Americans bring enlightenment and progress to Iraq

[GePap]

One wonders who is organizing this new army. Either way it is not a great thing, even a good thing this is happening in Najaf. At best, it is a new variable to keep in mind, like we didn't have enough of these.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Ollie:
Excellent picture

Yes, the bastards could show a bit more gratitude. Given the way they handled the Iran-Iraq war, and the Shiite and Kurd uprising in 1991, and Saddam's purge of the Republican Guard in 1996, they should be grateful we don't use their beloved former leader's methods on them pour encourager les outres.

I must admit there is something I really loathe in the way Americans see their war, it is their absolute belief to be right, to bring all that is great and good for the targets. I heard it being called the "messianic vocation" of the US, and I think it is spot-on.

Some people feel the need to believe the US is right and noble in what it does. I'm just concerned with the effective projection of power. You might not like it if more people had my point of view.

If it wasn't for the incomparable belief to be right, maybe the Americans would avoid slaughtering Civilians, and dismiss that slaughter under the PC word of "colateral damage". But for this, they'd have to tolerate the idea their methods could be wrong.

If we were slaughtering civilians, and not concerned about avoiding doing so, we could easily have liquidated the entire population of Fallujah by now. And the rest of the world doesn't have a collective ball between it to do anything substantive about it. Challenge us militarily? Trade sanctions? Over a bunch of dead brown people?

That's the real sad part - the rest of the world (you people have some say in who your leaders are, right? ) won't sacrifice it's economic convenience or national agendas no matter how many dirty, grubby third-world types get killed. Lucky for you, you all get to wring your hands and gnash your teeth, but we really don't kill enough of them for your leaders to even have to make excuses to you for doing nothing about it.

Oh, and while everyone's on their soap box about civilian casualties, where is the condemnation and outrage against arab fighters (Iraqi and otherwise) who attack from civilian areas and attempt to use the civilian population as shields? Your protestations are ineffective and have no effect on anyone, so why not distribute them against all parties who put civilians at risk, in proportionate to the manner in which each party puts civilians at risk? I don't think we're killing many in Mosul, maybe there's a reason things are happening differently in Fallujah?

I'm damn glad the politicians stepped in, and forbade to attack mosques. In France, we have a particularily painful memory of the occupation, the incident of Oradour sur Glane:

The Germans knew some resistors were harbored in the village of Oradour sur Glane. They decided to launch a retaliatory operation on the village. The population looked for a sanctuary in the church. The Germans burned down the Church, and every villager within burned to death. It is the single most barbarous act of the German occupation of France (and I know it is nothing compared to their ordinary handlings in Eastern Europe).
This is what happens when you attack religious buildings in a religious country - you are bound to destroy all the civilians who looked for a safe haven, and who believed religious buildings are respected.

There's a big difference between Heinz Lammerding and SS Das Reich's action in Oradour and our attacks on mosques. The intent of Das Reich was to kill the civilians in the church to set an example, and the Germans weren't being sniped at from the church itself at the time. We've made very limited attacks when mosques have been actively used as fighting, command and supply positions, and we haven't made a point of herding villagers into the mosques to level it. So nice rhetoric, but the reality is a bit too disconnected for it to be effective.

[Barinthus]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
If I get time time tonight, I will translate a similar report by a Swedish journalist who is one of the few Westerners that have been in Falluja recently.

What happened to the "embedded reporters" anyway?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/27/scott.peterson/index.html

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
This is an unholy mess. It wants thoroughgoing recognition as just exactly that.

I said it would be a major mess from the beginning, even before the invasion. The long-term political solutions, if there are any, are not even going to get off the ground as long as there are significant enemy forces actively fighting our troops and attacking convoys, etc.

Solving things first on the battlefield may make the political fixes harder to achieve, but failure to solve the battlefield problem is even worse.

[Dinner]

There is nothing wrong with firing back at people who are firing at you. If they are firing from a religious building (i.e. Mosque) then the Geneva convention makes it clear that it is then considered a military target and it 100% legal to destroy it. The US only destroyed a small part of the building; specifically the part which the gunmen were in.

I actually see this act as resulting in fewer Mosques being destroyed and fewer lives being lost in the long run then if we simply let them turn every Mosque into a safe firing position. If they want their Mosques to be safe then don't turn them into war zones.

[MichaeltheGreat]

BINGO!

You get another free beer to add to your tab.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Oerdin
There is nothing wrong with firing back at people who are firing at you. If they are firing from a religious building (i.e. Mosque) then the Geneva convention makes it clear that it is then considered a military target and it 100% legal to destroy it. The US only destroyed a small part of the building; specifically the part which the gunmen were in.

I actually see this act as resulting in fewer Mosques being destroyed and fewer lives being lost in the long run then if we simply let them turn every Mosque into a safe firing position. If they want their Mosques to be safe then don't turn them into war zones.

I think most of us agree. Now try to convince the Arabs. It's really their opinion that will decide if you will win this war or not.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
Yes, its so much better that opposing shiite militants set up their own armed gangs, cause when the power transfer comes, they will undoubtedly drop their weapons and become law abbiding citizens.....

.

It may be a bad thing, but it seems kind of inevitable that something like this would happen in Najaf. See if a group of outsiders occupy a place against the will of the inhabitants, and mistreat them, its only natural that theyre going to resist, right??

I do hope this at least disabuses people of the notion that the Sadrist occupation of Najaf is a "liberation".

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


It may be a bad thing, but it seems kind of inevitable that something like this would happen in Najaf. See if a group of outsiders occupy a place against the will of the inhabitants, and mistreat them, its only natural that theyre going to resist, right??

I do hope this at least disabuses people of the notion that the Sadrist occupation of Najaf is a "liberation".

You make the weirdest assumptions about what I say.

Sadr and his men are not being fought against becuase they are "outside occupiers", but becuase they are seen as lawless followers of a punk userper-ie, and internal Shiite concern.

Having a new armed band of vigelantees is NOt a good thing.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


You make the weirdest assumptions about what I say.

Sadr and his men are not being fought against becuase they are "outside occupiers", but becuase they are seen as lawless followers of a punk userper-ie, and internal Shiite concern.



LOTM - I doubt that there are similar anti-Sadr militias in Sadr City. AFAICT his militia is entirely Sadr City in its roots, and they ARE outsiders in Najaf.

Having a new armed band of vigelantees is NOt a good thing.

I dont know for sure theyre really new, and not just the Badr brigades, or other Sistani loyalists, under a new name. Look, if you were Sistani, and you wanted Sadr done with, and you realized that having the Americans come in and do it would lead to an explosion (I think Sistani expected the Americans to capture Sadr in Baghdad, and that the US failure to stop his flight to Najaf came as a rather nasty shock) what would you do? Come out openly against him? Or get your guys to quietly shoot his guys?

This isnt vigilantism, this is war.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


You make the weirdest assumptions about what I say.

I didnt have you in particular in mind. Lots of folks seem to see the sadr uprising as part of a general uprising of the Iraqi people. AFAIK you have not said that (I apologize if i implied you had said that).

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
This isnt vigilantism, this is war.

Oh, great, Shiite factionalism will surely make the new country a stable, wonderful dmeocracy.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Oh, great, Shiite factionalism will surely make the new country a stable, wonderful dmeocracy.

shiite factionalism has been a reality since April 2003. When Sadrs folks killed Al Khoie in cold blood. Whats happening now is that Iraq is moving on, to a new constitution and Sistani is moving with it. Sadr is trying to stop that from happening, and the people loyal to Sistani are finally putting him down.

Would it have been better if all Iraqi Shia had been united against Sadr from the beginning. Yeah sure. Is it better that Iraqis in Najaf deal with Sadr, rather than American troops? I think so.

[Lord Merciless]

I would prefer that Sistani nip that upstart Sadr in the bud. Sistani may be difficult, but at least reasonable.

[East Street Trader]

The fourth Geneva Convention says nothing at all about churches/mosques. It neither forbids damage or destruction nor sanctions attacking those who use them for cover.

It does have something to say about hospitals

"Art. 18. Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict."

I doubt that an attack on hospital buildings which were then being used as a base of operations by the enemy would breach this provision. Those so using the buildings - in the unlikely event that they were soldiers of a signatory state - would themselves be causing a breach.

The actual point about damaging mosques is little or nothing to do with moral or quasi-legal matters. It is pragmatic.

Because it throws into sharp relief the question of whether the game is worth the candle.

If the objective - as folk like MtG imagine - is to win the various fire fights when they occur then there can, of course, be no question of allowing the "enemy" any shelter from which they can launch attacks with impunity.

But if the objective is to restore order to Iraq so that the troops can leave and the people can get back to living their lives then the trouble with firing on people in mosques is that you enflame the situation further and find yourself further away from achieving your object.

And, of course, that is the object.

The troops were sent to eliminate the risk that hideous nuclear and chemical and biological weapons originating in Iraq would be used against the USA or the UK. And that object is achieved.

They stay because Bush and Blair fight shy of just bringing them home and leaving the power vacuum in Iraq to resolve itself as it will.

Which leads to this simple place.

The insurgents are not "the enemy". They have never had nuclear weapoons or powerful chemical weapons or biological weapons. Instead they make up a part of the very people whom the US/UK now need to engage so that a government can be brought into existence in Iraq which commands the loyalty of a sufficiently high part of the population to be stable.

Whereupon we can withdraw.

The objective is not to defeat these people it is to police them until they can go back to doing that for themselves.

Police the world over know that they can only operate if they win and maintain the trust of the community they serve.

Where open resistance breaks out in Iraq the troops need to withdraw, attempt to cordon off the area and to open communications with any leader who can be found; not to win a battle but rather not to have a battle at all.

I will offer one final observation. The comparisons made with Vietnam up to now have seemed to me rather silly. But in this particular respect there is a parallel. Because the US did no more than pay lip service in Vietnam to "winning the hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese. It was the MtGs of this world who then had all the answers.

So I, and all the rest of the world, watched the attempts to "win" that war by the steady escalation of military force. It was appalling. It brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets of every capital city in the world including me. It totally sickened the men who were sent there to do the "winning". In the end even the world's politicians, even Richard Nixon, knew how appalling it was.

Which tells us this.

It does not stop with firing on mosques.