahmoudiya, Ishhaqi and Hamdaniya (Iraq Occupation Report)
and this:
QUOTE(Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey @ 12 years in Marine Corps)
A: The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation. What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people. I think at first the Iraqis had the understanding that casualties are a part of war. But over the course of time, the occupation hurt the Iraqis. And I didn't see any humanitarian support. Sac Bee
and this:
QUOTE
A top US Army commander in Iraq has ordered an investigation into allegations of yet another atrocity committed by US soldiers in Iraq. The case involves a particularly gruesome and sadistic episode, in which an Iraqi woman was allegedly stalked, raped and murdered. Three other members of her family were killed, and the corpse of the violated woman was burned. WSWS
and this:
QUOTE
• An episode involving US marines and 24 civilians killed at Haditha in November. It's expected to result in official charges involving failure by some officers to report the event as well as the deaths of the Iraqis.
• Charges against six marines for assaulting civilians in order to extract intelligence. Among the six are three charged with killing an Iraqi man, then placing an AK-47 rifle next to his body to make it look as if he was an insurgent.
• Allegations that an Army brigade commander in Tikrit ordered his troops to "kill all military-aged males."
What's different, compared with World War II - at least for American soldiers in the field - is the incessant nature of the threat of personal attack from roadside bombs or snipers.
CS Monitor
• Charges against six marines for assaulting civilians in order to extract intelligence. Among the six are three charged with killing an Iraqi man, then placing an AK-47 rifle next to his body to make it look as if he was an insurgent.
• Allegations that an Army brigade commander in Tikrit ordered his troops to "kill all military-aged males."
What's different, compared with World War II - at least for American soldiers in the field - is the incessant nature of the threat of personal attack from roadside bombs or snipers.
CS Monitor
and this:
QUOTE
"Criminal behavior is a symptom of combat stress," says John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.
According to a definitive human rights report, among six hundred US military personnel clearly implicated in detainee torture and abuse in Iraq , Afghanistan and Guantanamo , only seventy-nine are known to have been recommended for court-martial, and only sixty-four appear to have actually been court-martialed as of April 10, 2006 . [71] Only ten were sentenced to more than one year in prison. Even in the grave case of detainee deaths, only a handful of those implicated were punished. Most sentences were very light and the highest-ranking person prosecuted was a major. [72] The report describes a “pattern of impunity for the worst violations, with punishment for bad behavior too little and too late, and a still incomplete picture of what really went wrong.” [73] Global Security
According to a definitive human rights report, among six hundred US military personnel clearly implicated in detainee torture and abuse in Iraq , Afghanistan and Guantanamo , only seventy-nine are known to have been recommended for court-martial, and only sixty-four appear to have actually been court-martialed as of April 10, 2006 . [71] Only ten were sentenced to more than one year in prison. Even in the grave case of detainee deaths, only a handful of those implicated were punished. Most sentences were very light and the highest-ranking person prosecuted was a major. [72] The report describes a “pattern of impunity for the worst violations, with punishment for bad behavior too little and too late, and a still incomplete picture of what really went wrong.” [73] Global Security
and this:
QUOTE
The American killing project is not described in these terms to the distant public. The politicians still speak in the abstract of glory, honor and heroism, of the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. The press, as in most wars, is slavishly compliant. The reality of the war—the fact that the occupation forces have become, along with the rampaging militias, a source of terror to most Iraqis—is not transmitted to the American public. The press chronicles the physical and emotional wounds visited on those who kill in our name. The Iraqis, those we kill, are largely nameless, faceless dead. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a regrettable but necessary virtue. AlterNet
QUOTE(Amlord @ Jul 10 2007, 03:58 PM)
War is not about high moral ground. It is about defeating the enemy.
I fully agree.
QUOTE(Amlord @ Jul 10 2007, 03:58 PM)
Unfortunately, we have been too bogged down in thinking such as this in the fanciful hope that people will like us. Kill the enemy, that is the objective of war. Do it while following the rules of war (which are very fuzzy on this type of urban insurgency). Forget about the moral high ground.
I think you underrate our military if you assume that they have been very bogged down with many considerations of humanity, let alone nicety. Certainly, these reports would indicate the contrary. That political correctness somehow governs our war-making is a myth that is being ginned up these days on the right, e.g. by Ann Coulter, to excuse the failure in Iraq of our vaunted armed forces. We have the world's most powerful military, right? So how could we possibly be losing? Oh yeah, must be political restrictions on military conduct, right? Wrong. The SS of fabled ruthlessness couldn't have won this war, not, at any rate, with the same number of troops that we've sent to Iraq.
QUOTE(Amlord @ Jul 10 2007, 03:58 PM)
The enemy does not have the same morals as us.
On the contrary, the enemy has the same kill-or-be-killed, win-at-any-cost mentality that our forces do. That is in the nature of war.
QUOTE
We are not living in different universes, moral or otherwise. However, winning over the population is an iffy proposition and one that hasn't succeeded all that well so far. I think we can agree that, if anything, this is where we have failed in Iraq.
The President has made a mistake in trying to use the military in a capacity it does not have expertise in.
We should absolutely follow the Rules of War. We should not terrorize civilians. However, we should not be coddling them either. We have a job to do. Let's do it and get on with the business of defending our country.
The President has made a mistake in trying to use the military in a capacity it does not have expertise in.
We should absolutely follow the Rules of War. We should not terrorize civilians. However, we should not be coddling them either. We have a job to do. Let's do it and get on with the business of defending our country.
Ahh, sigh of relief.
I agree 100 percent that the president has made a mistake in trying to use the military in a capacity it does not have expertise in.
Maybe a unique strategy would be to combat-prep seasoned swat teams and drug raid personnel and use them in anti-terror raids... but I'm just dreaming from an armchair, who knows if that represents anything close to a workable strategy. I doubt it.
Back to the point: no one is saying we should coddle anyone. Just that we shouldn't kill them, and when we do, as we probably will, we should have a response ready.
I agree. We should try to not terrorize civilians, whenever possible. However, when we conduct raids we naturally 'terrorize civilians'. Bashing down someone's front door and rushing into their living room with a gun in their face is inevitably one way to terrorize a civilian household-- especially when those guns go off in panic, as guns are prone to do (this is doubly true when those guns are in the hands of combat-fresh 18-year-old kids, who the army is desperate to get in a pair of boots (because too many of us are sitting at home on America's Debate).)
Having said that, counter-terrorism is heavily based on raids like that.
I don't want to sound like a pansy here, but I wonder what the usefulness of tazers would be in these situations. Obviously they lack the range... but cops -- another group of brave recruits whose life is too often on the line in the course of their daily work -- use them for a reason. As we increasingly use our army as a counter-terror protection/police force, I wonder if maybe we should adopt some of those methods.
But like I said, I'm just tossing out ideas from the civilian comforts of an armchair.
QUOTE
Frankly, being a soldier and the son of a soldier, I have seen combat and understand military doctrine as well as most. The idea that Marines are out there killing people unnecessarily is absurd.
ACCIDENTS do happen. I don't deny that. Friendly fire accidents, innocent people get shot in error, things explode, trucks and tanks crash, etc.
ACCIDENTS do happen. I don't deny that. Friendly fire accidents, innocent people get shot in error, things explode, trucks and tanks crash, etc.
Congratulations and thank you for your service.
You said exactly what I have been saying:
1.) Most marines are not out there killing people unnecessarily
2.) But accidents do happen.
Now you might see this as a fact of war, and we all agree. But limiting the needless deaths we cause should be part and parcel of a counter-terrorism plan. It's just smart policy. Maybe this tidbit from Fox News will relieve our anxieties re: the liberal media
QUOTE
bin Laden said he was first inspired to attack the United States by the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon in which towers and buildings in Beirut were destroyed in the siege of the capital.
"While I was looking at these destroyed towers in Lebanon, it sparked in my mind that the tyrant should be punished with the same and that we should destroy towers in America, so that it tastes what we taste and would be deterred from killing our children and women," he said.
"While I was looking at these destroyed towers in Lebanon, it sparked in my mind that the tyrant should be punished with the same and that we should destroy towers in America, so that it tastes what we taste and would be deterred from killing our children and women," he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137095,00.html
Taking OBL's account here, there's a lesson to be learned here:
Had Israeli forced exhibited a little more care in their siege of Beirut there might have been one less terrorist in this world... not saying they didn't have provocation to siege Beirut, just that this whole conflict puts Israel and the US in a tightrope dance between self-protection and sustained occupation. Or to borrow the Hot Shots Part Deux schtick, between Iraq and a hard place.
This is a different world. The old rules of combat do not apply to an insurgency. Mao Tse Dung has been trying to tell us that since he used the fish and the sea metaphor to describe an insurgency.
We are stuck in the precarious position of having to capture terrorists AND discredit their ideology, which pits us as an enemy.
And we have failed horribly, partly, because it is still a taboo to suggest that we should do anything other than bulldoze through with the entire might of the US military. Bring 'em on.
QUOTE
What leads one to believe that we're needlessly killing and arresting people? Have you been to Iraq? Have you read credible sources?
Say what you will the Times is a credible source-- sorry Bob Herbert didn't list a exact statistic on how many people have died at US hands... probably because nobody's counting.
However, like you said: "accidents happen." So here's a few more articles that accounts for how many of those accidents are happening:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/30/...main/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6052602069.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6060400797.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/st...1223563,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5039420.stm
And here's one from the Times noting the drop in civilian casualties... great news from a great paper.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/world/mi...bc9&ei=5070
Those are major, well-publicized incidents, and I'm sure there are other smaller injustices Iraqi civilians deal with daily. That might pail in comparison to the injustice of dying in the heat of an IED, but I am convinced that executing as professional an occupation as possible is the heart of what it means to wage war on terror. So this shouldn't be a hawk vs. dove issue. It should be a matter of smart policy.
To say nothing of 'doing the right thing.'
And at the risk of smearing the name of the US military, i would like to re-iterate something I shouldn't have to: that "only a minority of U.S. troops engaged in objectionable behavior, but the toll of their actions has been huge."
How are we going to damper that toll? And why don't we hear about this more often, instead of all car-bomb after car-bomb news?
QUOTE(drewyorktimes @ Jul 10 2007, 10:51 AM)
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
How can we keep this from happening?
How can we keep this from happening?
1. The U.S. has a process to compensate civilians and families of those killed by American troops.
I mentioned in a post last Thursday that today is the anniversary of Marla Ruzicka's death. Marla dedicated her life to ensuring compensation for the families of innocent victims of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than once, she risked everything to gain a firsthand perspective on the impact of U.S. military operations abroad, traveling to the frontlines of active combat. But for Marla, the information she would bring back and the legislation it inspired were worth the risk. These risks that she so bravely faced eventually took her life, as she and her colleague Faiz Ali Salim were killed by a suicide bomber in 2005. Marla was 29 years old.
Though her life was cut tragically short, her legacy lives on through the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), an organization founded by Marla herself. According to CIVIC Associate Marla Bertagnolli, "CIVIC started in 2001 when Marla Ruzicka traveled to Afghanistan and realized that the families of innocent victims of U.S. and coalition actions were not being helped financially by the U.S. She collected information and began working with Senator Leahy to get the funding to provide these victims with compensation. In 2003, she went to Iraq and brought back information to Leahy. Following her death in Iraq on April 16, 2005, Congress established the Marla Ruzicka Iraqi War Victims Fund. This fund gives money to small, community-based projects that help families who have been directly affected by U.S. and coalition actions."
CIVIC continues actively working toward smart and compassionate policies for war victims. "CIVIC is pushing for the military to create an effective compensation system that provides a larger condolence payment than the current $2,500 compensation," says Bertagnolli. "CIVIC is currently working with Senator Leahy on legislation to standardize payments to families harmed or caught in the cross-fire of U.S. military operations. A standardized system would ensure that the families of victims receive payments immediately after the death of their family member Marla Ruzicka
The United States will pay up $2500 to compensate civilians who claim to have been harmed in military action. However, this is a flexible, not fixed position. There are exceptions as one website claims:
Based on the Foreign Claims Act, inhabitants of foreign countries may request compensation for negligent or wrongful acts by U.S. forces that result in death, injury or loss of property. Payments are not authorized for damage, injury or death that results from combat activities of U.S. forces. As such, claims before May 1 fall under the so called “combat exclusion,” as do claims after May 1 related to combat.
By the U.S. military’s own admission, what defines combat in Iraq after May 1 is not always clear. In August 2003, a coalition official tried to explain the parameters at a background briefing for the press:
We’re still in the middle of combat operations. So there’s a presumption that it’s not combat, but if the facts indicate otherwise, it still could be included as a combat activity. Like if you had a checkpoint set up and someone runs the checkpoint, that would be a combat claim in that instance...
If, in the course of combat activity, there was a reasonable act by one of our soldiers in identifying a target, but upon reflection, it turns out that that was a shot that we all wish could have been taken back, that would probably be subject to the combat exclusion and be excluded as a claim.. link 2
A nation that spends a billion dollars a week keeping a failed state from sliding into total chaos can easily afford $2500 and never bat an eyelash.
2. Short of never fighting a war, there is no way to fight a war without innocents being killed. Bullets and bombs don't discriminate: they'll kill and maim anyone who has the bad fortune to be in their way. I don't think American soldiers are trained to kill indiscrimnately.
That doesn't mean sometime they don't.
SAN DIEGO - The leader of a battalion involved in the killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha should face a court-martial for dereliction of duty, the investigating officer recommended in a report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, 43, was charged in December with dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order for failing to report and investigate the deaths of the men, women and children in the biggest U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war.
The investigating officer, Col. Christopher Conlin, wrote that Chessani should face all charges.
Chessani "failed to thoroughly and accurately report and investigate a combat engagement that clearly needed scrutiny," Conlin wrote. Yahoo! Link
Take a young man, full of training that has taught him to kill, give him a rifle and send him thousands of miles away to interact with people who speak a different language, conduct themselves in a manner that is strange by Western standards and who don't want us there and tell him to keep the peace and don't kill a friendly while you're trying to kill a hostile.
All the atrocities during wartime aren't commited by the enemy. There will be isolated incidents where our hands are stained with innocent blood. To deny that is to deny both current reality and past history.
QUOTE(DaffyGrl @ Jul 10 2007, 01:46 PM)
After all, it took 40+ years for this country to admit its responsibility for the horrors of Japanese internment camps.
"Horrors?" Its insane hyperbole like this that gives rise to folks concluding that you've got nothing worthwhile to add to a debate. Long on passion, short on facts. Please, for pity's sake, at least give us a 
when you toss such steamers into a thread.***********************************************************
QUOTE(Nighttimer)
I don't think American soldiers are trained to kill indiscrimnately.
That doesn't mean sometime they don't.
SAN DIEGO - The leader of a battalion involved in the killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha should face a court-martial for dereliction of duty, the investigating officer recommended in a report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, 43, was charged in December with dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order for failing to report and investigate the deaths of the men, women and children in the biggest U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war.
NT, you did notice that the Colonel is being charged with failing to investigate the incident as ordered, not with "indiscriminate killing", right, because he wasn't even there? Did you happen to read any further into the article, to this:That doesn't mean sometime they don't.
SAN DIEGO - The leader of a battalion involved in the killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha should face a court-martial for dereliction of duty, the investigating officer recommended in a report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, 43, was charged in December with dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order for failing to report and investigate the deaths of the men, women and children in the biggest U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war.
The decision followed a setback for the government in its case against another Haditha defendant. A hearing officer found prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence for a court-martial against Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt, who was accused of fatally shooting Iraqi civilians.
Lt. Col. Paul Ware said murder charges brought against Sharratt for killing three Iraqi brothers were based on unreliable witness accounts, insupportable forensic evidence and questionable legal theories.
"The government version is unsupported by independent evidence," Ware wrote in an 18-page report released Tuesday by Sharratt's attorneys. "To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary."
QUOTE(Bikerdad)
"Horrors?" Its insane hyperbole like this that gives rise to folks concluding that you've got nothing worthwhile to add to a debate. Long on passion, short on facts. Please, for pity's sake, at least give us a when you toss such steamers into a thread.
Well, Mr. Pot, meet Ms. Kettle. Give me a break. My "insane hyperbole" pales in comparison to some of the over-the-top stuff I've seen you spew. Instead of ferreting out nuggets that you can make fun of, perhaps it would be better if you READ the posts and understood the points being made? Do you deny that it took the US 40+ years to admit culpability for interring Japanese-Americans (note that I didn't ask if you CARED, or AGREED with the decision)?
Well, it will take a bit more than Bob Herbert's good word to convince me that our troops overseas are generally rampantly abusive towards the population and that such actions are frequent as this piece would indicate. Not in the part quoted, but the paragraph above it didn't make the cut:
So, the authors describe the acts as "frequent" but the soldiers they actually interview indicate that a small minority of U.S. troops are engaged in such behavior. I am curious if those interviewed knew that their statements would be represented this way.
There were in fact, as the article did correctly indicate, thousands of raids conducted and innocents detained for a time during the first series of surges. That was due to the lack of dependable human intel and vast communication gaps. Certain unsavory (Iraqi civilian) interpreters were used because we didn't have the linguistic ability to conduct the interogations effectively on our own. That wasn't wanton, malicious abuse or "cold blooded", it was a communications failure, albeit an egregious one that doubtless led to a lot of very understandable resentment from the population at large.
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
The best thing to do is not engage in a war unprepared and/or for less than compelling reasonsn because war is going to suck for everyone occupied. Period. We have war lawyers that scrutinize every action assessing whether or not there is a justified, proportional risk to civilians. The rules of engagement are based on the laws of armed conflict and set to that standard. Violators are prosecuted. Soldiers are held to a higher standard than a civilian would be under the same conditions. If I am fired at, I can fire back under any condition and it is considered self defense. I am not expected to spare others in the interest of saving my own skin. Even the occupants of Waco were absolved of all homicide charges for this reason.
In the case of a soldier, his or her actions are weighed to favor innocent bystanders, and contrary to popular belief martial law is stricter than civilian law. Green is currently facing the death penalty (if convicted) for his crime against an Iraqi teen and her family.
How can we keep this from happening?
Enforce the laws that already exist, and don't send our soldiers into dangerous situations unless we feel the risk is justified for defensive reasons.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
No.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
Well, the vast majority of civilian deaths in Iraq are due to rampant civilian violence, not US bombs or "mass murdering with impunity" as this opinion piece would indicate. I don't think there is any way available to wage this type of war without civilian deaths. In Afghanistan, the Taliban now realizes that they can abduct scores of women and children and hide them inside their buildings of operation. Our forces then watch the buildings for several days and determine that no civilians occupy the premises because they haven't seen any in or out during that time, only insurgent/terrorist activity. They attack said facility to find that they have engaged not only insurgents but killed the civilians that were hidden as human shields within the confines.
One way to combat the problem (not a solution, but it would ameliorate it) is better human intelligence and infiltration of those agencies from within. Takes a lot of money, and most of all vast amounts of time to obtain those sorts of dependable sleeper agents. And it's extremely dangerous to any volunteer, particularly when we've abandoned so many in the past.
QUOTE
The article does not focus on the handful of atrocities that have gotten substantial press coverage, like the massacre in Haditha in November 2005. Instead, based on interviews conducted on the record with dozens of American combat veterans of the war, the authors address what they describe as frequent acts of violence in which U.S. forces have abused or killed Iraqi civilians - men, women and children - with impunity.
So, the authors describe the acts as "frequent" but the soldiers they actually interview indicate that a small minority of U.S. troops are engaged in such behavior. I am curious if those interviewed knew that their statements would be represented this way.
There were in fact, as the article did correctly indicate, thousands of raids conducted and innocents detained for a time during the first series of surges. That was due to the lack of dependable human intel and vast communication gaps. Certain unsavory (Iraqi civilian) interpreters were used because we didn't have the linguistic ability to conduct the interogations effectively on our own. That wasn't wanton, malicious abuse or "cold blooded", it was a communications failure, albeit an egregious one that doubtless led to a lot of very understandable resentment from the population at large.What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
The best thing to do is not engage in a war unprepared and/or for less than compelling reasonsn because war is going to suck for everyone occupied. Period. We have war lawyers that scrutinize every action assessing whether or not there is a justified, proportional risk to civilians. The rules of engagement are based on the laws of armed conflict and set to that standard. Violators are prosecuted. Soldiers are held to a higher standard than a civilian would be under the same conditions. If I am fired at, I can fire back under any condition and it is considered self defense. I am not expected to spare others in the interest of saving my own skin. Even the occupants of Waco were absolved of all homicide charges for this reason.
In the case of a soldier, his or her actions are weighed to favor innocent bystanders, and contrary to popular belief martial law is stricter than civilian law. Green is currently facing the death penalty (if convicted) for his crime against an Iraqi teen and her family.
How can we keep this from happening?
Enforce the laws that already exist, and don't send our soldiers into dangerous situations unless we feel the risk is justified for defensive reasons.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
No.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
Well, the vast majority of civilian deaths in Iraq are due to rampant civilian violence, not US bombs or "mass murdering with impunity" as this opinion piece would indicate. I don't think there is any way available to wage this type of war without civilian deaths. In Afghanistan, the Taliban now realizes that they can abduct scores of women and children and hide them inside their buildings of operation. Our forces then watch the buildings for several days and determine that no civilians occupy the premises because they haven't seen any in or out during that time, only insurgent/terrorist activity. They attack said facility to find that they have engaged not only insurgents but killed the civilians that were hidden as human shields within the confines.
One way to combat the problem (not a solution, but it would ameliorate it) is better human intelligence and infiltration of those agencies from within. Takes a lot of money, and most of all vast amounts of time to obtain those sorts of dependable sleeper agents. And it's extremely dangerous to any volunteer, particularly when we've abandoned so many in the past.
Before I start, I want to echo the idea that mistakes happen - that's understandable. And when mistakes happen in active engagement of armed forces, people die. That's also understandable.
What is not understandable (or at least less so), or forgiveable (in extreme cases), is when soldiers kill unarmed civilians who haven't done anything suspicious (e.g. run a roadblock, etc.) and then try to cover their tracks by planting evidence to make themselves look good. That's not warfare, or policing, or peacekeeping, that's murder. Maybe not premeditated, first degree murder, but it's still murder.
"Combat stress" brought on by lack of training is not an acceptable excuse. The appropriate response in such circumstances is not to shrug and say "oh well, that's the price of doing business", nor is it "kill the enemy and get the hell out". If lack of training is the problem, TRAIN THE TROOPS PROPERLY.
/cheesy analogy on This is the same in any job. If your office junior can't use or doesn't like using a keyboard, but is just dandy with a hammer, the appropriate response is not to only let them do the jobs around the office that requires a hammer (you'll be apying them to sit around doing nothing most of the time). It is to either train that person to use a keyboard, or fire them and hire someone that already knows - BECAUSE USING A KEYBOARD IS WHAT THE JOB REQUIRES. Maybe after Fred has learned to type, and you've managed his expectations to include needing to type, you will be grateful for some future hammer-related emergnecy when his hammering prowess will get you out of a sticky situation. But - to rehash the old saw - when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It's not Fred's fault that all he knows to do is hit things with a lump of metal, unless you've tried your best to train him to use other tools equally well. If he's still useless at everything except hammering, he probably shouldn't be working in an office at all. /cheesy analogy off
Now, it may be true that the role that the military has trained US troops to carry out is not the one they are being asked to do on the ground. It may also be true that this type of thing is not what John Q Serviceman signed up for.
But it is what they are doing, and the glitches are happening because of the lack of training and the dissonance between what they forces think they are there to do and what they are being forced to do for whatever reason.
In other words, the one obvious thing that the US military could do that it is currently not doing and not (as far as I know) even planning to do - between the two extremes of "don't shoot anyone who doesn't shoot at you first" and "kill them all and let God sort them out", that seem to represent US debate on this topic so far - is accept the fact that hardly any conceivable deployments of US forces in the foreseeable future are NOT going to involve some degree of dealing with insurgencies coming from amongst civilian populations (it has been a feature of all recent engagements, back to and including Vietnam, with the possible exception of Grenada). And then, once they've accepted the reality of what the USA is going to be deploying its military to do, start training the military to handle such matters.
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
Train troops for what they are actually being asked to do, not for some ideal world role of what they would be asked to do if a list of perhaps desirable but pragmatically unfeasible conditions - only fighting a uniformed enemy in pitched battles where no civilians are present - are in place. Yes and yes to the last two.
How can we keep this from happening?
Training, training and training, and, once that training has been instilled into the military establishment and - crucially - once they have accepted that peacekeeping and "dirty" anti-insurgency work (by "dirty" I mean where the insurgents are not easy to tell from the local population through a uniform or simply physical separation) are a core part of what they have to do to defend the USA and its interests - severe punishments (up to and including firing squads) for anyone who acts against such training. THIS CAN ONLY HAPPEN AFTER SUCH TRAINING HAS TAKEN PLACE
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
No, I don't think so. I think, mostly, the cover ups (if there have been any) have been lower down the chain, either to evade detection or to avoid being disciplined.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
I think it's unrelated to any strategic matter beyond What is the military for?
If it is a purely war-fighting machine that will never be required to do the nuances of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism, then don't deploy them in the first place where such things are required (which means a lot of time in barracks, as such things almost always are required as part & parcel of modern warfare, especially anything as loosely-defined as a War on Terror).
If, on the other hand, the military is for whatever is necessary at the time of deployment, then they had better gear up to train for whatever is necessary, and the government (and taxpayers) had better pony up the cash to allow them room to do that training.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
I've got a foot in both camps so far expressed here.
Firstly, if you don't want to give up the moral high ground, don't fight wars that are not very clearly and unequivocally "the right thing to do". Don't be in Iraq in the first place (Afghanistan was the moral high ground until attention was redirected away from nation-building there to nation-repairing in Iraq, and could yet be so again.)
But on the other hand, once you're in there, I don't think there is any point in shying away from anything that is militarily necessary or unavoidable e.g. it is militarily necessary to kill at least some people - the bad guys - and unavoidable that some civilians, allies or fellow soldiers will get killed too as a result of our side's actions. It is not militarily necessary, nor is it avoidable, to stalk, rape, murder and cover up that murder, or to plant weapons, etc.
Omlettes and eggs, dear boy. Omlettes and eggs.
Please note this last point does not contradict what I said about training for the situations that troops are actually faced with, rather than some Westpoint ideal of what they ought to be faced with.
What is not understandable (or at least less so), or forgiveable (in extreme cases), is when soldiers kill unarmed civilians who haven't done anything suspicious (e.g. run a roadblock, etc.) and then try to cover their tracks by planting evidence to make themselves look good. That's not warfare, or policing, or peacekeeping, that's murder. Maybe not premeditated, first degree murder, but it's still murder.
"Combat stress" brought on by lack of training is not an acceptable excuse. The appropriate response in such circumstances is not to shrug and say "oh well, that's the price of doing business", nor is it "kill the enemy and get the hell out". If lack of training is the problem, TRAIN THE TROOPS PROPERLY.
/cheesy analogy on This is the same in any job. If your office junior can't use or doesn't like using a keyboard, but is just dandy with a hammer, the appropriate response is not to only let them do the jobs around the office that requires a hammer (you'll be apying them to sit around doing nothing most of the time). It is to either train that person to use a keyboard, or fire them and hire someone that already knows - BECAUSE USING A KEYBOARD IS WHAT THE JOB REQUIRES. Maybe after Fred has learned to type, and you've managed his expectations to include needing to type, you will be grateful for some future hammer-related emergnecy when his hammering prowess will get you out of a sticky situation. But - to rehash the old saw - when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It's not Fred's fault that all he knows to do is hit things with a lump of metal, unless you've tried your best to train him to use other tools equally well. If he's still useless at everything except hammering, he probably shouldn't be working in an office at all. /cheesy analogy off
Now, it may be true that the role that the military has trained US troops to carry out is not the one they are being asked to do on the ground. It may also be true that this type of thing is not what John Q Serviceman signed up for.
But it is what they are doing, and the glitches are happening because of the lack of training and the dissonance between what they forces think they are there to do and what they are being forced to do for whatever reason.
In other words, the one obvious thing that the US military could do that it is currently not doing and not (as far as I know) even planning to do - between the two extremes of "don't shoot anyone who doesn't shoot at you first" and "kill them all and let God sort them out", that seem to represent US debate on this topic so far - is accept the fact that hardly any conceivable deployments of US forces in the foreseeable future are NOT going to involve some degree of dealing with insurgencies coming from amongst civilian populations (it has been a feature of all recent engagements, back to and including Vietnam, with the possible exception of Grenada). And then, once they've accepted the reality of what the USA is going to be deploying its military to do, start training the military to handle such matters.
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
Train troops for what they are actually being asked to do, not for some ideal world role of what they would be asked to do if a list of perhaps desirable but pragmatically unfeasible conditions - only fighting a uniformed enemy in pitched battles where no civilians are present - are in place. Yes and yes to the last two.
How can we keep this from happening?
Training, training and training, and, once that training has been instilled into the military establishment and - crucially - once they have accepted that peacekeeping and "dirty" anti-insurgency work (by "dirty" I mean where the insurgents are not easy to tell from the local population through a uniform or simply physical separation) are a core part of what they have to do to defend the USA and its interests - severe punishments (up to and including firing squads) for anyone who acts against such training. THIS CAN ONLY HAPPEN AFTER SUCH TRAINING HAS TAKEN PLACE
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
No, I don't think so. I think, mostly, the cover ups (if there have been any) have been lower down the chain, either to evade detection or to avoid being disciplined.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
I think it's unrelated to any strategic matter beyond What is the military for?
If it is a purely war-fighting machine that will never be required to do the nuances of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism, then don't deploy them in the first place where such things are required (which means a lot of time in barracks, as such things almost always are required as part & parcel of modern warfare, especially anything as loosely-defined as a War on Terror).
If, on the other hand, the military is for whatever is necessary at the time of deployment, then they had better gear up to train for whatever is necessary, and the government (and taxpayers) had better pony up the cash to allow them room to do that training.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
I've got a foot in both camps so far expressed here.
Firstly, if you don't want to give up the moral high ground, don't fight wars that are not very clearly and unequivocally "the right thing to do". Don't be in Iraq in the first place (Afghanistan was the moral high ground until attention was redirected away from nation-building there to nation-repairing in Iraq, and could yet be so again.)
But on the other hand, once you're in there, I don't think there is any point in shying away from anything that is militarily necessary or unavoidable e.g. it is militarily necessary to kill at least some people - the bad guys - and unavoidable that some civilians, allies or fellow soldiers will get killed too as a result of our side's actions. It is not militarily necessary, nor is it avoidable, to stalk, rape, murder and cover up that murder, or to plant weapons, etc.
Omlettes and eggs, dear boy. Omlettes and eggs.
Please note this last point does not contradict what I said about training for the situations that troops are actually faced with, rather than some Westpoint ideal of what they ought to be faced with.
QUOTE(Amlord @ Jul 10 2007, 04:58 PM)
War is not about high moral ground. It is about defeating the enemy.
If you will forgive me for being blunt, you are quite completely wrong.
Winning a stand up conventional war is about defeating your enemies. However the stand-up conventional war ended aboard an Aircraft carrier in an ill-considered publicity stunt in May 2003.
This is a counter-insurgency, and that is NOT about defeating your enemy, it is ENTIRELY about the 'high moral ground', or in military parlance, winning the hearts and minds of the civilian population. It has been for decades, it is specifically stated as the primary and only winning objective in the US counter-insurgency manual (co-Written by Petraus). 'Defeating your enemy' has proven to be a singularily USELESS tactic in Vietnam, Soviet Afghanistan, the malasian Insurgency, and pretty much all modern counter-insurgency battles.
As further evidence, sonsider this. In 2003, the 'Insurgency' was estimated by the pentagon to number between 5000 and 7000 committed members. Most of these were former Baathist officials. By december 2004, US forces claimed to have captured or killed 17,000 Insurgents in 18 months of fighting. Shortly after that, in February 2005, the US pentagon estimated there were between 13,000 and 17,000 committed insurgents in Iraq. (Iraqi government estimates at the time were as high as 40,000)
By January 2006 a washinton Post article quoted the Pentagon as etimating a total of about 40,000 dead or captured insurgents, over the course of the war. Current US (pre-surge) estimates are of between 20,000 and 25,000 hardcore insurgents, with several hundred thousand soft active supporters.
So what do these numbers tell us? It tells us that the Us is 'defeating the enemy', but that because of a miriad of factors, INCLUDING atrocities against Iraqi civilians, the Insurgency is recruiting far faster than it can be defeated. This is exactly the same pattern as occurred in Vietnam and Soviet Afghanistan. The more the occupying power squeesed, the more hurt, insulted or grieving civilians joined the ranks of the Insurgency.
And let us be clear on another fact, this is entirely a home grown insurgency: estimates of the number of 'foreign fighters' have dropped year after year as fact replaced propaganda. In fallujah, only 1% of all captures Insurgents were non-Iraqi. Commander after Commander in Iraq has stated openly that non-Iraqi fighters comprise a miniscule percentage of the insurgents, and those that are there mostly provide training and technical support. So this huge growth in the Insurency has been almost entirely Iraqi.
So in fact if there is a single reason why the US is losing this war, it is because many seem to believe as you do Amlord, that winning the hearts and minds is a secondary (or even irrelevant) objective compared to defeating the enemy. So far the US focus on 'defeating the enemy' has had as a practical result the increase in the membership Iraqi insurgency by about 800%.
And yet we are told 'progress is being made', and give it more time. I wonder how these people would have defined the '41-'45 Pacific war (which start to finish took less time than this conflict) if after 4 years of fighting the Japanese army was 8x stronger and more numerous than at the start of the war. Would they just keep asking for more time to keep doing the same things? Call those who think changing tactics MIGHT be wise 'cowards' or 'traitors'?
Now regarding the article and the US atrocities against Iraqi civilians, I find one real fault in the article, and that is the use of the word 'frequent'. It is such a non-specific term and depends on one's perspective. To a civilian reporter, 10 cases of these actions of atrocity a year (for example) might seem terribly 'frequent', when in reality with this many soldiers in a location, under stress in a hostile environment where every civilian could be a threat, its hardly even unexpected. Still tragic of course, but consider, take an average US town of 140,000 people, and ask yourself how many 'atrocities' of murder and rape occur on a yearly basis?
Now one would have to be delusional (as one person on this thread apparently is) to claim these intentional atrocties NEVER occur. Especially when there have been several of people convicted of such actions and dozens under investigation. Of course they occur, and they are appauling, and awful, no question. I just wish that journalists would further define words like 'frequently'.
Of course, the real issue here is that each of these atrocities, each Abu Graib or Mahmudiyah incident, or Tayanath incident or Hamdania incident causes an enormous backlash, eagerly exploited by the Insurgents. It is human nature that domestic crimes may go unremarked, while rapes and murders by foreign occupiers make huge headines. Each incident undoubtably leads to a significant boost in Insurgent recruitment. The deteriorating situation in Iraq leads to a boost in Insurgent recruitment. The utter inability to end the war by 'defeating the opposition' has led to a boost in Insurgenct recruitment.
I mean seriously here, just take a LOOK at what Iraqis themselves think: the image could not be clearer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs...iraqpollnew.pdf
Every poll reports a drop in access to water, electricity, medical supplies, teaching and faith in government progressively over the last three years. 17% of people have lost family or friends in the violence. 51% SUPPORT active terror atacks against US troops, and when asked if the US had 'done a good job' in its occupation over the last 4 years, only 24% said very good or somewhat good (6% and 18% respectively) while 76% said quite bad or very bad job (30% and 46% respectively).
I'm sorry, but 'defeating the enemy' as a primary objective is EXACTLY why the US has been progressively losing this war, and the Insurgency progressively growing stronger.
Thanks Vermillion for that poll-- Wonder where its from, but all the same, I'm going to spend some time pouring over the numbers.
I agree with the critique that 'frequently' is the kind of word that suggests more than it can prove. People rush to use words like those when they have a weekly column (or a morning radio show (or a evening faux-news TV show)).
Having said that, the obvious contradiction here is thus: when I posted this thread -- wished I'd called it something less flammable than 'US Atrocities,' though I'm sure that's how a lot of Iraqis see them -- I figured it was common knowledge that this stuff happens in war: especially an urban-insurgent style war like Vietnam or French-Algeria.
Curiously enough, several of you lambasted Bob Herbert for suggesting that these attacks happen without providing the statistic to prove them-- then you yourselves, with this "war is not about the high moral ground" rhetoric, presented a view of war that obviously includes room for mistakes on the ground leading to civilian deaths.
So I don't think we need to provide statistic that these attacks happen, but if we did Vermillion's poll illustrates them quite clearly:
"
If that's hard to read let me break it down: 44 percent of polled Iraqis said that their area had experienced "Unnecessary violence against citizens by US or coalition forces."
Holy Mackerel. More people said their area experienced unnecessary violence on American hands than car bombs or suicide attacks; kidnappings or ransoms; or even attacks by militias.
Now this is just an indicator of how widespread these various types of violence are: if a half million people perished in car bombs in Baghdad this afternoon, the poll numbers for 'car bombs or suicide attacks' wouldn't jump accordingly.
Nevertheless for the patriots on here who think that civilian casualties on our hands are just a necessary part of war -- and that we should just continue to bulldoze through with all our might -- consider that "unnecessary violence against citizens by US or coalition forces" is apprently by this poll's estimation the most widespread grievance in all of Iraq. In other words, our solution to the Iraq security problem seems to be the biggest problem.
Conclusion: None of us seem to have even the faintest idea what motivates and concerns Iraqis, yet we are willing to justify our calls for prolonged occupation or immediate withdrawal on their behalf. One minute we're wringing our hands over imminent post-withdrawal genocide, the next minute we're brushing off the idea that we should apologize or at the very least limit the number of civilian casualties in Iraq.
I agree with the critique that 'frequently' is the kind of word that suggests more than it can prove. People rush to use words like those when they have a weekly column (or a morning radio show (or a evening faux-news TV show)).
Having said that, the obvious contradiction here is thus: when I posted this thread -- wished I'd called it something less flammable than 'US Atrocities,' though I'm sure that's how a lot of Iraqis see them -- I figured it was common knowledge that this stuff happens in war: especially an urban-insurgent style war like Vietnam or French-Algeria.
Curiously enough, several of you lambasted Bob Herbert for suggesting that these attacks happen without providing the statistic to prove them-- then you yourselves, with this "war is not about the high moral ground" rhetoric, presented a view of war that obviously includes room for mistakes on the ground leading to civilian deaths.
So I don't think we need to provide statistic that these attacks happen, but if we did Vermillion's poll illustrates them quite clearly:
QUOTE
Q33 For each item I read, please tell me if it has or has not occurred nearby here?
Have occurred nearby here Have not occurred nearby here Refuse/ don’t know % % %
Car bombs, suicide attacks 32 68 -
Snipers, crossfire 30 70 -
Fighting among sectarian factions 25 75 -
Kidnappings for ransom 40 60 -
Fighting between Iraqi government and antigovernment forces 34 66 -
Unnecessary violence against citizens by US or coalition forces 44 55 -
Unnecessary violence against citizens by the Iraqi police 24 76 -
Unnecessary violence against citizens by the Iraqi Army 24 76 -
Unnecessary violence against citizens by local militia forces 31 69 -
Have occurred nearby here Have not occurred nearby here Refuse/ don’t know % % %
Car bombs, suicide attacks 32 68 -
Snipers, crossfire 30 70 -
Fighting among sectarian factions 25 75 -
Kidnappings for ransom 40 60 -
Fighting between Iraqi government and antigovernment forces 34 66 -
Unnecessary violence against citizens by US or coalition forces 44 55 -
Unnecessary violence against citizens by the Iraqi police 24 76 -
Unnecessary violence against citizens by the Iraqi Army 24 76 -
Unnecessary violence against citizens by local militia forces 31 69 -
"
If that's hard to read let me break it down: 44 percent of polled Iraqis said that their area had experienced "Unnecessary violence against citizens by US or coalition forces."
Holy Mackerel. More people said their area experienced unnecessary violence on American hands than car bombs or suicide attacks; kidnappings or ransoms; or even attacks by militias.
Now this is just an indicator of how widespread these various types of violence are: if a half million people perished in car bombs in Baghdad this afternoon, the poll numbers for 'car bombs or suicide attacks' wouldn't jump accordingly.
Nevertheless for the patriots on here who think that civilian casualties on our hands are just a necessary part of war -- and that we should just continue to bulldoze through with all our might -- consider that "unnecessary violence against citizens by US or coalition forces" is apprently by this poll's estimation the most widespread grievance in all of Iraq. In other words, our solution to the Iraq security problem seems to be the biggest problem.
Conclusion: None of us seem to have even the faintest idea what motivates and concerns Iraqis, yet we are willing to justify our calls for prolonged occupation or immediate withdrawal on their behalf. One minute we're wringing our hands over imminent post-withdrawal genocide, the next minute we're brushing off the idea that we should apologize or at the very least limit the number of civilian casualties in Iraq.
QUOTE(drewyorktimes @ Jul 12 2007, 12:02 PM)
If that's hard to read let me break it down: 44 percent of polled Iraqis said that their area had experienced "Unnecessary violence against citizens by US or coalition forces."
I'm going to make this quick and easy for all to understand.
1. Iraqis polled about unnecessary violence has nothing to do with your thread. Getting roughed up while looking for insurgents could qualify. Your thread talks about killing and raping. Apples and oranges.
2. Iraqis polled about unnecessary violence... come on, how objective is that? What does the term mean? I really have to laugh that this made a post. I'm not surprised though considering the source. The fact is that the term isn't anything like what you've portrayed from the beginning.
Let's be real. If Marines are out shooting people with wanton abandonment and raping women, that's one thing. That's deplorable (and really not happening).
If Marines are kicking down doors of uncooperative people who don't understand our culture and vice versa, who hate Christians and Western Society, what makes you think a BBC poll about "unnecessary violence" is going to make an Iraqi (who likely hates us) to state something positive.
Who on earth under an occupation would think any violent actions are necessary? Seriously. If they disobey US Marine orders, and get "roughed up" a little, who is going to think that's ok? The Marines may have to do it to get what they need, but will the women and children think it's peachy for Dad to get thrown around? Of course not.
Seriously gentlemen. Be objective. It's like the police tossing people around at Mardi Gras, frankly sometimes it has to happen but those tossed around always become bitter. Who's right? The end result I'd suppose.
As for the "atrocities" thing... Drew York, you say you wish you hadn't called it that, but did you read the quote you began the thread with??
Are you recanting? Has your position changed, or do you really think that American Soldiers are shooting up Iraq like the old west?
QUOTE(aevans176 @ Jul 12 2007, 07:13 PM)
1. Iraqis polled about unnecessary violence has nothing to do with your thread. Getting roughed up while looking for insurgents could qualify. Your thread talks about killing and raping. Apples and oranges.
So, your argument is that what Iraqis believe is unecessary violence on the part of the US COULD just be them being inconvenienced or put out by routine operations? So your rebuttal then is that they MIGHT all be crybabies and whiners, exaggerating everything? Of course, you provide no logic or justification, let alone evidence as to why you essentially call 44% of Iraqis liars... So I don't think it is unreasonable to ask what you base this rather surprising assertion on. Could you elucidate please?
QUOTE
2. Iraqis polled about unnecessary violence... come on, how objective is that? What does the term mean? I really have to laugh that this made a post. I'm not surprised though considering the source. The fact is that the term isn't anything like what you've portrayed from the beginning.
I don't know aevans, how objective is a poll of the Iraqi people when trying to determine the opinions of Iraqi people? You seem to be implying its completely unobjective (though again with no logic or argument or explanation), perhaps you could explain why this is completely unobjective and deserves to be ignored in the derisive manner you do? And then you say it's 'not surprising considering the source'. Again, no further argument or logic or explanation, just randomly insult the source and presume that that allows you to ignore the data.
Sadly, the 'source' you slander is in fact D3 systems, and internationally recognised impartial and non-partisan polling agency. However if you wish to continue to try and slander the facts by offhand insults of the source, perhaps you could be more specific and tell us exactly what is wrong with D3 systems, and why you pretend falsification is 'typical' for them?
QUOTE
Let's be real. If Marines are out shooting people with wanton abandonment and raping women, that's one thing. That's deplorable (and really not happening).
Really? Not happening? At all?
Gee, perhaps aevans can instruct us all why, if raping and killing by US troops is absolutely not happening, four soldiers pled guilty for rape and murder in the Mahmudiyah case? They are obviously completely innocent because you say so. So perhaps you could explain why they admitted their crimes? While you are at it, feel free to also explain away the other court martials and guilty verdicts, to say nothing of ongoing investigations, into crimes you assert are simply not happening at all?
QUOTE
It's like the police tossing people around at Mardi Gras, frankly sometimes it has to happen but those tossed around always become bitter. Who's right?
So your response (again) to Iraqi concerns about excessive and unecessary violence is the wild assertion that all these complaints are probably just like the police breaking up carousing at Mardi Gras? Tell me aevans, perhaps you could let us in to your font of information: exactly on what do you base your assertion that all complaints of excessive force are lies and exaggerations? Do you have ANY basis for that at all? ANY reasoning or evidence to offer us?
QUOTE
Seriously gentlemen. Be objective.
QUOTE
In most cases, there is nothing more than a terrified family on the other side of the door. In instances in which unarmed civilians are shot and killed in raids, which happens frequently, it’s not unusual for G.I.’s to plant weapons by their bodies and to arrest survivors on false charges of participating in the insurgency, the article says.
Typical NYT where they get a guy to make statements like the above and then imply it is “widespread” or “everybody does it” which is crap. Certainly we are not without fault but the other side of the coin is the ROE (Rules of Engagement) used in Iraq have cost the lives of many of our men and allowed numerous bad guys to escape.
http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/67171
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/11.htm
From a soldier:
Let me tell you a little something about ROE (Rules of Engagement). In Baghdad thousands of people are moving around all the time. Many houses, all of them, have guns. On a general scale, none of them are planning any wrongdoing at all. But they don’t think that Americans can accomplish anything, either, because they know we can’t search at will, can’t shoot at will, can’t detain at will.
If you wish to stop a car approaching a checkpoint, you must first post a sign a long way down the road, if it is ignored, you must verbally warn them, and use a green laser to get the drivers attention. If still ignored, you must fire a warning shot with an M4, then a M240, then, finally the kill shot. If at any time the car turns away, all you can do is TRY to pursue it, never shoot at it. Technically, similar rules exist for dismounted operations, and that puts more soldiers at risk than you can possibly imagine. I’m not sure Johnny on the street has this information, but Muhammed in the mosque sure does.
I can’t even tell you how it makes me to hear a JAG officer suck in breath as he tries to think real hard how to explain the murky depths of our ROE. A system that used to be a way of allowing soldiers to avoid hurting civilians by using certain weapon systems at certain times has once again degenerated into a complex “Cover Your butt legal trick for higher command. Believe me, it isn’t there because Colonels and Generals WANT us to fight this way, it is there because YOU do.
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2006/12/roe_rules_of_en.html
And then of course the enemy practices the most barbaric warfare possible including beheading and the torture, murder and mutilation of US soldiers – often beyond recognition.
Yes we need to avoid killing civilians but our overall behavior in Iraq has been exemplary and we still have the “moral high ground” and always will.
That said enemy propaganda will always paint us as butchers – including the NTY.
QUOTE(Bikerdad @ Jul 12 2007, 03:07 AM)
NT, you did notice that the Colonel is being charged with failing to investigate the incident as ordered, not with "indiscriminate killing", right, because he wasn't even there? Did you happen to read any further into the article, to this:
The decision followed a setback for the government in its case against another Haditha defendant. A hearing officer found prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence for a court-martial against Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt, who was accused of fatally shooting Iraqi civilians.
Lt. Col. Paul Ware said murder charges brought against Sharratt for killing three Iraqi brothers were based on unreliable witness accounts, insupportable forensic evidence and questionable legal theories.
"The government version is unsupported by independent evidence," Ware wrote in an 18-page report released Tuesday by Sharratt's attorneys. "To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary."
The decision followed a setback for the government in its case against another Haditha defendant. A hearing officer found prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence for a court-martial against Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt, who was accused of fatally shooting Iraqi civilians.
Lt. Col. Paul Ware said murder charges brought against Sharratt for killing three Iraqi brothers were based on unreliable witness accounts, insupportable forensic evidence and questionable legal theories.
"The government version is unsupported by independent evidence," Ware wrote in an 18-page report released Tuesday by Sharratt's attorneys. "To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary."
I don't believe I ever said Lt. Colonel Chessani was being charged with "indiscriminate killing." What I said was I don't think American soldiers are trained to kill indiscrimnately. That doesn't mean sometime they don't. Now, please explain BD, without your usual overheated rhetoric, how I accused Chessani of being an indiscriminate killer?
Perhaps YOU didn't happen to read the paragraphs preceding the ones you quoted that read: Conlin blasted Chessani for failing to go to the scene of the November 2005 killings immediately after they had occurred, even though he knew 24 "neutrals" were dead.
"To not have made every attempt to be on scene as this action developed, or to not have at least reviewed this action in detail ... is in itself negligent," Conlin wrote. "The fact that one fireteam was solely responsible for 24 deaths in all direct fire actions should have solicited more than passing interest from the senior leadership of the battalion."
And while you're at it, what does Sharrat's situation have to do with Chessani's?
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
This question presumes guilt is already established. If that is the case then compensation ought to be awarded, but I believe punishment of the criminals involved is more important than compensation for the victims for that may deter further crimes from being committed where as jaded soldiers are not likely to care enough about compensation payments for their eventual victims and these won't prevent further acts of illegal violence.
How can we keep this from happening?
Don't use military force. Wars will always breed atrocity. Its par for the course and it doesn't matter whether or not the war is a 'real war' or an 'insurgency'.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
I don't think so. I've read a lot of reports from the media about US atrocities in Iraq. The BBC in particular loves such stories.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
By following the law of course.
I reject the second sentence. The death toll of the insurgency vastly out weighs the number of casualties inflicted by illegal US killings. Where as the US soldiers may be killing individuals, the terrorists and insurgents are murdering far more.
The US media coverage of the war must be pretty dismal if any one truly believes murders by US troops out weigh the slaughter being carried out by the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq! Currently I'm reading roughly one story of US soldiers acting illegally every ten to fourteen days, and usually the death toll can be counted in single digits and some of these stories are dubious at best. By contrast I'm seeing stories of the insurgents murdering up to hundreds of people per day in actions which cannot be denied.
This question presumes guilt is already established. If that is the case then compensation ought to be awarded, but I believe punishment of the criminals involved is more important than compensation for the victims for that may deter further crimes from being committed where as jaded soldiers are not likely to care enough about compensation payments for their eventual victims and these won't prevent further acts of illegal violence.
How can we keep this from happening?
Don't use military force. Wars will always breed atrocity. Its par for the course and it doesn't matter whether or not the war is a 'real war' or an 'insurgency'.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
I don't think so. I've read a lot of reports from the media about US atrocities in Iraq. The BBC in particular loves such stories.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
By following the law of course.
I reject the second sentence. The death toll of the insurgency vastly out weighs the number of casualties inflicted by illegal US killings. Where as the US soldiers may be killing individuals, the terrorists and insurgents are murdering far more.
The US media coverage of the war must be pretty dismal if any one truly believes murders by US troops out weigh the slaughter being carried out by the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq! Currently I'm reading roughly one story of US soldiers acting illegally every ten to fourteen days, and usually the death toll can be counted in single digits and some of these stories are dubious at best. By contrast I'm seeing stories of the insurgents murdering up to hundreds of people per day in actions which cannot be denied.
QUOTE(moif @ Jul 12 2007, 07:26 PM)
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
This question presumes guilt is already established. If that is the case then compensation ought to be awarded, but I believe punishment of the criminals involved is more important than compensation for the victims for that may deter further crimes from being committed where as jaded soldiers are not likely to care enough about compensation payments for their eventual victims and these won't prevent further acts of illegal violence.
How can we keep this from happening?
Don't use military force. Wars will always breed atrocity. Its par for the course and it doesn't matter whether or not the war is a 'real war' or an 'insurgency'.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
I don't think so. I've read a lot of reports from the media about US atrocities in Iraq. The BBC in particular loves such stories.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
By following the law of course.
I reject the second sentence. The death toll of the insurgency vastly out weighs the number of casualties inflicted by illegal US killings. Where as the US soldiers may be killing individuals, the terrorists and insurgents are murdering far more.
The US media coverage of the war must be pretty dismal if any one truly believes murders by US troops out weigh the slaughter being carried out by the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq! Currently I'm reading roughly one story of US soldiers acting illegally every ten to fourteen days, and usually the death toll can be counted in single digits and some of these stories are dubious at best. By contrast I'm seeing stories of the insurgents murdering up to hundreds of people per day in actions which cannot be denied.
This question presumes guilt is already established. If that is the case then compensation ought to be awarded, but I believe punishment of the criminals involved is more important than compensation for the victims for that may deter further crimes from being committed where as jaded soldiers are not likely to care enough about compensation payments for their eventual victims and these won't prevent further acts of illegal violence.
How can we keep this from happening?
Don't use military force. Wars will always breed atrocity. Its par for the course and it doesn't matter whether or not the war is a 'real war' or an 'insurgency'.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
I don't think so. I've read a lot of reports from the media about US atrocities in Iraq. The BBC in particular loves such stories.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
By following the law of course.
I reject the second sentence. The death toll of the insurgency vastly out weighs the number of casualties inflicted by illegal US killings. Where as the US soldiers may be killing individuals, the terrorists and insurgents are murdering far more.
The US media coverage of the war must be pretty dismal if any one truly believes murders by US troops out weigh the slaughter being carried out by the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq! Currently I'm reading roughly one story of US soldiers acting illegally every ten to fourteen days, and usually the death toll can be counted in single digits and some of these stories are dubious at best. By contrast I'm seeing stories of the insurgents murdering up to hundreds of people per day in actions which cannot be denied.
Absolutely moif and unfortunately you will search in vain through the NYT archives (and generally all of the liberal media) for outraged articles pointing out the massive civilian casualties, often to women and children, caused by the “insurgents”. In fact you are much more likely to see liberal media portray these butchers as “freedom fighters” in Iraq!
I remember when we went into Sader City – the enemy had effectively portrayed to much of the populous, the American as “Jews” invading their city – and many said as much to the press.
Take care. Always good to see your posts
QUOTE(Ted @ Jul 13 2007, 10:37 PM)
Absolutely moif and unfortunately you will search in vain through the NYT archives (and generally all of the liberal media) for outraged articles pointing out the massive civilian casualties, often to women and children, caused by the “insurgents”. In fact you are much more likely to see liberal media portray these butchers as “freedom fighters” in Iraq!
That is, of course, an outright lie.
The New York times, as well as every other example of the so called 'Liberal' media reports on atroctities and attacks of insurgents in Iraq almost every single day. Search in vain? Are you mad? The archives of the NYT alone contain HUNDREDS of reporting of the massacres and atrocties performed by Iraqi insurgents. How could you possibly pretend otherwise? That is JUST the NYT, every other media outlet is just the same.
This 'search in vain' took less than 15 seconds:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...DAA0894DF404482
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...DAA0894DF404482
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...DA00894DE404482
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/world/mi.../09baghdad.html
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...DAE0894DE404482
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...DAF0894DF404482
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...DA80894DE404482
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/world/mi...amp;oref=slogin
Your comment is so far from basic reality it makes the viewer wonder if you have ever once even looked at an issue of the NYT, or if you are just repeating what some far-right wing blog ranted about it sight-unseen.
To claim, even for a milisecond that the 'liberal' media does not report on or does not condemn the Iraqi insurgents is beyond baffling, and into near-delusional: they do so nearly every SINGLE day for the last 4+ years, certainly ever major attack is reported and condemned.
But you go even further, with your (equally invented) 'freedom fighter' comment, you pretend that not only do they not report on the atrocities of the insurgents, but they somehow sympathise with them. For shame sir.
But I'll tell you what, no reson to be mean here, and I want to gove you every opportunity to present your viewpoint. So please Ted, all you have to do is find ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE, just ONE in four and a half year, just a SINGLE ONE, of a major news media outlet (CNN, NYT, NBC, etc) referring to the Iraqi insurgency as 'freedom fighters'. That's all you have to Do Ted, present just ONE example, and prove you didn't just completely make that up off the top of your head.
Well?
So, is this thread about atrocities commited by US troops in Iraq or is it about Ted?
I see reports of US soldiers committing atrocities on the BBC web page being given high prominence, often being the head line story, where as this is not the case with attacks by Iraqi insurgents (whom I consider terrorists) unless these are of a magnitude which cannot be ignored.
Thus I see a bias which grants more importance to illegal actions carried out by US troops than to anything good which US troops might do in Iraq. For example, I have never seen a story head line on the BBC which makes the US military in Iraq look good. I see a bias which grants more importance to illegal actions carried out by US troops than to mass murders by Iraqi insurgents. Such actions are one day story's only where as something like Abu Graib is repeatedly refered to and granted a significance which, when compared to the slaughter being carried out by jihadi's in Iraq, frankly I do not feel it has.
This bias, repeated endlessly, day by day creates an illusion of the US military (and Americans generally) as the bogeyman and the terrorists as ambiguous. In the court of public opinion then, American soldiers are as often as not treated as being guilty, even if they acquitted by a court of law.
There are probably a whole range of reasons why this is so, but foremost amongst them, I place left wing anti Americanism, a sentiment which I have observed in European society my whole life and which I have seen swell to vast proportions in recent years (ever since 9/11 in fact).
To how great an extent this disdain is justified is not easy to gauge. Certainly faith in the US military was dealt a serious blow when no senior officers where held to account for Abu Graib, and the existence of secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe and the detention centres at Guantanamo bay where people have been held without trial for years makes it impossible to defend the actions of the Bush administration. Like the journalists, the public finds itself walking a narrow path where extending the benefit of the doubt seems only to lead to being taken advantage of by unscrupulous politicians (like Dick Cheney).
The American GI pays the price for the actions of the Bush administration. Patience wears thin when time doesn't heal and coalition soldiers in Iraq pay with their minds and bodies for the perceived injustices of the Bush administration. Media bias itself may only be a reaction to the 'bias of self' which seems to characterize the Bush administration, but no matter what causes it, media bias is not the real problem.
The real problem is the Bush administration which has been seen to repeatedly violate American values in pursuit of shadowy results on ambiguous justifications. I believe there would be far more good will towards the USA if the USA were not seen tobe operating as if it was a latin American junta.
QUOTE(Ted)
Absolutely moif and unfortunately you will search in vain through the NYT archives (and generally all of the liberal media) for outraged articles pointing out the massive civilian casualties, often to women and children, caused by the “insurgents”. In fact you are much more likely to see liberal media portray these butchers as “freedom fighters” in Iraq!
I remember when we went into Sader City – the enemy had effectively portrayed to much of the populous, the American as “Jews” invading their city – and many said as much to the press.
Take care. Always good to see your posts
Although I find the BBC which is my primary source of international news to be some what biased with regards to its reporting on US troops in Iraq, I can't say that it is as bad as you describe and I have to add that I do not see a great difference in the language used to describe the various factions. There is a moral equivalence on display, that much is true, but I put this down to journalistic neutrality. Its not easy for a third party to know exactly what is going on and who is telling the truth. US soldiers do not always tell the truth and for a journalist it must be difficult to know when extending the benefit of the doubt can lead to accusations of bias. That I still rely on the BBC for international news means I have not given up on them entirely. I remember when we went into Sader City – the enemy had effectively portrayed to much of the populous, the American as “Jews” invading their city – and many said as much to the press.
Take care. Always good to see your posts
I see reports of US soldiers committing atrocities on the BBC web page being given high prominence, often being the head line story, where as this is not the case with attacks by Iraqi insurgents (whom I consider terrorists) unless these are of a magnitude which cannot be ignored.
Thus I see a bias which grants more importance to illegal actions carried out by US troops than to anything good which US troops might do in Iraq. For example, I have never seen a story head line on the BBC which makes the US military in Iraq look good. I see a bias which grants more importance to illegal actions carried out by US troops than to mass murders by Iraqi insurgents. Such actions are one day story's only where as something like Abu Graib is repeatedly refered to and granted a significance which, when compared to the slaughter being carried out by jihadi's in Iraq, frankly I do not feel it has.
This bias, repeated endlessly, day by day creates an illusion of the US military (and Americans generally) as the bogeyman and the terrorists as ambiguous. In the court of public opinion then, American soldiers are as often as not treated as being guilty, even if they acquitted by a court of law.
There are probably a whole range of reasons why this is so, but foremost amongst them, I place left wing anti Americanism, a sentiment which I have observed in European society my whole life and which I have seen swell to vast proportions in recent years (ever since 9/11 in fact).
To how great an extent this disdain is justified is not easy to gauge. Certainly faith in the US military was dealt a serious blow when no senior officers where held to account for Abu Graib, and the existence of secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe and the detention centres at Guantanamo bay where people have been held without trial for years makes it impossible to defend the actions of the Bush administration. Like the journalists, the public finds itself walking a narrow path where extending the benefit of the doubt seems only to lead to being taken advantage of by unscrupulous politicians (like Dick Cheney).
The American GI pays the price for the actions of the Bush administration. Patience wears thin when time doesn't heal and coalition soldiers in Iraq pay with their minds and bodies for the perceived injustices of the Bush administration. Media bias itself may only be a reaction to the 'bias of self' which seems to characterize the Bush administration, but no matter what causes it, media bias is not the real problem.
The real problem is the Bush administration which has been seen to repeatedly violate American values in pursuit of shadowy results on ambiguous justifications. I believe there would be far more good will towards the USA if the USA were not seen tobe operating as if it was a latin American junta.
Before entering the debate, I should say that the title is a bit off-putting. There have certainly been crimes committed by US troops but the only thing that might qualify as "atrocities" are Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
For the most part this is what has been happening. Troops commit crimes or innocent people are wrongfully captured: the military offers a payout to the victim or victim's family. Doing this is better than nothing, I suppose. But, once a crime occurs, it is only the most generous person who would not feel negatively towards the perpetrators and the institution they belong to.
I know that if my sister were raped and killed by US soldiers, I would find it very difficult not to hold the US military at fault (as well as the actual criminals). If the US then "recompensed" me for my loss, I would find it very difficult not to infer that as a tacit admission of culpability. I would also find it difficult not to discuss my anger and resentment with people providing a sympathetic ear, thereby passing along some of my outrage to them. If it were an isolated incident, then eventually the outrage would subside. If it happens often enough, like even once or twice per year, then the outrage would be reinforced. I would might start interpreting any aggressive behaviors by soldiers -- behaviors that are probably fully justifiable -- in the most negative context. Others, who I know or know my story, might start doing the same.
How can we keep this from happening?
You cannot keep this from happening. Crimes will occur. Whether people are soldiers or civilians, some percentage will commit crimes. The problem arises when people make an irrational, though completely understandable, leap of logic to seeing the institution as the culpable party. Let's look at the difference:
1. Random person breaks into a house and rapes and kills. That person is seen as the culprit.
2. A person, who is a member of institution, in the course of their institutional duties breaks into a house and rapes and kills. That person is seen as the culprit. AND the institution is blamed for providing the social construct to enable the criminal to behave that way.
Scenario (2.) is a general issue. Let's say the institution is Al Qaeda. And the person commits a crime in the course of their institutional "duties". Do we just blame the person for the criminal acts? No, we also blame Al Qaeda and rightfully so because the institution's raison d'etre is to commit horrible acts.
But, and here's the big but. Someone might leap to the same conclusion about an institution that's supposed to be doing "good". Why? Because even if the institution's intent is good, the institution provided a framework under which the crime otherwise would not have occurred.
Let's add another wrinkle to this story. Soldiering is not policing. A war zone is not a civil society. The US army will take actions in the course of the job, such as shooting, artillery fire and bombing. These actions are inherently destructive (even if the intentions are good and the zone is limited). They can be easily seen in a negative light, perhaps less negative than the insurgents they're fighting, but negative nonetheless.
Long story short. Crimes will occur. The only thing you can do is provide as much transparency as possible.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
I hate these questions. Umm... I don't know.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
No. The fact that crimes occur during war is not an argument against war. It is a salient issue when discussing the merits of nation building. If soldiers never committed crimes and always made the correct choices (when looked upon with 20/20 hindsite), then perhaps nation building would be as easy as the neo-cons thought it would be. Unfortunately, reality tells us a different story.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
We have maintained the moral high ground against the enemy. What haven't maintained is the moral high ground as seen by Iraqis. Remember them? They're the ones we're supposed to be building a nation for.
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
For the most part this is what has been happening. Troops commit crimes or innocent people are wrongfully captured: the military offers a payout to the victim or victim's family. Doing this is better than nothing, I suppose. But, once a crime occurs, it is only the most generous person who would not feel negatively towards the perpetrators and the institution they belong to.
I know that if my sister were raped and killed by US soldiers, I would find it very difficult not to hold the US military at fault (as well as the actual criminals). If the US then "recompensed" me for my loss, I would find it very difficult not to infer that as a tacit admission of culpability. I would also find it difficult not to discuss my anger and resentment with people providing a sympathetic ear, thereby passing along some of my outrage to them. If it were an isolated incident, then eventually the outrage would subside. If it happens often enough, like even once or twice per year, then the outrage would be reinforced. I would might start interpreting any aggressive behaviors by soldiers -- behaviors that are probably fully justifiable -- in the most negative context. Others, who I know or know my story, might start doing the same.
How can we keep this from happening?
You cannot keep this from happening. Crimes will occur. Whether people are soldiers or civilians, some percentage will commit crimes. The problem arises when people make an irrational, though completely understandable, leap of logic to seeing the institution as the culpable party. Let's look at the difference:
1. Random person breaks into a house and rapes and kills. That person is seen as the culprit.
2. A person, who is a member of institution, in the course of their institutional duties breaks into a house and rapes and kills. That person is seen as the culprit. AND the institution is blamed for providing the social construct to enable the criminal to behave that way.
Scenario (2.) is a general issue. Let's say the institution is Al Qaeda. And the person commits a crime in the course of their institutional "duties". Do we just blame the person for the criminal acts? No, we also blame Al Qaeda and rightfully so because the institution's raison d'etre is to commit horrible acts.
But, and here's the big but. Someone might leap to the same conclusion about an institution that's supposed to be doing "good". Why? Because even if the institution's intent is good, the institution provided a framework under which the crime otherwise would not have occurred.
Let's add another wrinkle to this story. Soldiering is not policing. A war zone is not a civil society. The US army will take actions in the course of the job, such as shooting, artillery fire and bombing. These actions are inherently destructive (even if the intentions are good and the zone is limited). They can be easily seen in a negative light, perhaps less negative than the insurgents they're fighting, but negative nonetheless.
Long story short. Crimes will occur. The only thing you can do is provide as much transparency as possible.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
I hate these questions. Umm... I don't know.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
No. The fact that crimes occur during war is not an argument against war. It is a salient issue when discussing the merits of nation building. If soldiers never committed crimes and always made the correct choices (when looked upon with 20/20 hindsite), then perhaps nation building would be as easy as the neo-cons thought it would be. Unfortunately, reality tells us a different story.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
We have maintained the moral high ground against the enemy. What haven't maintained is the moral high ground as seen by Iraqis. Remember them? They're the ones we're supposed to be building a nation for.
What should we, as a nation, do about this? Offer some form of an apology (from who and how)? Recompense to victims?
Well, first off, I reject the notion that this is widespread and approved of by either the boots on the ground or military commanders. Atrocities are a rarity, and rooted out and punished. Yes, when it turns out we have a rogue group of soliders or soldier- then we should issue an apology, and recompense victims. It is the decent thing to do, when we have a criminal in thier country breaking our own rules.
How can we keep this from happening?
You can't - soldiers are human just like any other- and donning the uniform doesn't make you any more or less of a sinner or a saint- and someone that is going to do bad things outside the military will do them inside the military as well.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Absolutely- I don't think it is possible to really cover it up- like with any criminal behavior- someone spills the beans at some point, and it will sell newspapers (and other media)-- so it will be reported.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
There are lots of reasons to get out of Iraq- but this isn't one of them.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
Well, we lost the "moral high ground" some time ago, about the day of the invasion. Kinda hard to retrieve something you never had, and apparently, can't even recognize.
Well, first off, I reject the notion that this is widespread and approved of by either the boots on the ground or military commanders. Atrocities are a rarity, and rooted out and punished. Yes, when it turns out we have a rogue group of soliders or soldier- then we should issue an apology, and recompense victims. It is the decent thing to do, when we have a criminal in thier country breaking our own rules.
How can we keep this from happening?
You can't - soldiers are human just like any other- and donning the uniform doesn't make you any more or less of a sinner or a saint- and someone that is going to do bad things outside the military will do them inside the military as well.
Have the media, the government or even the pentagon under-reported these atrocities?
Absolutely- I don't think it is possible to really cover it up- like with any criminal behavior- someone spills the beans at some point, and it will sell newspapers (and other media)-- so it will be reported.
Does this lend compelling credence to the 'cut and run' strategy?
There are lots of reasons to get out of Iraq- but this isn't one of them.
How do we wage this kind of war and simultaneously maintain moral high ground against the enemy (i.e. Al Qaeda, which has now probably caused less civilian deaths than our war in Iraq)?
Well, we lost the "moral high ground" some time ago, about the day of the invasion. Kinda hard to retrieve something you never had, and apparently, can't even recognize.
QUOTE
I'm going to make this quick and easy for all to understand.
I'm going to make it easier.
QUOTE
1. Iraqis polled about unnecessary violence has nothing to do with your thread. Getting roughed up while looking for insurgents could qualify. Your thread talks about killing and raping. Apples and oranges.
Who are you to define 'unnecessary violence'? I agree that could mean anything from being roughed up to being severely beaten or worse. In any event it represents a grave offense from the US Military to the very people we are trying to protect, and I wonder if we are doing anything to address those grievances. Obviously, from this poll, its a major grievance
If unnecessary violence seems a larger term than the umbrella of atrocities, then that's why I wished I named the post a less flammable title.
QUOTE
Let's be real. If Marines are out shooting people with wanton abandonment and raping women, that's one thing. That's deplorable (and really not happening).
Funny. I have already posted news links to incidents in which American soldiers both shot Iraqi wantonly and raped Iraqi women. The exact two things you say are not happeneing, are happening, its only a matter of how much, and I would be the first to agree, 'not much, not often, and we shouldn't sully the name of our troops for the gross misconduct of a few.'
That said, we should account for those incidences and make ammends for them.... we are running an occupation that is meant to sell our way of life to a crucial keystone population in the middle east... the least we could do is present ourselves in the most civilized light.
QUOTE
If Marines are kicking down doors of uncooperative people who don't understand our culture and vice versa, who hate Christians and Western Society, what makes you think a BBC poll about "unnecessary violence" is going to make an Iraqi (who likely hates us) to state something positive.
Who on earth under an occupation would think any violent actions are necessary? Seriously. If they disobey US Marine orders, and get "roughed up" a little, who is going to think that's ok? The Marines may have to do it to get what they need, but will the women and children think it's peachy for Dad to get thrown around? Of course not.
Seriously gentlemen. Be objective. It's like the police tossing people around at Mardi Gras, frankly sometimes it has to happen but those tossed around always become bitter. Who's right? The end result I'd suppose.
Who on earth under an occupation would think any violent actions are necessary? Seriously. If they disobey US Marine orders, and get "roughed up" a little, who is going to think that's ok? The Marines may have to do it to get what they need, but will the women and children think it's peachy for Dad to get thrown around? Of course not.
Seriously gentlemen. Be objective. It's like the police tossing people around at Mardi Gras, frankly sometimes it has to happen but those tossed around always become bitter. Who's right? The end result I'd suppose.
I agree-- one soldier's excessive (or in his view necessary and proportional) use of violence is a humongous injustice to the Iraqi with the black eye. Anyone capable of empathy can concede that point.
Having said that, you are not leaving me any middle ground and I'm tired of reiterating that point: Of course violence happens, small violence as well as large violence and everything in between. You have 18 year old boys with no police training patrolling a nation dotted with people who are trying to kill them: people who look like every other civilian. I'm sure its a huge psychological crux and the source of many of the documented US atrocities which have happened.
I'm not saying that violence won't or shouldn't happen.... only what we should do to address it. Like I said, it's obviously a grievance of the Iraqi people, and just because violence is necessary, doesn't mean we shouldn't turn a cold shoulder to the victims when it does. I am actually tired of typing that point.
And If the police shot a tourist and planted a gun by the body, Mardi Gras would be over, plus what a callous comparison.
QUOTE
If the US then "recompensed" me for my loss, I would find it very difficult not to infer that as a tacit admission of culpability.
Good point, I agree.
QUOTE(nighttimer @ Jul 12 2007, 05:09 PM)
I don't believe I ever said Lt. Colonel Chessani was being charged with "indiscriminate killing." What I said was I don't think American soldiers are trained to kill indiscrimnately. That doesn't mean sometime they don't. Now, please explain BD, without your usual overheated rhetoric, how I accused Chessani of being an indiscriminate killer?
I'll let your own words speak for you.
QUOTE(Nighttimer)
Post #13
2. Short of never fighting a war, there is no way to fight a war without innocents being killed. Bullets and bombs don't discriminate: they'll kill and maim anyone who has the bad fortune to be in their way. I don't think American soldiers are trained to kill indiscrimnately.
That doesn't mean sometime they don't.
SAN DIEGO - The leader of a battalion involved in the killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha should face a court-martial for dereliction of duty, the investigating officer recommended in a report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, 43, was charged in December with dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order for failing to report and investigate the deaths of the men, women and children in the biggest U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war.
The investigating officer, Col. Christopher Conlin, wrote that Chessani should face all charges.
Chessani "failed to thoroughly and accurately report and investigate a combat engagement that clearly needed scrutiny," Conlin wrote. Yahoo! Link
Take a young man, full of training that has taught him to kill, give him a rifle and send him thousands of miles away to interact with people who speak a different language, conduct themselves in a manner that is strange by Western standards and who don't want us there and tell him to keep the peace and don't kill a friendly while you're trying to kill a hostile.
2. Short of never fighting a war, there is no way to fight a war without innocents being killed. Bullets and bombs don't discriminate: they'll kill and maim anyone who has the bad fortune to be in their way. I don't think American soldiers are trained to kill indiscrimnately.
That doesn't mean sometime they don't.
SAN DIEGO - The leader of a battalion involved in the killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha should face a court-martial for dereliction of duty, the investigating officer recommended in a report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, 43, was charged in December with dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order for failing to report and investigate the deaths of the men, women and children in the biggest U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war.
The investigating officer, Col. Christopher Conlin, wrote that Chessani should face all charges.
Chessani "failed to thoroughly and accurately report and investigate a combat engagement that clearly needed scrutiny," Conlin wrote. Yahoo! Link
Take a young man, full of training that has taught him to kill, give him a rifle and send him thousands of miles away to interact with people who speak a different language, conduct themselves in a manner that is strange by Western standards and who don't want us there and tell him to keep the peace and don't kill a friendly while you're trying to kill a hostile.
What possible value does the quote you present bring to your point? None, but it does serve to smear Chessani. Perhaps you should revisit Comp & Rhetoric. Structure does matter, as does quote selection. Unfortunately for you, the only quotes you could have picked from your linked article that refer to the folks who allegedly killed indiscriminately at Haditha pertain to the Lance Corporal Sharrat. Let's refresh, shall we?
Lt. Col. Paul Ware said murder charges brought against Sharratt for killing three Iraqi brothers were based on unreliable witness accounts, insupportable forensic evidence and questionable legal theories.
"The government version is unsupported by independent evidence," Ware wrote in an 18-page report released Tuesday by Sharratt's attorneys. "To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary."
Needless to say, that doesn't exactly support your charge, does it? Haditha isn't going to go down in the annals of history alongside My Lai, its going down alonside the Jenin "massacre".
You'll serve your arguments better if you find better support, something that you've often done.
QUOTE(Bikerdad @ Jul 15 2007, 04:06 PM)
QUOTE(nighttimer)
Take a young man, full of training that has taught him to kill, give him a rifle and send him thousands of miles away to interact with people who speak a different language, conduct themselves in a manner that is strange by Western standards and who don't want us there and tell him to keep the peace and don't kill a friendly while you're trying to kill a hostile.
What possible value does the quote you present bring to your point? None, but it does serve to smear Chessani. Perhaps you should revisit Comp & Rhetoric. Structure does matter, as does quote selection. Unfortunately for you, the only quotes you could have picked from your linked article that refer to the folks who allegedly killed indiscriminately at Haditha pertain to the Lance Corporal Sharrat.
Needless to say, that doesn't exactly support your charge, does it? Haditha isn't going to go down in the annals of history alongside My Lai, its going down alonside the Jenin "massacre".
You'll serve your arguments better if you find better support, something that you've often done.
Thanks for the backhanded compliment, but I believe the original article referenced supports my arguments just fine. I'm not going to repost it again as its easy enough to follow the original link.
However, what you are reading into my statement is not what I intended. I'm not going to concern myself very much how you choose to interpret it, but I still never said Lt. Colonel Chessani actually killed anyone. The remark was made in conjunction with the soldiers whom are accused of killing Iraqi citizens.
Yes, structure does matter, and so does the fact that Chessani is the highest ranking officer accused (not charged) of involvement in this type of incident since My Lai.
Chessani would be the most senior U.S. serviceman since the Vietnam War to face a court-martial for actions or decisions made in combat, said Gary Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor and judge who teaches law of war at Georgetown University Law Center. link
Regards revisting "Comp (composition? comprehension?) and Rhetoric," I don't recall that being one of the course offerings during my stint in journalism school. Since rhetoric is something you're quite skilled at was it part of the curriculum where you matriculated?
Moif the reason the BBC new makes a point about US military killings is not out of bias, but more because it is not the norm and as such it is thus a news story.
Now, when you hear Iraqi Insurgents have killed 10, 20, 30, 60 or 100 it is merely news, because we expect these killings and frankly they no longer have much impact on us.
Accept the fact you have elements of your military who go way over the top in their military actions, just the same as all other nations who have military active in the field of conflict, it happens and will continue to happen because it is in the nature of mankind to do such things.
Now, when you hear Iraqi Insurgents have killed 10, 20, 30, 60 or 100 it is merely news, because we expect these killings and frankly they no longer have much impact on us.
Accept the fact you have elements of your military who go way over the top in their military actions, just the same as all other nations who have military active in the field of conflict, it happens and will continue to happen because it is in the nature of mankind to do such things.
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