Let's go to war against Iraq!!! II

I expected deaths but hoped they could be avoided, there have been many accidents that have killed people, they didn’t need to happen. It is a bad start to a war, but then again war is a bad start for anything.

Well said!

BTW, a patriot rocket shot down a british aircraft…
The Iraqis claim, that they have Prisoners of war…

allied forces @ umm kasr under heavy fire…wasn’t it the town that was captured yesterday? Makes me think…

Bush is killing his own soldiers for nothing. There’s no peace we can get with war. Does he know that violence leads to nothing but violence?

Cya,

Side :sad:

I couldn’t say it any better than you.

For a couple of hours ago I saw something on the TV news that upset me. They reported about these prisoners of war captured by the Iraqis. Donald Rumsfeld (I think it was) was on TV telling that it is against the Geneve convention filming them blah blah. A commentator in the studio told that if the prisoners were treated against the Geneve convention, it would upset the Americans. Honestly, how can you Americans be upset about your own prisoners being filmed in Iraq, when you still have the prisoners from the war in Afghanistan in the Guantamo (or whatever) being treated worse than animals? I know that they are terrorists and “bad guys”, but still, don’t they have rights according to the international conventions? There is a fact that many of them have tried to commit suicide.

A mistake that is often made is confusing “America” and “American.” Americans are indivuduals with various opinions that sometimes don’t agree with America the country. The many anti-war protest in our large cities are proof of this.

I actually seen the same footage that you did, and yes, it was Donald Rumsfeld. Did you notice what the interviewer asked Mr. Rumsfeld? He asked “but don’t you think these videos will bring some comfort to the familes to see them alive.” Mr. Rumsfeld answered with “well, you could make that arguement.” This itself was an example of how all Americans don’t feel this way. Mr. Rumsfeld went own to explain that it was against the Geneve convention to humiliate POW on film. The act of filming alone was not the crime, it was the humiliation that was the offense.

The only pictures I’ve seen of these prisoners was a picture of them tied to the floor sitting down with cloth bags on their heads. … and they looked fat. They must have been fed well. What have your heard or seen that makes you think they are treated like animals? … I’m not saying they aren’t, but here footage like that is taboo. I’m curious of what other countries are hearing and seeing. Our news rarly mentions these prisoners.

I fear that you may be right. However lets keep hope that something good may come from this. There is no doubt that Saddam is a threat and a terrorist. He terrorized his people daily with daily executions to show his people discipline. He murdered his family that didn’t agree with him, he has murdered his government officials that didn’t agree with him. He has “professional” rapist to rape women. He again has used women and children as human sheilds. Even without weapons or WMD he is a terrorist and terrorizes his people. The operation is called “Iraqi Freedom” and is properly titled. It is not “Operation Saddam dis-arment.” The goal now is eliminating the threat of Saddam. Saddam’s violence has beget violence.

screw everything. We should attack. Its not like we are simply blowing up a random area of military bases, we’re isolating these missiles to hit specific military targets, even if evil suddam has placed schools next to these bases, our military technology allows us to only destroy the base next to the school, without even getting the school dirty. You guys don’t understand how incredibly advanced our military technology is right now that we’re using on Iraq. There aren’t 100’s of innocent civilians dieing like so many democratic extreamist hippys are saying. We are liberating the ppl of Iraq, freeing them from the bullshit suddam is pulling on us and his own ppl. Many Iraq ppl are celebrating these attacks on bases because suddam has been ruling with such terror for so long. Suddam is much like cancer, you can’t just leave it alone, or it will get worse. Our soldiers are fighting for the ppl of Iraq AND America. The Iraq troops are the evil ones. Yesterday many of them pretended to surrender, then open fired on the American troops when they came over to them. :grrr: - Just think about that.

Are you kidding? The technology we’re using is more advanced than it’s ever been but it’s not even close to this kind of accuracy. And it doesn’t matter how accurate the bombs are, the level of destruction is such that surrounding buildings will unquestionably be damaged.

Did you hear of the helicopter crashes? Or the US patriot missile which brought down a British jet? Does this sound like technology advanced to the point of perfection to you?

We had the same thing in the first Gulf War, ridiculous claims of technological accuracy and computer-controlled weaponry which would eliminate mistakes. We had a wonderful parade of statistics and footage from the nose of smart-bombs. It didn’t stop the mistakes, or the civilian casualties, it didn’t stop more Allied soldiers being killed by their own side than by the enemy.

It’s not a surgical, sanitised operation, it’s a war.

hi everybody

it makes me very sad and frustrated that there are people out there who really believe the propaganda of the bush government. how can one really be so naive and believe bush he would do that for the iraqi people or the disarmament of saddam hussein! There is no proof that saddam hussein has any of these dangerous weapons! also fact is that people’s life in iraq won’t get better after the usa have won the war, they will put a usa friendly so called democratic government in charge who rules the oil business in the favour of the usa! fact is also that this war(after won) is highly profitable for the usa! the only reason for this war is oil, again it will be highly profitable for the usa! common, think about it! you don’t really believe they would put so enormous amounts of money in a war if it wouldn’t pay back, do you?! then i would like to say something about the usa tv channels!! the same story sometimes is totally different on usa and european tv channels! for a objective point of view, i think, it’s necessary to get your information from different medias, not only from usa tv channels! i understand that if somebody who watches only the us channels
gets a totally wrong point of view, because they are often misused for propaganda and also don’t show pictures we can see on european channels!

Right now I only have Norwegian newspaper reports to rely on. They report the same about prisoners tied on their arm, sitting on their ground with all hair and beards shaved aways and their eyes and ears completely covered up (so they can’t see or hear anything) at the Guantanamo base. Another report from the same newspaper tells about over 30 cases of suicide attempts on a base of close to 600 prisoners. We don’t hear much about them over here either. I am not sure if they are treated any better now, but this info gives me a couple of hints that they are not treated so good.

That was what I wanted to say, I just forgot to include the little bit about filming to humiliate. I think photography is also covered by this restriction. :eh: My point was that the Americans can’t expect any other to treat American POWs any good when the USA itself refuse their prisoners basic human rights and Geneve convention rights. (but maybe they couldn’t expect it of the Iraqis anyway. I think my point is losing itself a little here :confused: )

And BTW, sorry for generalising. Of course I didn’t mean to say that ALL Americans thinks and acts the same way. Of course I know that Americans are just as different as other people.

Here are the newspaper reports. Unfortunately they are only in Norwegian. Does anyone know of any good language translators that include Norwegian on the Web?
vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=8476444
vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=1794445

the gulf war was long before the major technological advances we have made to our missile systems. I’ve seen these things at conventions and how they work. I listened to this guy talk about them and how they have all these new computer systems inside. They measure out exact amounts of explosives to cover the exact area of the base, they dont just launch missles here and there, each one is prepared for each target.

But I don’t think the recent conflict in Afghanistan was, was it? And didn’t we accidentally destroy a red cross centre? Yes.

I hardly think the words of company men at conventions can be taken as an unbiased view of the technology.

Hi
Here in germany, I also heared about the camp.Some organisations blamed the US to treat their prisoners very bad, but since these are anti-war or anti-imerpialistic organisations this isn´t surprising.

The german newspapers and TV-station said that the USA didn´t accept any rights of the imprisoned ones (since they aren´t “prisoners of war”), and that they decided that they can keep the prisoners as long as they want without any kind of trial.

Here are some fotos from the transport, that some unknown soldier made as noone watched him:

heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/13573/1.html

I saw the video of the POW’s and the dead KIA Americans. Al Jazeera videotaped and aired it on Iraqi television. You can get the video from Kazaa or Ogrish.com (it’s on the first page but under 18 shouldn’t even go to site or anyone with a weak stomach)

War causes deaths…there are going to be a lot more on both sides and you can’t even begin to hope that no one else is going to die. It’s just gonna happen. We are all pretty lucky that we are sitting at our computers not having to be on a battlefield with bullets flying all over the place.

josh

Few links on subject:
tv.oneworld.net/tapestry?story=584&window=full
Horrible story about what can happen to rights of POWs when noone is around.


aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news078.htm
Russian view about war in Iraq, differs pretty much on what you hear on CNN and FOX News.

Speculation about motives for war against Iraq.
ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html

indymedia.org/
cnn.com/

“The first casualty when war comes is truth”. Hiram W Johnson

one thing which i can’t repeat often enough is that anyone should “clean his/her door first” (some bad translation of a German saying) before saying anything about other people. that’s exactly true in this war, too. Of course it’s forbidden to show POWs on Iraq-TV. But isn’t the American government showing pictures and movies of POWs, too? And what about the Afghan soldiers on Guantanamo base? They aren’t treated like POWs because they are called terrorists and as such have almost no rights.
Why didn’t the US-government sign the contract of Kyoto?
Why didn’t the US-government allow US soldiers to be brought in front of the International Court of War Crime in Den Haag if they commit crimes of war?
Well, and here’s another thing: Many US-TV-channels call this war a “clean and clinical war”. This is as opposite as day and night! “clinical” (originally meant to help sick persons) and “war” (to KILL persons). That should become the “UN-WORD”-of-the-year.
And if you think that every “embedded reporter” can report without any restriction you are wrong. Every “embedded reporter” has to ask his/her “army-boss” (don’t know how the person who commands an army unit is called in English) first whether he/she is allowed to report. And reporters who don’t come from nations which are part of the “coalition of the willing” don’t even get a chance to enter Iraq and to report independently.

Peace and Happyness to all Beings!

and btw: Hatreds never cease by hatred in this world; through love alone they cease. (Dp. 1,5)
or “One is forbidden to kill.” (some precept of the Holy Bible)
or “One should hug his enemy. This way the foe is not able to do harm to you.” (some saying)

WHOOOAAA…you people just struck something i feel VERY strongly about. I spent the last couple weeks putting together various facts ect. I’m going to start a new post called “FACTS ABOUT IRAQ”…it will be kinda long, but check it out. SOOOO cool that i finally found a website where the majority of the people (finally some intelligent human life on this planet) are against this war. PLEASE check it out…whether you for or against…it is not opinion, but FACT…if you want to know anything i will pretty much answer any question you have on this subject in that post. Give me a little while, i should have it up in the next few hours…if not it will be up within the next day or so.

What also bothers me is how, as always, the media play along with the government’s war…

" FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism

ACTION ALERT:
Media Should Follow Up on Civilian Deaths:
Journalist’s evidence that U.S. bombed market ignored by U.S. press

April 4, 2003

In two separate incidents last week, dozens of Iraqis were killed by what
eyewitness survivors claim were U.S. airstrikes. U.S. officials, however,
offered a range of denials and evasions about what may have caused the
explosions. Despite evidence uncovered by one British newspaper about the
second (and more deadly) of the incidents, however, most U.S. media
outlets have allowed the story to end with the official denials.

On March 28, in an open-air market in the Shuala section of Baghdad, over
60 people were reportedly killed in what seemed to be a missile attack–
the Los Angeles Times (3/29/03), for example, reported matter-of-factly
that “a missile slammed into a crowded market area.” But as with an
earlier explosion on March 26, the New York Times’ John F. Burns reported
(3/29/03) that “it was impossible to determine the cause,” adding that “a
Central Command spokesman in Qatar said Friday night that the United
States could not tell what caused the bombing on Friday.” Burns suggested
that these incidents “threaten to become yet another major problem for the
Bush administration.”

The PR angle was also highlighted on the CBS Evening News after the
earlier explosion (3/26/03), with anchor Dan Rather noting that “scenes of
civilian carnage in Baghdad, however they happened and whoever caused
them, today quickly became part of a propaganda war, the very thing U.S.
military planners have tried to avoid.” (Of course, the extensive
preparations the Pentagon made for communicating to the press before the
war indicate that it was not hoping to “avoid” a propaganda war-- but to
win one.)

While one might hope that reporters would be interested in uncovering the
cause of more than 60 civilian deaths, U.S. media have so far made little
effort to investigate the Shuala incident. One British reporter on the
scene, however, found evidence that appears to shed light on the origin of
the devastation.

On March 30, Robert Fisk reported in the London Independent that what
appeared to be a missile fragment was found on the scene of the
explosion-- and that it bore a visible serial number, which Fisk
published. In a follow-up report on April 2, the Independent’s Cahal
Milmo reported that the serial number could be traced back to the Raytheon
Corporation, and that the weapon was “thought to be either a HARM
anti-radar missile or a Paveway laser-guided bomb.” The Independent
continues: “The American military has confirmed that a navy EA-6B
‘Prowler’ jet, based on the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk, was in action over the
Iraqi capital on Friday and fired at least one HARM missile to protect two
American fighters from a surface-to-air missile battery.”

Some media accounts have pointed to the relatively small crater created by
the explosion at Shuala as an indication that a U.S. cruise missile was
not responsible. But cruise missiles are not the only weapons being
launched from U.S. planes in Iraq. The Independent reported that,
according to experts, “the damage caused at Shuala was consistent with
that of Paveway or, more probably, a HARM weapon,” which are smaller than
cruise missiles.

So far, according to a search of the Nexis database, no major U.S. news
outlet has picked up this new information; instead, reporters have
continued to relay U.S. officials’ denials of any knowledge about the
Shuala blast. The New York Times’ Burns (4/4/03) questioned why the
Iraqis have not been able to explain the incident: “Often, as in Shuala,
officials have delayed taking reporters to the site for hours, and have
met with evasions the inquiries about the unusually small crater at the
marketplace, and the fact that most victims appeared to have died from
shrapnel wounds and not from the kind of blast associated with high-energy
bombs and missiles.”

On NPR’s Talk of the Nation (4/2/03), the question of civilian casualties
was discussed by host Neal Conan with guests Michael O’Hanlon of the
Brookings Institution and retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson. In response
to a caller’s question, Conan explained that U.S. military officials still
could not find any evidence that the first bombing was caused by a U.S.
weapon.

O’Hanlon then explained that an investigation into these cases would
involve answering three questions: verifying where you were shooting, and
tracking “how many of the bombs or cruise missiles that you fired reached
their proper targets”; looking for bomb fragments; and, finally, judging
the size of the crater left by the explosion, “whether it’s consistent
with the size of the explosive charge that was on the warhead in question,
possibly even the shape of the crater and things like that.”

Interestingly, the report in the Independent provides what could be
answers to all of those questions. But Conan summed up the matter this
way: “There were other attacks, though, and as so far, the investigations
by the U.S. military… are not complete, and again, as Michael O’Hanlon
knows, it may be some time, if ever, before we actually know what happened
there.”

NPR’s listeners might have been interested to know that more information
was available-- even though it wasn’t part of an investigation by the U.S.
military.

ACTION: Encourage NPR’s Talk of the Nation and the New York Times to
continue to investigate what caused the March 28 explosion in Baghdad that
killed dozens of Iraqi civilians. You might suggest that they interview
reporters from the Independent who have pursued the story.

CONTACT:
NPR
Talk of the Nation
mailto:totn@npr.org

If you’re a regular listener to the show, you might try calling in live to
Talk of the Nation at 800-989 8255.

New York Times
mailto:nytnews@nytimes.com

To read the Independent’s account, go to:
news.independent.co.uk/world/mid … ory=393066

  ----------

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FAIR
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Quote from: Media Control
The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
by Noam Chomsky
GET THIS BOOK AND READ IT…its 100 pages long, i read it in about an hour. Its cheap too only $9 (US) can prob find it cheaper

“Mohawk Valley formula” or “Scientific methods of strike-breaking”

"worked very effectivaley by mobilizing community opinion in favor of vapid, empty concepts like Americanism. Who can be agaisnt that? Or Harmony. Who can be against that? Or, as in the persian Gulf War, “support our troops.” Who can be against that? Or Yellow Ribbons. Who can be against that? Anything that’s totally vacuous.

In fact, what does it mean if somebody asks you, Do you support the people in Iowa? Can you say, Yes, I support them, or No, I don’t support them? It’s not even a question. It doesn’t mean anything. That’s the point. The point of public relations slogans like “Support our troops” is that they don’t mean anything. They mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, Do you support our policy? But you don’t want people to think about that issue. Thats the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be agaisnt, and everybody is going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question
that does mean something: Do you support our policy?"

“Just in the two years that George Bush has been in office three million more children crossed the poverty line, the debt is zooming, educational standards are declinging, real wages are now back to the level of about the late 1950’s for much of the population, and nobody’s doing anything about it. In such circumstances you’ve got to divert the public, because if they start noticing this they may not like it, since they’re the ones suffering from it. Just having them watch the Superbowl and the sitcoms may not be enough. You have to whip them up into fear of enemies. In the 1930’s Hitler whipped them into fear of the Jews and Gypsies. You had to crush them to defend yourselves. We have our ways, too. Over the last ten years, every year or two, some major monster is constructed that we have to defend ourselves against.”

My “Facts about Iraq” post is FINALLY up. Check it out right here:
LINK

:smile: looks like we have a very interesting disscussion going on here!

Just a few things on this topic I’d like to voice my opinion on…

1 - By not complying with the UN’s mandate to disarm for 12 years Saddam was hurting the image that one must abide by the ruling of the UN. To say that he needed more time is hard to imagine being justified - he had more than a decade. That said, the question was what kind of action needed to be taken. War for not complying with the UN does seem extreame, however peaceful solutions haven’t worked either. So its one of those things where we needed to find a medium between the two extreames…
2 - Purely on a humanitarian level Saddam needed taking out, he treats his people, too afraid to oppose him, like their lives have no value. There is a humanitarian crisis in Iraq only because he caused it. Yes there are other ruthless dictators who are doing the same, I’m not saying nothing should be done about that, but let’s take this one step at a time. This in of itself is not cause for war, yet we have seen that peaceful solutions don’t work with Saddam; he convoluted the role of the inspectors who were only meant to observe as he disarmed into a massive game of hide and seek.
3 - utterly personal opinion I think that the main opposition from France came from not wishing to upset their deals with Iraq for oil etc. For those who foolishly say the US is after oil, we are certainly going to expend more money on the war than we could regain from any amount of oil, it’s not the motivation.

In conclusion, 1 and 2 are not enough for war alone, but considering his refusal to abide by the UN I don’s see another option for freeing the people of Iraq from their oppressor.

In response to above - “Support Our Troops” is Not an empty slogan. There were the “peace” protesters (who get violent enough to throw rocks etc at the police who have nothing to do with the war) who were deliberately trying to stop supplies from getting to the troops. It is one thing to oppose the government in what it is doing, and quite another to try to risk the lives of your fellow citizens who didn’t make the decision to go to war. That, in fact, is my main problem with the peace protesters - they sometimes commit violent acts against the police who are just keeping the peace back home.

In response to everything going down hill since Bush became president, that is very misleading. We were headed toward recession durring the Clinton administration, and I will add, we have never been in a recession - only growing more slowly than before, but not declining below the last GNP which is a recession. Also “and nobody is doing anything about it” could be no more false; could anyone honestly believe that this did not come from a biased source? Someone somewhere is always doing something about the problems of the world, and anyone who doesn’t ignore the facts knows that a democratic government cannot ignore the problems of it’s society and get away with it. Yes it seems that other problems have been pushed off the spotlight a little, but that does not mean no one is working on it, just that no one is hearing about it.

Another point I would like to make about education: it’s not the government’s fault that scores etc. are falling, what I am personally seeing is a lack of motivation in the students to succeed; many do what they have to in order to get a C then just stop because that’s all they need to graduate. They do not care about becoming good citizens watching what the government is doing and speaking out on behalf of what they believe instead of mindlessly taking in whatever any politician says to them.

"In two separate incidents last week, dozens of Iraqis were killed by what
eyewitness survivors claim were U.S. airstrikes. U.S. officials, however,
offered a range of denials and evasions about what may have caused the
explosions. Despite evidence uncovered by one British newspaper about the second (and more deadly) of the incidents, however, most U.S. media
outlets have allowed the story to end with the official denials. "
Not so - they said that their was no conclusive evidence yet - not that there was definately no chance. The media did not ignore that as even I saw the full story on both CNN and FOX. Frankly, the media has not being going along with the government on the war - CNN and other main media outlets early on did their best to shed the worse possible light on any news reported relating to the war. Many seemed to have changed their positions, but the fact still remains.