Bowling for children

[Crash]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...tm?POE=NEWISVA

Suicide car bomber kills up to 27, several Iraqi children
BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide car bomb exploded next to U.S. troops handing out candy and toys, killing 18 children and teenagers Wednesday.

Parents heard the shattering explosion and raced out to the discover the worst — children's mangled, bloodied bodies strewn on the street.
An Iraqi policeman secures the site where a suicide car bomb exploded in Baghdad. . At least 70 people were injured, a newborn and three U.S. soldiers among them
By Ali al-Saadi, AFP/Getty Images

and we're supposed to fight them fair.... WTF

damn liberal hippies get pissed when americans do this




but no one bats an eye when 30 kids are blow up by the same freaking psychos that were in abu ghraib




in a related story:

Armed men stormed a house in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing four Iraqi human rights activists and wounding another, a member of the group said.

The victims belonged to the local International Organization for Human Rights and were shot by several men at their office in the western neighborhood of Jamaa, their colleague Jamal Ibrahim said.

yeah, these ****ers are real human, and deserve to be treated with utmost respect... my ASS ...**** the geneva convention in this occupation

[Happydude]

stupid stupid terrorists...

[Fox 6]

Originally Posted by Crash

yeah, these ****ers are real human, and deserve to be treated with utmost respect... my ASS ...**** the geneva convention in this occupation

In that case you would just be lowering yourself to the terrorists level. Also people people would disagree at the war in Iraq even more, to break a treaty that your country signed in good faith is a ridiculous thought. I'm not saying that they should sit back and do nothing, but breaking that treaty would be a bad idea.

[Crash]

yeah, I agree... the geneva convention should not be broken.. because then americans would be hated more than ever.

but something has to be done... it is an unfair war, and its causing american lives (about 1700 as of now)

my dad's regiment - 3rd ACR out of colorado... has had a crapload of casualties for one post. why? roadside bombs, suicide bombs and plain "what-were-they-thinking"

how do you fight an enemy that doesn't fight like you do?

think brittish in revolutionary war... 'but they aren't fighting the way they are supposed to...., they are hiding and wearing camoflage'

what happened to them? well, they didn't get their job done, because they were too concerned with doing it like a gentleman.

now, we're too concerned with "doing it polically correct" and its not good for us. That's all I'm saying.

[Fox 6]

It seems to me that you were probably blowing off steam, and expressing your frustration, and thats ok to do at times.

[DarrenMcLeod]

Terrorist bombings don't justify the prisoner photos.

[Crash]

of course, i'm just blowing off steam.

just sick of the media saying:

"2 more american soldiers killed needlessly today"
when those soldiers are trying to protect us and them and little iraqi children from becoming victims of religiously charged hate crimes.


dammit media, cover the real stories not your crybaby I want it my way stories!!!

[Crash]

Originally Posted by DarrenMcLeod

Terrorist bombings don't justify the prisoner photos.

worse things happen at frat parties... big deal i say!

[DeathsHand]

Originally Posted by Crash

just sick of the media saying:

"2 more american soldiers killed needlessly today"

What the hell media are you watching/reading/listening to?

[Professor S]

1) Terrorists are NOT covered under the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention SPECIFICALLY protects combatants representing a nation and garbed in that nation's uniform. Therefore Iraqi soldiers apprehended on the field of battle are covered under the Convention, but illegal plain clothes combatants that do not represent a sovreign nation receive absolutely ZERO PROTECTION. The fact that we respect the Geneva Convention in most cases is a priveledge we give these baby killers, it is not their right. In fact, these specifications were made in the convention so that those that fight in ways the terrorists do would NOT be protected, so the tactics used at Abu Graib do not even violate the spirit of the Geneva Convention.

2) What went on at Abu Graib is a joke. The only crime was that some idiot decided to e-mail the pictures back home so an eager media could blow it out of proportion. I don't know who would even be stupid enough to to ALLOW a camera in that place. Anyway, we are trying to interrogate these people who are FANATICS, and they hold information that can save lives. To properly interrogate someone you need to get information out of them, information that they do not want to give. Should we give them a cookie and say "please"? Of course not. You break down their spirit and basically reduce their self-esteem to a pile of dog crap. While doing this you do not let them sleep and make sure they are uncomfortable at all times. The when they are exhausted and believe they're worthless they will give you the information. Torture is not even a productive means of interrogation, much less a moral one, as the one being tortured will pretty much say anything at the breaking pojnt to avoid more pain. Just so you know, the information I am giving here was from a History Channel doc on interrogation tactics.

3) All muslim detainees, including those that we hold that were involved in the 9/11 attack, are given many priveledges including a Quran and food that is cooked and treated to Islamic specifications (in fact the meals that detainees receive are considerably more expensive than ones we feed our own troops). Detainees that have been cooperative have even been taken on boat trips and given BBQ dinners and other amenities.

[Xantar]

Originally Posted by Crash

yeah, I agree... the geneva convention should not be broken.. because then americans would be hated more than ever.

but something has to be done... it is an unfair war, and its causing american lives (about 1700 as of now)

my dad's regiment - 3rd ACR out of colorado... has had a crapload of casualties for one post. why? roadside bombs, suicide bombs and plain "what-were-they-thinking"

how do you fight an enemy that doesn't fight like you do?

think brittish in revolutionary war... 'but they aren't fighting the way they are supposed to...., they are hiding and wearing camoflage'

what happened to them? well, they didn't get their job done, because they were too concerned with doing it like a gentleman.

now, we're too concerned with "doing it polically correct" and its not good for us. That's all I'm saying.

Don't look now, but all of that suggests that maybe, just maybe, some folks in the government didn't have a totally clear idea of how to carry the war in Iraq through to its conclusion.

So how do you fight an enemy that doesn't fight like you, Crash? Do you have some suggestions for our troops?

3) All muslim detainees, including those that we hold that were involved in the 9/11 attack, are given many priveledges including a Quran and food that is cooked and treated to Islamic specifications (in fact the meals that detainees receive are considerably more expensive than ones we feed our own troops). Detainees that have been cooperative have even been taken on boat trips and given BBQ dinners and other amenities.

Which is all beside the point because these detainees were imprisoned without a right to counsel nor reasonable expectation of a timely trial or even knowing what they are suspected of doing. Spare me all the talk about barbecue dinners and having surgical masks to hang the Quran off the ground because that's all just blowing smoke. What if there's somebody totally innocent in there? The problem with the way we're detaining people is there's no way we'd even know if there were innocent people in there. If I were detained without being able to talk to anybody or even face my accusers, somehow I don't think that having expensive food served to me would be much comfort.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Xantar

Which is all beside the point because these detainees were imprisoned without a right to counsel nor reasonable expectation of a timely trial or even knowing what they are suspected of doing. Spare me all the talk about barbecue dinners and having surgical masks to hang the Quran off the ground because that's all just blowing smoke. What if there's somebody totally innocent in there? The problem with the way we're detaining people is there's no way we'd even know if there were innocent people in there. If I were detained without being able to talk to anybody or even face my accusers, somehow I don't think that having expensive food served to me would be much comfort.

1) We don't have to let them face their accusers and and they are not protected under US or any other law that I am aware of, as I pointed out with my bit about the Geneva Convention.

2) We have released many detainees that we have captured and kept in Abu Graib and GITMO. In fact I believe that 6 (maybe more) detainees that have been released by the US have been RE-CAPTURED or killed in Iraq. They were released and then went back to kill more troop/civilians/kids/kittens. Oh those poor poor detainees. I feel so sorry for them.

Spare me all your sympathy and indignation. We aren't keeping pick pockets in GITMO. These are bad people that do the kind of things that Crash posted above. Sorry if you can't stomach what needs to be done.

The whole problem is that no one has a damn clue about what needs to be done, besides the people whose JOB IT IS TO DO IT. So until someone comes up with a better idea on how to gain intelligence from illegal combatants and killers, I'll trust those that are trained to do so and their methods.

[gekko]

I'm glad you guys get the luxury of spewing your **** from a ****ing keyboard on the other side of the world. Maybe if your ass had to walk down those same streets, you might find this to be a little bit bigger deal.

As for the Geneva convention, I am not against it, but the insurgents are, so **** em. It's like signing a peace treaty and then getting attacked. Are you still going to ****ing sit there and get killed, or will you fight back? You ****ing fight back. The geneva convention was never intended to be one-sided. We did the right thing, we followed it, but now they didn't. All is fair in love and ****ing war, and this is war.

Now how do you fight an enemy that doesn't fight like you? You adapt, and you fight like them. Holy ****, is this a new concept? Does anybody learn anything about Vietnam other than the politics of it? To fight guerillas, you fight like guerillas. It's that simple. I'll kill every mother****er in that city if I have to. These ****s know who doesn't belong in their neighborhood, they know who is an Iraqi, and who isn't. They got two choices, tell us where the **** they are, or get wiped out along with em. **** these guys, I have no remorse. I'm not about to go back and be a human ****ing target just waiting to be shot at again. Cut it close this time, the first week after we were relieved, they lost 6 to IEDs on the same routes we would've been taking. After only 2 months, they were up to 27 lost. I'm sick of this political-driven bull**** that we are putting up with being fueled by *****-ass bitches sitting online causing controversy over stupid **** that they can never relate to.

We're at war. Grab a weapon, or shut the **** up and let someone else fight for you.

[Professor S]

Gekko, could you let us know who that was targeted at? Because I agree with you and yet I just feel like I received quite the tongue-lashing

[Xantar]

You can't tell me that there aren't innocent people being detained in prison. People on death row go through a decade long process and we know that there are still innocent people occasionally getting executed for one reason or another. Not that I want to get into a capital punishment argument as well, but are you going to seriously tell me that every single person in Guantanamo is plotting the next 9/11? No system is that perfect. You can tell me that some people were released and then went back to bombing innocent civilians, and certainly I think that's a terrible thing. On the other hand, I also know for a fact that some innocent people were detained. Five of them in particular were detained for two years and then released after it became clear that they were innocent of anything related to terrorism. I'm not one of the liberals who decries rough interrogation in itself, but I have to wonder what we're supposed to say to people who received that treatment every day for two years without really knowing why. Oops, sorry?

And how do we know that these detainments "need to be done" or that they're producing results anyway? I thought conservatism was supposed to be founded on distrust of a powerful, unanswerable government. The problem with this whole line of argument is it basically means we should all just sit back, relax and shut up while we wait for results which could be a few decades from now since the War on Terror is long and secretive. Sorry if I'm not willing to do that. We have a system here in which some people are released because they were thought to pose little threat and went right back to trying to kill infidels and others are released and go back to being law abiding citizens missing two years of their lives. Either way, we lose, so it seems to me that there's just a little something wrong here. This is a system handled by a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies always screw up even if it's their job to handle it.

Now gekko, I understand you feel very strongly about this, and I'm not going to pretend that I understand what it's like to be in Iraq. But your idea doesn't work. First of all, you can't really compare Iraq to Vietnam. True, they're both guerilla wars, but the Viet Cong weren't accustomed to blowing up Vietnamese children. But if you want to draw a lesson from Vietnam, consider that the most effective units in that war were Combined Action Platoons. Marines in the CAPs themselves said it best: "CAP villages were no longer targets of the indiscriminate Search and Destroy mentality so prevalent during the Vietnam War. We shared the risk of living in the villages 24 hours a day, thereby earning the love and respect of thousands of our villagers who simply wanted to survive a war they didn't want."

I don't know how well that kind of thing could work in Iraq, but I'm pretty sure it would work better than what you propose. You want to just scare the civilians as much as possible until they cooperate, and there are two problems with that. First of all is that we simply aren't as scary as terrorrists. We never will be. Secondly, this war is supposed to be to spread democracy in Iraq and the Middle East. You're not going to do that by terrorizing all the civilians and getting them to hate us.

You might say we have something like CAP going on in Iraq, and that would be fair enough although the comparison isn't perfect. But the thing about CAPs is they take a really long time. So why is President Bush acting as if the war is going to be over any day now? I don't think everybody would be happy about it, but I do think that people would complain about the war in Iraq a bit less if Bush had never said anything on an aircraft carrier two years ago. Either he's spinning the truth or he doesn't really understand what's going on. Both of those worry me.