The Battle for Iraq - Ethnic Cleansing

POSTED BY: Ghoulman
UPDATED: Sunday, June 22, 2025 01:22
VIEWED: 23789
PAGE 4 of 18

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE

SIGNYM

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 9:25 PM

So you agree that taking the hospital was not a life-saving action?

BARNSTORMER

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 10:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
So you agree that taking the hospital was not a life-saving action?

I believe that the taking of the hospital at the beginning of the strike in Falluja was done to verify that all personel in the hospital were not insurgents. Hospitals , schools, mosques, women, children have all been used by the insurgents (and the iraqi army for that matter prior to the fall of baghdad)as shields (All against the Geneva convention).

In addition, the Geneva convention states what you cannot do. However, if your enemy starts using chemical weapons against you, then the Geneva convention cannot sanction you for responding in kind.

Or if your enemy starts using Churches or Mosques or whatever else is protected by the convention as an attack position, the Church, Mosque or whatever is no longer exempt from return fire or for that matter, total destruction.

Am I a Lion?... No, I think I'ma tellin' the truth.

BarnStormer

SIGNYM

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 11:11 PM

I'm just trying to lay one proposal to rest, and that was the opinion that we took the hospital to save Iraqi lives.

Is that deader'n a doornail then? I don't want to have to revisit that opinion.

GEEZER

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 11:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I'm just trying to lay one proposal to rest, and that was the opinion that we took the hospital to save Iraqi lives.

Is that deader'n a doornail then? I don't want to have to revisit that opinion.

If taking the hospital early in the action prevented anti-coalition forces from occupying it and fighting from it later, then I'd say it did save Iraqi lives, those of the patients and staff of the hospital. Given the anti-coalition force's past track record, this wouldn't be an unexpected situation.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 11:46 PM

Oh please Geezer- the opinion was that the hospital would be used to treat Iraqi casualties- not that taking the hospital might save Iraqi lives in some indirect way.

Is that opinion dead? Unless someone brings evidence by tomorrow that the hospital was equipped by, and used by the US military to treat Iraqi casulties I'm going to assume that contention is dead.

SIGNYM

Thursday, November 18, 2004 5:39 AM

Quote:
If taking the hospital early in the action prevented anti-coalition forces from occupying it and fighting from it later, then I'd say it did save Iraqi lives, those of the patients and staff of the hospital. Given the anti-coalition force's past track record, this wouldn't be an unexpected situation.

Are you saying that we took the hospital first to save Iraqi lives? Well... OK, I'm game. Then, there are the other possibilities: They took the hospital to control information flow, or they took the hospital because they thought it MIGHT have been occupied by insurgents.

The only way to tell what the point was is to look at what the military did with the hospital once it was occupied. How long did it take to process doctors and patients? Once it was determined that doctors were not insurgents, were they allowed to treat their patients? Was the hospital re-opened for incoming patients? How long did that take? And probably most importantly- Is the hopsital still occupied? If so- WHY? And is the hospital allowed to communicate with the press and aid agencies WITHOUT military approval, or is the USA military in control of all outbound hospital communication?

So Geezer, go check out IBC or any sources that you can find, and see if reports of civilian deaths are coming directly from the main Falujah hospital. In fact, see if there are any estimates of civilian deaths coming from any source other than the military. In fact, see if there are any estimates of civilian deaths at all.

This is what I mean by facts and the truth. A fact is something you can point to and prove, but sometimes a series of facts is just a trail of breadcrumbs. You need to look up from those crumbs long enough to see if anyone is laying that trail. LACK of information, or a shift in sources of information, can be just as revealing as the information itself.

But hell, why would you want to get so terribly exacting about this particular instance anway? Clinics, mosques, schools and homes were bombed and you've justified these actions. In effect, you proved my point- the military has given up on the "hearts and minds" approach, has given up on the "lifesaving" approach and is going full-bore for military occupation.

INEVITABLEBETRAYAL

Thursday, November 18, 2004 7:08 AM

Ghoulman, you are spewing verbal sewage again.

Just a couple of points:

Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
Ayman al-Zawahri is not a member of al Qaeda.

Zawahiri is a member of Al Qaida.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri
http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/teralzawahiri.htm

You may have had a moment of stupidity (not uncommon for you) and confused him with Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. He is also aligned with Bin Ladin.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6268680/

Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
The "insurgents" are not terrorrists from neighboring countries.

Well, they may not be primarily foreign fighters, but they are there. Apparently the Marines have been treating injured foreign fighters.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/10197113.htm?1c
There may not be a bus tour to Fallujah, but Iraq is the jihad-du-jour, and jihadists from all over are converging there, just like they did in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Afghanistan before that, Kashmir, and other hot spots.

Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
Fallujah is a Sunni town. That is, they are not Saddam supporters or even supporters of terrorists.

Saddam is a Sunni muslim. That's the reason that the sunnis (the minority in Iraq) held positions of power. Consequently, a lot of Sunnis are pretty peeved that they don't have the influence they used to.
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/biography_saddam_hussein.htm

Also, lest you should think that there are no terrorists or supporters of terrorists or even any bad locals, think twice about the news of torture chambers there. Nick Berg was beheaded there. I saw the video. Not pleasant. Margeret Hassan was shot there. I'm pretty sure that the Koran has some specific things to say about that.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,138524,00.html
http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read.html?id=1899
http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=98909®ion=6

Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
If the USA is just attacking cities because of thier ethnicity then this is ethnic cleansing.

Of all the stupid things to say...Can you come up with even a scrap of evidence to support that? If that were the goal, why did the U.S. drop millions of leaflets warning civilians to get out? If they'd wanted to do some "ethnic cleansing" keeping the civilians there would have made more sense.

I'm a veteran of the Iraq conflict. I was there. On the ground. Being shot at and returning fire. I can tell you that we are not there to conduct "ethnic cleansing". We were there to remove Hussein in an effort to make the world a safer place.

You've obviously made up your mind to hate the U.S., the President, and the war, so I can't convince you otherwise. But I do know this: you don't know the first thing about Iraq. You don't know the situation there, or the U.S. strategy, or even basic facts like who the Sunnis support or who Ayman al-Zawahiri is. As an intelligence analyst who has spent the last 10 years studying Iraq, and who has done a combat tour there, allow me to invite you to shut your hole. Stop running off at the mouth concerning topics that you know nothing about. You're embarassing decent, well informed Canadians everywhere.

Edit:
I realize that you will no doubt lambast me for using some U.S. news sources, or cast aspersions on the U.S. intelligence community.

I also realize that you are so committed to your position that facts have no bearing, experience can be dismissed, and anyone who doesn't agree with you is misinformed or part of the conspiracy.

_______________________________________________
I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.

SIGNYM

Thursday, November 18, 2004 10:57 AM

Quote:
Well, they may not be primarily foreign fighters, but they are there.

Did you miss the article I posted previously?

Quote:
Of the more than 1,000 men between the ages of 15 and 55 who were captured in intense fighting in the center of the insurgency over the last week, just 15 are confirmed foreign fighters, Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. ground commander in Iraq, said Monday.... But despite an intense focus on the network of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi by U.S. and Iraqi officials, who have insisted that most Iraqis support the country's interim government, American commanders said their best estimates of the proportion of foreigners among their enemies is about 5%.

Just in case you think this might be a geographic anomaly or a temporal glitch (Foreign fighters, having no allegience to Falujah, might have left before the USA arrived) here is another article- dated May

Quote:
U.S. officials have for months publicly promoted the notion that foreign fighters and terrorists are playing a major role in the anti-American insurgency in Fallujah and the rest of Iraq. By blaming foreigners, U.S. authorities hope to quash the idea that Iraqis are rising up against military occupation and frame the conflict as part of the wider war on terror. However, foreigners play a tiny role in Iraq's insurgency, many military experts say.
In Fallujah, U.S. military leaders say around 90 percent of the 1,000 or more fighters battling the Marines are Iraqis. To date, there have been no confirmed U.S. captures of foreign fighters in Fallujah...
Elsewhere, U.S. military commanders say foreigners have an even smaller role in the insurgency. In Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey has said foreigners account for just 1 percent or so of guerrillas. Of 8,000 guerrilla suspects jailed across Iraq, only 127 hold foreign passports, the U.S. military said. In the south, no one has suggested that foreigners pack the ranks of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army. The group, which has fought U.S. and allied troops across southern Iraq, is made up of Shiite Muslim radicals, many of whom hail from the slums of Baghdad. In March, Dempsey called the idea that foreign fighters were flooding Iraq "a misconception."

www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/resist/2004/0503fighters.htm
I'm not sure whether you think 0.5-5% foreign fighters is worth even mentioning. I'm sure if you looked at the totality of our occupation forces and support personnel, you'd find 0.5-5% of "foreign" fighters there too. i.e. non-coalition people carrying guns, including Israelis and South Africans. Does their presence indicate a world-wide Israeli conspiracy to destroy Iraq?

Quote:
Also, lest you should think that there are no terrorists or supporters of terrorists or even any bad locals, think twice about the news of torture chambers there.

What is the point of this statement? I could just as easily say "lest you should think that there are no terrorists or supporters of terrorists or even any bad USA soldiers, think twice about the news of torture chambers in Abu Ghraib" I'm sure you would say Abu Ghraib represented just a small fraction of US soldiers. I would say the same thing of Falujah.

Quote:
Can you come up with even a scrap of evidence to support that (the USA is just attacking cities because of their ethnicity)?

I'm not sure I can, but you did.

Quote:
Consequently, a lot of Sunnis are pretty peeved that they don't have the influence they used to.

Quote:
We were there to remove Hussein in an effort to make the world a safer place.

We were there, according to W&Co, to remove the "imminent" threat of WMD, which is the ONLY moral and legal justification for pre-emptive action.

And finally- who really cares if Zarqawi is part of Al Qaida or not? Even if we capture or kill him we can hardly claim to have made a major dent in al Qaida, and given the number of foreign fighters and terrorists in Iraq (by the military's estimation

GEEZER

Thursday, November 18, 2004 1:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
What is the point of this statement? I could just as easily say "lest you should think that there are no terrorists or supporters of terrorists or even any bad USA soldiers, think twice about the news of torture chambers in Abu Ghraib" I'm sure you would say Abu Ghraib represented just a small fraction of US soldiers. I would say the same thing of Falujah.

Been waiting for this one.

You forget to note that people are going to jail for the crimes at Abu Ghraib, that investigations are on-going, and that procedures have been put in place to prevent recurrences.

On the other hand, your "freedom fighters", as part of their policy, take hostages, torture them, execute them, publish videos of those executions, kill prisoners of war, kidnap and kill police and government officers, remove wounded Iraqi soldiers from hospitals and kill them, place bombs with the intent of maximizing civilian casualties, sabotage infrastructure necessary to the health and safety of the civilian population, etc.

Looks like they hit just about everything prohibited by the Geneva Convention you seem so interested in citing.

Quote:
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons: (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; (b) taking of hostages; (c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment; (d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

And there's no doubt about their leadership's complicity when the top "freedom fighter" in the country is shown in a video beheading hostage Nicholas Berg. Maybe al-Zarqawi should resign.

Edit: Oh yeah.

Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
When we casually shoot wounded point-blank in the head?

Nothing casual about it. A decision that had to be made in a split-second, given the knowledge that the insurgents had been boobytrapping their dead, that suicide bombing was one of their preferred weapons, and that many of their fighters were looking for martyrdom. And again, it is being investigated, and a good soldier will probably end his career due to the media jumping the gun with incomplete information and no concept of the realities of combat.

Contrast this with the carefully staged execution of Margaret Hassan. Now which side was morally suspect again?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Thursday, November 18, 2004 1:16 PM

Oops. Double post.

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE