I can't think of a title for this post!
So..
Did you read about the Torture house?
ya, I am sure you did.
Just wanted to remind you of some of the reasons why people attack Police and national guards.
Did you see the Italianos film about the use of chemical weapons in Falluja?
yeah probably.
just wanted to remind you that a bunch of nice readers called me a liar when I said that chemical weapons were used in Falluja, and also in the airport battle in Baghdad, when I wrote about the pictures that I saw of people burned while their clothes remained intact.
I knew about the use of chemical weapons in Falluja, because simply everyone in Iraq knows, and everyone that was in Falluja knows it, and I remember them describing it to me too.
one of my friends, a very brave Iraqi girl that was working on her own to evacuate civilians from inside Falluja during the fight ( yes, of course there were civilians inside the city ) told me that an American soldier asked her specifically not to eat or drink anything inside the city, you know what that means?
yah, I guess you do.
actually what I know, is that even more than one kind of chemical weapons were used, basing on what people from Falluja told me back then, airplanes throw yellow powder on them, and then in another occasion, white powder, and in another occasion a green powder, ( white, yellow and green? I hope my memory saved that right ) but I remember for sure that there was more than one kind, at least basing ont he colour of the cloud they saw. I just didn't have the proof.
well, now we do have a proof for the white phosphorus at least!
but why make a big deal out of it? They are all conventional weapons after all, right?
Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. military had not used the highly flammable weapons against civilians, contrary to an Italian state television report this month which said the weapons were used against men, women and children in Falluja who were burned to the bone. "We categorically deny that claim," Venable said.
"It's part of our conventional-weapons inventory and we use it like we use any other conventional weapon," added Bryan Whitman, another Pentagon spokesman.
"This war has redefined ‘conventional’. It has taken atrocity to another level. Everything we learned before has become obsolete. ‘Conventional’ has become synonymous with horrifying. Conventional weapons are those that eat away the skin in a white blaze; conventional interrogation methods are like those practiced in Abu Ghraib and other occupation prisons…Quite simply… conventional terror", as Riverbend puts it.
Now let's get back to the torture house story please, i have some notes:
first: the timing is perfect:
Always a story like that comes out whenever there is a scandal about something the occupation did, it's a standard procedure: you hear about a terrible scandal, and then next day the occupation creates new news that distracts us all from talking about the first scandal.
you don't know how much I remember the movie " wag the dog " every time something like this happens. So when the chemical weapons thing appeared, we get the story of the torture house to cover it, hmm.
second: This torture house story just gives you a glimpse of what the Iraqi government is like, and why people hate it and attack it. And now Jaafari is all over the news telling us that he is going to punish people behind this! hahaha!!! Is this a joke? hellooo!! Not like he didn't know, I mean the things that happen in the building of the ministry of interior affairs itself aren't any better you know, and it's not a hidden jail inside the ministry, it's THE one jail, that people in the street know it and talk about it, and besides two rooms in the seventh floor where I was during the time I was arrested, so we all in Iraq know about these things that happen in the ministry of interior and Jaafari never heard about them till Italianos told him?
hmmm...
in Arabic we have a saying: " if you did know it's a disaster, if you didn't know then it's a bigger disaster " !!!
Third: Tells you how far Iran is involved in Iraq, the main Shea parties that are now practically "the Iraqi government" itself, have the control over the government and the army and police, and they run the ministry of interior too, and now they have also secret torturing prisons around the country inside Iraq, brilliant.
Fourth: Now let's talk about the American role in this:
The official story is that the American army was looking for a 15 years old boy that was missing, YAA RIIGGHHTT... this is SO wag the dog ( they were going to help the cute girl with the white cat in the movie ) so the American army sent a number of soldiers to look for a 15 years old boy because his parents were searching for him? OOHH YAAAA RIIIGGHTTT 2ajal na3am 9odog!!
and accidentally while carrying out that noble sweet hearted operation, carrying roses and flowers to give to the poor little boy, they stumbled up on 173 detainees, of course! Is there any crazy one among you that question that story?
:D
you know that the American army cares so much about every Iraqi citizen, to the point that they send their troops whenever they hear about a 15 years little boy missing, well sometimes they throw chemical weapons on 5 years old girls, but still, its irrelevant. Don't question what little Bush people say or you will go straight to hell.
I wonder how many 15 years old boys are in Aby Ghreib and Bukka (sp?) prisons, as you know people spend between 90-180 days before they get a "number" inside the prison, which means that this 15 years old boy missing could be in an American prison actually without the American themselves knowing about it.
but no, they decided to go look for him (they look for missing people? YAA RIGGHHTT! ) in a particular house in Baghdad where it happened that 173 people were illegally kept and tortured, right after the scandal of Falluja spread all over the media.
I am not suggesting anything! I am just telling you the official story :))
Abstract of the story: We, the American army are children loving people that go out looking for children when their parents can't find them, and in our way we find illegal torturing places, we are the most humanitarian peace loving army in the world that needs to stay in Iraq just to prevent Iraqi people from torturing each other.
sniff sniff...*tears*...thats so sweet!
Khalid*
Did you read about the Torture house?
ya, I am sure you did.
Just wanted to remind you of some of the reasons why people attack Police and national guards.
Did you see the Italianos film about the use of chemical weapons in Falluja?
yeah probably.
just wanted to remind you that a bunch of nice readers called me a liar when I said that chemical weapons were used in Falluja, and also in the airport battle in Baghdad, when I wrote about the pictures that I saw of people burned while their clothes remained intact.
I knew about the use of chemical weapons in Falluja, because simply everyone in Iraq knows, and everyone that was in Falluja knows it, and I remember them describing it to me too.
one of my friends, a very brave Iraqi girl that was working on her own to evacuate civilians from inside Falluja during the fight ( yes, of course there were civilians inside the city ) told me that an American soldier asked her specifically not to eat or drink anything inside the city, you know what that means?
yah, I guess you do.
actually what I know, is that even more than one kind of chemical weapons were used, basing on what people from Falluja told me back then, airplanes throw yellow powder on them, and then in another occasion, white powder, and in another occasion a green powder, ( white, yellow and green? I hope my memory saved that right ) but I remember for sure that there was more than one kind, at least basing ont he colour of the cloud they saw. I just didn't have the proof.
well, now we do have a proof for the white phosphorus at least!
but why make a big deal out of it? They are all conventional weapons after all, right?
Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. military had not used the highly flammable weapons against civilians, contrary to an Italian state television report this month which said the weapons were used against men, women and children in Falluja who were burned to the bone. "We categorically deny that claim," Venable said.
"It's part of our conventional-weapons inventory and we use it like we use any other conventional weapon," added Bryan Whitman, another Pentagon spokesman.
"This war has redefined ‘conventional’. It has taken atrocity to another level. Everything we learned before has become obsolete. ‘Conventional’ has become synonymous with horrifying. Conventional weapons are those that eat away the skin in a white blaze; conventional interrogation methods are like those practiced in Abu Ghraib and other occupation prisons…Quite simply… conventional terror", as Riverbend puts it.
Now let's get back to the torture house story please, i have some notes:
first: the timing is perfect:
Always a story like that comes out whenever there is a scandal about something the occupation did, it's a standard procedure: you hear about a terrible scandal, and then next day the occupation creates new news that distracts us all from talking about the first scandal.
you don't know how much I remember the movie " wag the dog " every time something like this happens. So when the chemical weapons thing appeared, we get the story of the torture house to cover it, hmm.
second: This torture house story just gives you a glimpse of what the Iraqi government is like, and why people hate it and attack it. And now Jaafari is all over the news telling us that he is going to punish people behind this! hahaha!!! Is this a joke? hellooo!! Not like he didn't know, I mean the things that happen in the building of the ministry of interior affairs itself aren't any better you know, and it's not a hidden jail inside the ministry, it's THE one jail, that people in the street know it and talk about it, and besides two rooms in the seventh floor where I was during the time I was arrested, so we all in Iraq know about these things that happen in the ministry of interior and Jaafari never heard about them till Italianos told him?
hmmm...
in Arabic we have a saying: " if you did know it's a disaster, if you didn't know then it's a bigger disaster " !!!
Third: Tells you how far Iran is involved in Iraq, the main Shea parties that are now practically "the Iraqi government" itself, have the control over the government and the army and police, and they run the ministry of interior too, and now they have also secret torturing prisons around the country inside Iraq, brilliant.
Fourth: Now let's talk about the American role in this:
The official story is that the American army was looking for a 15 years old boy that was missing, YAA RIIGGHHTT... this is SO wag the dog ( they were going to help the cute girl with the white cat in the movie ) so the American army sent a number of soldiers to look for a 15 years old boy because his parents were searching for him? OOHH YAAAA RIIIGGHTTT 2ajal na3am 9odog!!
and accidentally while carrying out that noble sweet hearted operation, carrying roses and flowers to give to the poor little boy, they stumbled up on 173 detainees, of course! Is there any crazy one among you that question that story?
:D
you know that the American army cares so much about every Iraqi citizen, to the point that they send their troops whenever they hear about a 15 years little boy missing, well sometimes they throw chemical weapons on 5 years old girls, but still, its irrelevant. Don't question what little Bush people say or you will go straight to hell.
I wonder how many 15 years old boys are in Aby Ghreib and Bukka (sp?) prisons, as you know people spend between 90-180 days before they get a "number" inside the prison, which means that this 15 years old boy missing could be in an American prison actually without the American themselves knowing about it.
but no, they decided to go look for him (they look for missing people? YAA RIGGHHTT! ) in a particular house in Baghdad where it happened that 173 people were illegally kept and tortured, right after the scandal of Falluja spread all over the media.
I am not suggesting anything! I am just telling you the official story :))
Abstract of the story: We, the American army are children loving people that go out looking for children when their parents can't find them, and in our way we find illegal torturing places, we are the most humanitarian peace loving army in the world that needs to stay in Iraq just to prevent Iraqi people from torturing each other.
sniff sniff...*tears*...thats so sweet!
Khalid*
posted by Khalid at 10:33 AM
33 Comments:
Assalamu 'alaykum warahmatullah
You cant think of a title? Same ere man. I mostly make up some crap ol title.
Always a story like that comes out whenever there is a scandal about something the occupation did, it's a standard procedure: you hear about a terrible scandal, and then next day the occupation creates new news that distracts us all from talking about the first scandal. So right.
And the Jaafari thing was just ridiculous! What does he take people for? A bunch of retards or what? Trying to make people believe that He was unaware of it. And that Arabic saying so fits on Him.
Good post!
Yas
And YOU were able to gain admission to a university? LOL!
"bunch of nice readers called me a liar when I said that chemical weapons were used in Falluja,"
And your still lying about it now, you said you saw the video, so tell me where in the video did they prove anything about chemical weapons?
Dead bodies? all those bodies looked as if they had died of trauma, and then left out in the sun to bloat. It's been a year almost since Fallujah, if you wanted to prove chemical weapons all you would need are some soil and water samples. Did you see anything in that video about samples? No, anyway that video was made up of old war clips many of which had been linked too from my own blog, I could have made that video. Cheap hoax for little minds, that what they should have called that show, maybe you could use it for a title.
You need to take a chemistry course. An incendiary burns. It burns skin, clothing, and basically anything flammable within its heat range. So you cannot justify the use of a chemical weapon by saying, I saw the skin burned without the clothing being intact. WP burns it all, look it up if you don't believe me. Here is a quote on WP. "If burning particles of WP strike and stick to the clothing, take off the contaminated clothing quickly before the WP burns through to the skin. Remove quickly all clothing affected by phosphorus to prevent phosphorus burning through to skin” But I guess this will be considered just more misinformation, from a stupid American. I may be a stupid American but I also have a Masters in Chemical Engineering, and those are the facts.
Actually, as far as i understood from people i talked to today, it burns your skin through clothes, clothes stay intact while your skin gets burned, even a mask doesnt help, it can go though masks too to burn the face and when breathed, it burns all what it touches fromt he inside too, so you have to get rid of any clothes contaminated with it because it will get through it to burn your skin.
i think if what you were saying was true, the US admenstration wouldnt have had to admit that they used it in Falluja after the video was released, because it would'nt have been a proof of the use of white phosphor would it?
any chemical help would be much appreciated guys.
why do you assume that you are stupid? only the French assosiate the word stupid with the word American all the time, i respect all people, till they prove they are not worthy of respect, and then i feel bad for them and forgive them most of the time, and you havent done anything bad my American friend, your comment is appreciated.
khalid*
"it burns your skin through clothes, clothes stay intact while your skin gets burned,"
They lied to you.
I am so sorry for the ravages Bush has ordered upon your country.
But I must tell you as the mother of an American soldier-our reserve soldiers are not animals and they do love children. I t bothers my son a lot what the children and citizens of Iraq are suffering. We are all suffering from Bush's war.
I cannot speak for the freaks who like to kill-they make me sick. I fear for people they are in contact with now and for their families upon their return. For them I blame Bush too-he has taught them enough violence applied to a problem will solve that problem. Sane human beings know he could not be more deadly wrong...
Again, I am so sorry and I fight to stop this war everyday. I write and call representatives, even the Dept of Defense. Public opinion is changing, so I know the work is paying off.
Not all Americans are bad- not even all the ones wearing a uniform. Blame some foolish individuals, blame their government, but please do not blame them just for having that uniform.
Respectfully,
A Sad American
Anon 3:50 is sort of right, if you were hit buy a cloud of burning white phosphorus it would burn through your cloths as well as your skin. What this man with the Masters in Chemical Engineering seems to have neglected is that when WP burns in air it forms phosporus pentoxide. At room temperature phosphorus pentoxide exists as tetraphosphorus decoxide, which is an invasivly deliquescent gas. After it absorbs water it forms pyrophosphoric acid, which is a weak disociator that activates on contact with organic material.
This means that after WP burns it forms a cloud that will suck the water right out of your cells (living your cloths intact BTW), and then will form an acid that only reacts to lving things. When you see a body that's been turned black with the cloths still on like that, body hasn't been burned. The black isn't ash, it's the phospholidips leftover from when there flesh was basicly cured into leather.
And those are the real facts.
Excellent post, Khalid!
@ Madtom.
You wrote to Khalid: "And your still lying about it now, you said you saw the video, so tell me where in the video did they prove anything about chemical weapons?".
Now, white phosphor and napalm might not be considered 'chemical weapons', but their usage was all the same banned by the III protocol (1980) of the Geneva Conventions.
Now (right after the Italian RAI video, coincidentally, Madtom?) the Pentagon has admitted that US forces used white phosphor and napalm in Fallujah, after your Administration and military had been staunchly denying it for a whole year. You made fun of what Dahr Jamail and the Iraqis were saying, then.
Whom are we supposed to believe? Those who kept lying all the time (the WMDs, the Kuwaiti babies killed in incubators, Saddam's 'human shredder', the heroic 'rescue' - LOL - of Jessica Lynch, the usage of WP & napalm in Fallujah, etc. etc. etc.), or instead the Iraqis opposed to the US occupation?
Madtom, are you taking all of us for fools?
Afraid not madtom. Phosphorus reactes to moisture ie. oxygen in the moisture. No moisture in clothes, Unless you've got some good designer stuff. May want ot think about the denila and accusation of a fake video. the US military has admitted using it. They are saying they didn't drop it on civilians. They dropped it on a city full of insurgents I guess. Bush is sinking faster than the Titanic. He can't even come up with a new speech. If the Us loses in Iraq we're all dead. Yea I'm worried. Worried the idiot believes this crap. Good post Khalid
Elie, post your comment on the previous post and i will allow it. khalid*
You seem to be doing better than some of the others with your moderating, Khalid. You get points for that. Do the others care or not if what they've posted is widely viewed? Removing commenting ability as well as 'moderation' has got to be leaving some of them high and dry. Only a select few have more than a faint, cursury interest if their ability to respond is compromised.
Madtom, are you taking all of us for fools?
You walk in those shoes very comfortably, Italian.
Elie
Hi Khalid, check out this post on my blog on Fallujah and more importantly check out the comment section!
http://newsinlimerick.blogspot.com/2005/11/flashes-in-fallujah.html
"Now, white phosphor and napalm might not be considered 'chemical weapons',"
OK so right there you admit that it's not a chemical weapon. So we have that all cleared up.
"Administration and military had been staunchly denying it for a whole year. You made fun of what Dahr Jamail and the Iraqis were saying, then.
Whom are we supposed to believe? "
I don't know what you people are talking about, I was aware of the use of WP from about a week after the attack. Khalid should have been just as aware, as this whole issue was argued on his brothers blog, you know Read in the Middle, over a year ago. I would like to see the reference for the Napalm as I have not seen anything about Napalm, so please site your reference.
"Madtom, are you taking all of us for fools? "
Your being taken but not by me.
"No moisture in clothes"
Really, funny the stuff reacts to air, but not clothes, I guess they must exist in a vacuum, And I guess terrorist don't sweat, and I call them terrorist because in the Italian video the dead guys are wearing armor vest. They did not look like innocent civilians to me. Not to mention that Fallugah was a hardened fortress with mine fields and IED'ed roads boobytraped cars and houses, command and control centers, and production studios for the filming of the beheading videos. I guess that's all standard stuff in the town you live in?
Well OK, now the Marines admit that they did use WP in Fallujah with their "shake and bake" tactic.
But not against civilians. Oh no! Look at the video again. You can clearly see the Al Quaeda Membership Card on every dead body.
Even the ones cunningly disguised as children.
So there.
absolutelyinsaneTom
And see, the Iraqi Interior Ministry has now revealed that the place the US troops mistakenly raided was actually a Slimming and Plastic Surgery Unit.
You just have to wait and the truth always emerges.
DribblinganddroolingTom
Perhaps madtom can look up phosphorus in a chemistry book. It is not hard to see how it works.
Somehow Muslim Extremists are going to destabilize the whole world and destroy our freedoms, yet they have about one millionth the amount of weaponry that the west has, and yet the west can't control Iraq.
The US politicians care more about 2006 elections than any developments in Iraq. As these elections draw nearer it'll be political suicide to be on the side of supporting the war and keeping troops there. People who are up for re-election must start to distance themselves from this policy now if they want a political future. All the talk about supporting the troops will go out the window if it means you'll lose your seat. American troops and Iraqi civilians are going to continue dying until American democracy is restored. Until the US can get to the bottom of how they were lied into this debacle troops will be stuck there. The irony of this invasion is it might succeed in bringing more tranparency and democracy to US politics.
sorry some of my countrymen are such idiots...
many have just been brainwashed to believe that being a patriot means falling in lock-step behind our idiot president and never questioning any stupid thing he says
we are doing our best to end this war, and people are starting to understand i think
dissent is not un-american.bush is un-american
Sorry, i need to make something clear:
the reason why i might reject a comment or delete it is that it either contains bad language, if its offensive to other people participating in the dialouge, etc like i cleared before, but i want to add to the above is that comments that are out of subject will be rejected too, comments about each post should be under the comments of that same post, only, to give the chance to discuss every topic seperately.
thank you very much.
khalid*
(so now i moved to the other interesting part of dictatorship, making rules, i love it!)
madtom, I looked over the video again and I can't find a single person in it wearing a balistic vest (if that's what you mean by armour vest). I did however see a man wearing a TacV, which someone who doesn't know much about military or paramilitary might mistake for body armour. TacV's aren't rare, I wear one whenever I go camping. They're great for carring things like water and food, like if you were planning to leave a city but couldn't use the main road, and had to walk through a desert.
Am I the only one who finds the dissembling and apologising of Madtom to be more than a little on the ridiculous side and tinged with a reek of the rotten? Here he is, trying to justify, together with Strykerdad, the massive use of a incendiary, dehydrating chemical on the residential areas of a city, yet he doesn’t even know what he is talking about. He regales us with brilliant ripostes like “They lied to you.” While being unable to materially discuss WHY this is so.
Mabus, thank you for your enlightening description of the chemical action of white phosphorus. Now that’s the sort of commentary that impresses me a heck of a lot more than somebody claiming he has a “Masters in Chemical Engineering”.
The fact is WP can kill both by its incendiary action and by the reaction it has with the water in a body, not to mention injure via its toxic fumes. It is not specifically designed to BE a chemical weapon, but rather an illumination and smoke-producing device. Fact remains, though, that its chemical action can and does kill.
[strykerdad] “That those insurgents chose to do battle and hide behind civilians who were present either willingly or under duress, is the cause for civilian deaths.”
AH, yes, of course. They are responsible, as opposed to the foreign troops that crossed the oceans to bomb, pillage and destroy. Makes sense, right? I guess that Al Qaeda would be justified in blowing up the Twin Towers then, just so long as they were trying to kill the USMC Colonel on the 40th floor. It was his fault. In your twisted version of morality, of course.
Finally, it may be a good time to mention that there WERE numerous civilians within Fallujah at the time it was employed. Some were there by choice, either unwilling to leave their homes or believing the BS that the “US Army does not kill civilians”. Others were FORCED back into the city by cordons of US troops, who did not allow men of “fighting age” to leave. These civilians were treated as de facto combatants by US troops, and as testified to by NUMEROUS Iraqi sources.
The Geneva Convention has been broken so many times by the US, that it can be used as a sieve. What’s one more little atrocity?
I was busy in the past days reading a book about the history of philosophy in Europe… it comes in the form of an interesting novel, I mean; it isn't a heavy, boring narrative…
The book is called: Sofies world, and the author is: Justin Garder, a Norwegian, working as a philosophy and Thought History Professor.
Ano 11 00 10
i have bubbles going out of my head right now with question marks in them.
did you just wake up thinking " i have to go tell the readers of
( secrets in baghdad ) about the nice book i am reading? :))"
i should reject this comment because its off subject, but i thought that its cute:P
i heard about that book many times, never read it though.
thanks for your participation...
khalid*
guys it seems that blogger is swallowing some comments and not sending them to me, if the post you send doesnt disappear when you send it, it means that it wasnt sent.
peace4all sent this comment many times and it didnt ome to me so she emailed it to me and asked me to post it:
Excellent post Khalid!
I really wonder how comes, that german coach
potatos got the news as early as august 2003
and some american couch potatos still are
systematically "declued". So let me ask
rethorically "what's wrong with the american
press?"
The german program Monitor broadcasted at the
7th of august 2003 (!) that the americans
dropped napalm in irak.
In this broadcasting James Crawley, a
us-military-journalisted who went as embedded
journalist with the troops, tells that he asked
them what kind of weapons they use and got
the answer, that they would use laser guided
boms, satelite guided bombs and napalm.
After the ministery of defense at first denied the
use of napalm the monitor crew went to the
us-marine-corps in san diego and talked there
with colonel Joseph Boehm who acknowledged
that his corps used 30 canisters of napalm in
the first 30 days of the war.
A speaker of the pentagon admits, that they
also dropped napalm (MK77) at the iraqi border
to kuwait.
The monitor website archives videos only for 12
month so that u cant watch it there anymore,
but i found a website that still has the written
protocol of the video and since i saw this video i
can conform that this protocol is what i saw at
the time (august 2003).
http://www.nadeshda.org/foren/cl.regionen.irak/p
691s696a20.html
Pitty enough in german language but i assume
everyone knows how to use one of those free
online translators.
It's utterly shocking for me to read here how a
few poster react to the fact that those weapons
were used. This isn't about discussing the rules
of some stupid online game. We are talking
about human beings here, human beings who
fight for their believes, it doesnt matter if
someone shares their believes to decide to stay
human even in war. The american way to fight
their war was from the beginnings against every
rule of honesty, fairness, intelligence, moral,
decency and law.
They started a war against a country which they
bleeded out to the bone, a country who lost half
a million of their kids due to sanctions, a
country which was over and over again
inspected for weapons for a decade, a country
without warfare. Then the "worlds only
superpower" attacked this country with the most
sophisticated warfare this planet ever has seen,
laser guided, satelite guided, 150.000 soldiers
moving around, in and over iraq with black
hawks and fighters in the air, humvees and
tanks on the ground .... to fight "some
insurgents"!
Besides DU they used weapons like mk77 and
wp, which every sane person would put in the
category chemical weapons. Weapons which
cause so horrible burnings that seeing the
victims caused belgian a member of Doctors
Without Borders to break out in tears. What the
heck is wrong with you people???????
What is so hard in staying decent and honest
even in conflicts ( i guess thats the word some
use for a war of agression) ? What is so hard to
NOT break general human taboos? What is so
hard to say "I can't support my government
here for they broke a taboo? they crossed a line
i don't wanna cross"??
Those here who defend the use of wp and
napalm should work for some weeks in a burn
center.
Where is you honor, guys, that you have to
break all those taboos? Napalm, wp, torture
(sorry, you call it "Enhanced Interrogation
Techniques" ) just to fight a minority of people
which you call terrorists?
Why not be still for a moment? Think, feel and
think again. Is this really who you want to be?
peace4all
[strykerdad] “If the USMC Marine Colonel forced an all out attack after repeated warnings, knew that attack was emminent and he chose to bring the battle to an area filled with civilians behind which he hid and used their resulting deaths (most often at his own hand) as weapons of propaganda, I would find fault with him.”
In the larger scheme of things that is exactly what the US has done in Iraq. It has used the deaths of Iraqis killed by Saddam, after Bush snr instigated the uprising in 1991, as an excuse to attack Iraq. (Ten years later of course.) It was the one that decided to bring the war to Iraqi soil. It was the one that decided to bomb civilian areas (a breach of the Geneva Conventions). THE DECISION TO FIGHT THIS WAR WAS YOURS.
The absurdities that the US wants to impose on its enemies are astounding. It expects its enemies to pretty much go to the desert and stand in a big red circle waiting for the bombs to come. If they don’t do that, the US justifies the flattening of entire residential areas and cities to get at them. The one thing that you forget, though, is that the choice to do so WAS YOURS. YOU chose to fight in Iraq. It was not a choice borne out of dire necessity. YOU choose to stay there. Iraqis LIVE there … they hardly have much of a choice as to where they want to fight. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE.
[strykerdad] “I pity the innocent who find themselves in harm's way out of misfortune or foolishness, but I take satisfaction in the deaths of the enemy.”
Ah, yes, a pity about the 3-4000 civvies killed in the 9-11 attacks, but I find satisfaction in the deaths of a dozen fascist pig American soldiers / policemen / security guards. That’s dumb.
[strykerdad] “As for remarks made related to things of which the author knows nothing---please enumerate the relevant violations of the Geneva Conventions as they apply to the combat conditions in Iraq.”
Oh, DUUUUH. I don’t have all day. Let’s try these for size:
(1) Shooting of unarmed, wounded prisoners. (Fallujah Mosque)
(2) Bombardment of civilian areas. (Every day)
(3) Forcing non combatants into a war zone (Fallujah specifically)
(4) Use of torture and the condoning thereof. (Abu Ghraib, CIA, Neocon policy statements)
(5) Denial of prisoners of their rights under the Geneva Conventions
(6) Making use of the practise of ‘ghost detainees’.
(7) Collective punishment of cities
(8) Use of phosphorus as a weapon as opposed to its legitimate uses, such as illumination.
Just a couple of examples to get started.
[strykerdad] “Why Iraq? Why not? If it has to be somewhere, then why not there? It is an outlaw state, once ruled by one of the worst who chose to make us enemies--it is in the center of the part of the world from which the ideology that threatens us originates and among the worst offenders of the conditions in which that fundamentalist ideology thrives.”
Ah, that’s crap. It’s like me declaring a war on drugs and sending thousands of troops over to the US to fight all the rampant drug dealers, and burning your cities to the ground in the process. Why not Iraq? Uh, let me see, maybe BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH AL QAEDA, 911 OR TERRORISM VS THE US. Your argument is pure bullshit. You are justifying fighting your battles against an enemy of which Iraq and Iraqis had no part of on their soil and putting THEIR lives at risk in doing so. Now, that’s just nauseating.
If you want to talk realpolitik, then let’s do so. Let me point out that Saddam Hussein kept all the Al Qaeda, Wahhabi and similar riff-raff out of Iraq. He kept the criminals in line. He kept the country running. None of which you are able to do, even though you similarly stoop to his thuggish methods. His greatest crime was not keeping the Wahhabis out. It was in keeping the US out, this being the unpardonable, blackest crime one can commit. God forbid that Iraqis should run their own country and resources!
[strykerdad] “The people of Japan and Germany deserved to suffer no more for the acts of their government, yet they suffered. I don't think many view that as a historical injustice.”
If it was borne out of military necessity, no. If damage was caused while bombing war factories, one can understand. If an entire civilian populace was incinerated to make a point, however, then that is an act of barbarism.
[strykerdad] “The Iraqi people have suffered far less, and if their suffering is part of an effort to defeat extremism, then it will have been for the good.”
Oh, right. The brave American comes to tell us all how tough he is and how he likes it when other foreign nationals die and suffer for the political foreign policy of his own country. No, worse, he tries to make a case for this being a GOOD thing. Iraqis must die so that HE can feel safe. Khalid’s family must suffer for YOUR good?
Well, in that case I hope your Stryker hits a mine real soon. Preferably a boosted one, laced with napalm. Then I’ll make sure I’m around to tell you ‘it was worth it’. May an ill wind blow your way.
what strykerdad said was truly obscene, particularly comparing Iraq to Germany and Japan - two countries that either attacked the USA first or declared war on the USA first. Plus, they had the ability to put up a real fight (and did) which of course the Iraqi army could not. And at some point, the people in those countries participated in, or supported, aggression against other countries. Now, Iraq did this too, but it was more than 12 years before the US invaded their country.
Amazing how some people think this pre-emptive warfare is fine and dandy as long as the US is doing it, and not having it DONE TO THEM.
Iraqi had nothing to do with 9/11, and they do not deserve to suffer for their prior bad government.
And the Muslim faith is no more to blame for terrorism by al Qaeda than the Christian faith is to blame for terrorism by Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph.
Yes, the US DoD has admitted using White Phospherous in Fallujah. They claim it is okay to use it there because it was used for illumination and besides, it is not a chemical weapon in their judgement.
However, back in 1991 they suspected Saddam used White Phosphorous in the Kurdish region and they called it a chemical weapon back then.
I am waiting for some enterprising terrorists to round up a few Americans and make their own Abu Ghraib videos of gay S&M pornography.
America thinks (generalised coz majority thinks) that people who arent Americans or their supporters are children of lesser god they can be slaughtered as and when America wishes and can be forgotton forever. There are countries in this world which are under the dark shadows of terrorism since decades they do nab terrorists and prove them guilty but they havent gone bersek attacking whole nations like americans they havent lost their sanity.
I never heard anything about that stupid story looking for a 15 year old boy who gone missing.
What we heard in Canada is that the USA government got lots of emails about abuses in prisons.
just wanted to remind you that a bunch of nice readers called me a liar
They called me a liar too when I told them at the outset of the Abu Ghraib scandal that the torture was systemic and widespread. Now the evidence has piled up sufficiently that they no longer deny that it's true. Now they just deny that it's wrong. I think we see a similar pattern with the white phosphorous. Slow to learn, even slower to correct themselves. You are right that this human rights abuse with the Interior Ministry has been going on for a long time. I wished so much that for all the blood and death, at least one good thing would come of it: that your country would be free from Saddam and his torture chambers. Now my only remaining hope is that the citizens who supported military action will have learnt a valuable lesson, so the mistake won't be repeated again. But, slow to learn...
"*The evidence given by Italian television channel RAI as to the effects of white phosphorus in Fallujah, of photographs of decomposing bodies, is not dispositive. The bodies pictured are simply what dead bodies look like after a while. [I agree with Monbiot about this.]"
Cole
Well there you go, even Cole agrees with me.
wp is incendiary flare/smoke
it is by no means a chemical weapon
the RAI video has been roundly fisked as a load of complete rubbish using video pictures of corpes that actually contradict the use of chemical weapons, and helicopter footage from another battle entirely.
im afraid you have been fooled by italian liars, khalid.
check the video pictures of saddams chemical attack on the kurds for real evidence of chemical warfare :((
[anon] “wp is incendiary flare/smoke … it is by no means a chemical weapon”
I guess that Anonymous didn’t read the small gem posted by Mabus in the start of the thread. The action of WP is clearly both thermal and chemical. Pity you missed an opportunity to educate yourself.
[anon] “the RAI video has been roundly fisked as a load of complete rubbish using video pictures of corpes that actually contradict the use of chemical weapons, and helicopter footage from another battle entirely.”
Links? Excerpts? FACTS?
No?
Well bummer, then. I’ll have to regard your vapid statement as a load of BS until further notice. Since I have seen the video, it is 100% clear to me that WP was deployed as a WEAPON against GROUND TARGETS.
[anon] “check the video pictures of saddams chemical attack on the kurds for real evidence of chemical warfare :((”
Hey, no doubt you are right. Hussein was a scoundrel. On the other hand, he ALSO used WP against the Kurds, at which time the US bleated about it being a “chemical weapon”.
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20051122&fname=monbiot&sid=1
“Last night the blogger Gabriele Zamparini found a declassified document from the US Department of Defense, dated April 1991, and titled "Possible use of phosphorous chemical". "During the brutal crackdown that followed the Kurdish uprising," it alleges, "Iraqi forces loyal to President Saddam (Hussein) may have possibly used white phosphorous (WP) chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels and the populace in Erbil … and Dohuk provinces, Iraq.” //end excerpt [hat tip Today in Iraq]
Ya can’t have it both ways, pal.
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