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.
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Americans bring enlightenment and progress to Iraq
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Originally posted by Spiffor
Ollie:
Excellent picture
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.
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.
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.When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."
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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?
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Originally posted by East Street Trader
This is an unholy mess. It wants thoroughgoing recognition as just exactly that.
Solving things first on the battlefield may make the political fixes harder to achieve, but failure to solve the battlefield problem is even worse.When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."
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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.Try http://wordforge.net/index.php for discussion and debate.
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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.So get your Naomi Klein books and move it or I'll seriously bash your faces in! - Supercitizen to stupid students
Be kind to the nerdiest guy in school. He will be your boss when you've grown up!
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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.....
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I do hope this at least disabuses people of the notion that the Sadrist occupation of Najaf is a "liberation"."A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.” Martin Buber
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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".
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.If you don't like reality, change it! me
"Oh no! I am bested!" Drake
"it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong" Voltaire
"Patriotism is a pernecious, psychopathic form of idiocy" George Bernard Shaw
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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.
This isnt vigilantism, this is war."A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.” Martin Buber
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Originally posted by GePap
You make the weirdest assumptions about what I say."A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.” Martin Buber
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Originally posted by lord of the mark
This isnt vigilantism, this is war.If you don't like reality, change it! me
"Oh no! I am bested!" Drake
"it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong" Voltaire
"Patriotism is a pernecious, psychopathic form of idiocy" George Bernard Shaw
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Originally posted by GePap
Oh, great, Shiite factionalism will surely make the new country a stable, wonderful dmeocracy.
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."A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.” Martin Buber
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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.
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