Fixed.-Sh1fty- wrote:
Oh and Iraq was invaded because it's a terrorist heaven. If it wasn't before it is now, so we can murder all the bad guys journalists, women, children, civilians in one spot. Without having to go to their country.
Again, you are starting from a point of stubborn ignorance that really is not worth commenting on.Dilbert_X wrote:
Its not a war zone.ATG wrote:
Do me a favor bud; go to a war zone and get those pesky native to fill out their official combatant certification card.
Its unreasonable to invade a country for political reasons, turning it into a war zone, and then declare 'its a fucking war zone, we can kill whoever the fuck we like'.
Last edited by Chou (2010-04-06 06:55:46)
Last edited by CapnNismo (2010-04-06 07:12:05)
When the U.S. invaded Iraq they were mostly facing the Republican Guard. Those guys surrendered quickly, a few fought back. A lot of amateurs went there from other countries to fight the "Infidels".CapnNismo wrote:
Shifty, I really hope that you're trying to be sarcastic... because if you believe what you just wrote (Iraq was a terrorist haven)... omg.
Nope, didn't know that. Can somebody else confirm this? Not people like Dilbert or Ruis.CapnNismo wrote:
You do realize that the Islamist organizations all around the world hated Saddam? Pretty much everyone spoke out against him as a non-Islamic ruler and that he had to be taken down so as to establish an Islamic government in Iraq. Saddam would NEVER have been in cahoots with the Islamists. Why? Because they all wanted to off him!
I won't even comment on that.CapnNismo wrote:
Dilbert is right, too - the bad guys are all in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (for the most part). The Saudis (as a people and government) are funding all of these Islamist organizations that inspire terrorism and extremism and even organize for young men to travel to the Middle East to wage jihad. You need to read "Ghost Wars" by Steven Coll and "The Islamist" by Ed Husain.
You can't just come and say that credible and overwhelming reason (as opposed to assumptive and underwhelming reason) doesn't exist in urban warfare without any rationale, and then use that conclusion to tell me what my opinions are. Urban warfare is full of credible and overwhelming reason. That's what you have when you get shot at, or when you're sure beyond reasonable doubt that you're shooting at the right guys.Flaming_Maniac wrote:
Simple logic. You require credible and overwhelming reason to engage, credible and overwhelming reason does not exist in urban warfare, you find urban warfare unacceptable.mikkel wrote:
Where do you get this from? I haven't at all said that I find any kind of urban warfare unacceptable.Flaming_Maniac wrote:
You ask for the impossible. Any kind of urban warfare you find unacceptable, but that is what constitutes warfare in the present day. Now if you want to say that we shouldn't have wars at all, that would be hilarious.
I'm sorry, but again I have to remind you that I have not at any point claimed to disagree with the idea of 'command decisions.' There is no logical fallacy here. I'm going to extend the argument to the preposterous so that the logic should be apparent and obvious. What I'm telling you is that I disagree with the kind of warfare that justifies and finds acceptable the kind of 'command decisions' involved in shooting at targets that are very possibly civilians in the middle of the city before having a credible and overwhelming reason to believe that they aren't civilians. That has nothing to do with my opinion on 'command decisions.' It has to do with my opinion on the kind of warfare being led. Had the U.S. come into Iraq and indiscriminately used chemical weapons in urban civilian areas, I would also disagree with that kind of warfare for justifying and finding acceptable that kind of force. That would also not have anything to do with my opinion on 'command decisions.'Flaming_Maniac wrote:
mikkel wrote:
But I haven't said that I see the necessity of command decisions in all but some cases.I don't understand how you fail to see the logical fallacy in the above statements. You don't disagree with with the necessity of command decisions, acknowledging that command decisions requires the same leeway in all cases and can not be limited in scope to specific cases, but you disagree with the methods that give the command decision in this specific case.mikkel wrote:
I said that I don't agree with the kind of warfare that permits and justifies this 'command decision' that you're referring to.
Disagreeing with the idea of command decisions is categorically disagreeing with war period.
As far as I can tell, none of the men in the truck had guns, the pilots never report anyone in the truck as being armed, and no gun is ever seen in or around the truck. The gunner postulated that it looked like the people in the truck were "picking up bodies and weapons" before the truck had come to a stop, and before anyone had gotten out. As I have said before, I can understand that you can never be 100% certain in these kinds of situations, but you can absolutely be a lot more certain than this.Flaming_Maniac wrote:
They had AKs that could be seen from a chopper. How could you possibly "not know" the people had weapons? If you assume the best, you could assume every single person in the country has a weapon to do nothing more than defend their home and family. You could assume the best and say that every person with a cell phone by the side of the road is calling their grandmother. You could assume every single frickin person in the country could be considered a civilian, there is absolutely no way to tell. Even if they shoot at you, they could be doing it at gun point or other similar ridiculous and useless theories.mikkel wrote:
Well, these people came across the place in a truck after the shots had been fired. That doesn't to me constitute hanging around people with weapons. It doesn't suggest to me that they knew that the people had weapons. It just suggests to me that they stopped and tried to help an injured man. It's easy to postulate and assume the worst, but what I'm saying is that when it's equally easy, or easier to postulate and assume the good, one should exercise constraint. The chance of three dead insurgents isn't worth a very likely chance of three dead civilians to me. Certainly not in the situation displayed.
Well, the people in the truck were not holding any guns in the video as far as I can tell. The person who they were helping didn't have a gun on him, and the bodies of the people that were armed according to the gunner in the helicopter looked to be 30-40 feet away, as the person they stopped to help had run, and then crawled away from the fire. It's very reasonable to recognise the very real possibility that these weren't combatants. You can't just use the cumulative succession of events to assign a certain intent to people who arrived well after the events had taken place, and argue that it is based in credible and observed behaviour. The missing link of their presence demotes that to the rank of speculation.Flaming_Maniac wrote:
Assuming the reasonable is the only thing that matters. It's reasonable to assume that people dressed like the people that shoot at you, holding the things they use to shoot at you with, are going to shoot at you. Assuming that people around armed people helping previously armed people are "very likely" three civilians is highly unreasonable.
Last edited by mikkel (2010-04-06 07:52:15)
lol...-Sh1fty- wrote:
Nope, didn't know that. Can somebody else confirm this? Not people like Dilbert or Ruis.CapnNismo wrote:
You do realize that the Islamist organizations all around the world hated Saddam? Pretty much everyone spoke out against him as a non-Islamic ruler and that he had to be taken down so as to establish an Islamic government in Iraq. Saddam would NEVER have been in cahoots with the Islamists. Why? Because they all wanted to off him!
Its a small part of the whole, and indicative of the mindset.Varegg wrote:
Honestly Dilbert ... unless you've been in a similar situation I find it strange you critisize it so harshly ... and we are discussing one particular incident here not the whole campaign and the reasons behind it ...
And there we have the only sensible post made by Ruis in this entire thread.ruisleipa wrote:
lol...-Sh1fty- wrote:
Nope, didn't know that. Can somebody else confirm this? Not people like Dilbert or Ruis.CapnNismo wrote:
You do realize that the Islamist organizations all around the world hated Saddam? Pretty much everyone spoke out against him as a non-Islamic ruler and that he had to be taken down so as to establish an Islamic government in Iraq. Saddam would NEVER have been in cahoots with the Islamists. Why? Because they all wanted to off him!
seriously do your own research, don't trust anyone on this site without doing some reading yourself.
revisionists are right 100% of the timeM.O.A.B wrote:
Hindsight, its awesome isn't it.
sooner or later...it had to happen.ghettoperson wrote:
And there we have the only sensible post made by Ruis in this entire thread.
Not really ... ROE and how that is interpreted is the exact same in any conflict ... doesn't matter if this was Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon or whatever ... when you face an enemy with no clear indications of being just that these situations and this kind of mindset of soldiers will occour ...Dilbert_X wrote:
Its a small part of the whole, and indicative of the mindset.Varegg wrote:
Honestly Dilbert ... unless you've been in a similar situation I find it strange you critisize it so harshly ... and we are discussing one particular incident here not the whole campaign and the reasons behind it ...
I know that this isn't an uncommon opinion, but the whole "as long as we're better than these other guys who aren't good at all" justification isn't an opinion held by me. It's entirely too easy to judge oneself to the standards of bad men in the course of doing good.JohnG@lt wrote:
They have and continue to do better than 90% of the worlds militaries with respect to civilians. If it was the Russians, Chinese or most other countries, they would've wiped out the entire block without batting an eyelash. Respecting civilians in war is an entirely new phenomena that is mostly propagated by television cameras being present on the field rather than newspaper reporters. Before the advent of television reporting from the field no one gave a damn about civilians. Heck, in WWII, more civilians died than military personnel. 'But we can always do better' is not a real answer because we've been doing the best that we can and it has cost us American lives on the battlefield. We're not running across the countryside raping, pillaging and looting like armies of the past.mikkel wrote:
A rational person wouldn't lay the blame squarely on one party. Nor would a rational person merely assign the American forces a carte blanche as a result of the actions of the insurgents. The challenge of fighting an insurgency is tough. The American government and military leadership took on the tough challenge, though, and took a risk on behalf of the civilian Iraqi population. I don't believe that you can simply dismiss the responsibility of the U.S. to make sure that they do their best to respect the responsibility they have to the Iraqi people in taking that risk, and I don't believe that they did their best in this situation.JohnG@lt wrote:
Simple questions for you mikkel. Who is at fault for the civilian deaths caused in Iraq? Is it the American troops for not being diligent enough or is it the insurgents fault for not obeying the rules of war and fighting with uniforms on that designate them as combatants? Is it America's fault that the insurgents hide among the civilian populace and make themselves indistinguishable from it? Who is ultimately at fault when civilians are mistaken for combatants?
A rational person would lay the blame at the feet of the insurgents.
Of course I would want that. Who wouldn't? It is, however, not at all what it 'seems' that I'm arguing. It is not a very honest debate tactic to draw any suggestion of more caution to the far extreme to make the argument appear invalid, because what you end up disagreeing with is an argument I haven't made. I said a couple of pages back that I had no interest in doing this, and this is still the case.JohnG@lt wrote:
You seem to want battles to resemble those fought in the Civil War where two opposing armies lined up with muskets and shot at one another and where combatants were easily recognizable. Those days are long gone. The enemy can't beat us in the field so they hide in the cities among the civilians. That is the reality of war and civilians will die because of it. C'est la vie.
Last edited by mikkel (2010-04-06 07:56:18)
eleven bravo wrote:
youre right! asking for permission to fire shows complete lack of hesitation!
this outrage is funny coming from someone who denies the armenian genocide
so go somewhere else.-Sh1fty- wrote:
I hardly ever visit Youtube for news or opinion.
Except they did have one. 3:45 minsDilbert_X wrote:
Except it wasn't, all those people were wrong despite their awsm training - which is what 13 weeks these days?Vilham wrote:
Indeed it wasn't an RPG, but it certainly looked like one, to me, to the trained gunner, to his commander watching the feed. But what would they know. Dilberts on the case.
i go to janes.com. unless you go there, you can shut your hole about sources.ruisleipa wrote:
so go somewhere else.-Sh1fty- wrote:
I hardly ever visit Youtube for news or opinion.
