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Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Were Killed in the War. One Was My Brother

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Re: Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Were Killed in the War. One Was My Brother

#51

Post by comte7092 »

myth_drannon wrote: post #25
sofixa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I smell sarcasm, but still, you're not that wrong. The motivation absolutely matters - US Imperialism is much softer, even in it's war crimes, than Russian Imperialism that comes with genocide bundled. In the former case where it hurts is that they try to paint a rosy picture (freedom and democracy etc.) while committing war crimes / invading left and right for business interests, and that hypocrisy is very annoying.…

Yes, that's correct. No matter how much US lead wars caused distruction and suffering it was "mostly" collateral damage and naive stupidity that they can change things to their own accord. Russian invasion in Ukraine is pure evil for the sake of showing how evil they are just to scare off the enemy and the future opponents. This is just as barbaric as did Mongols to Slavs, burning entire towns. Next thing after they…

> it was "mostly" collateral damage and naive stupidity that they can change things to their own accord.

That is “mostly” just a PR narrative. The notion that it should be accepted at face value is farcical.

Re: Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Were Killed in the War. One Was My Brother

#52

Post by brwck »

pjc50 wrote: post #15
consumer451 wrote: post #4

Washington Post Poll: Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 Attacks (2003) https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/vault/s...

Incredible. A lot of people, both press, government, TV, and columnists, worked very hard to make sure the public was that misinformed.

[flagged]

Re: Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Were Killed in the War. One Was My Brother

#53

Post by brwck »

throwway120385 wrote: post #19
miroljub wrote: post #6

[flagged]

What are you trying to say here? Russia is intentionally kidnapping children and murdering innocent non-combatants in a campaign of terror to break the spirit of Ukraine. They're launching cruise missiles into apartments and hospitals. They told their own soldiers that the Ukrainian people wanted Russian occupation so badly that their army sent riot police instead of regular army when they made their first push towar…

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Re: Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Were Killed in the War. One Was My Brother

#54

Post by pjc50 »

rdevsrex wrote: post #36
miroljub wrote: post #6

[flagged]

It's not the same, but there are similarities. It's not like the US hasn't knowingly killed civilians before. And speaking of the war in Ukraine, I truly believe the US provoked Russia. Of course, Russia is responsible for its war crimes, but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to. There was a time when we could have made Russia an…

> There was a time when we could have made Russia an ally

That was at best a narrow window in the 90s. The Russians backed Serbia during the Yugoslav war.

Re: Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Were Killed in the War. One Was My Brother

#56

Post by kl_r »

rdevsrex wrote: post #36
miroljub wrote: post #6

[flagged]

It's not the same, but there are similarities. It's not like the US hasn't knowingly killed civilians before. And speaking of the war in Ukraine, I truly believe the US provoked Russia. Of course, Russia is responsible for its war crimes, but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to. There was a time when we could have made Russia an…

> [..] but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.

This is simply not correct, and even Gorbachev has confirmed this. There has never been any agreement stating that NATO is not allowed to accept new members in any particular direction. There were statements made by western politicians but never any pen to paper. The sovereign states that have joined NATO have not done so because of some US campaign or persuasion, but by their own free will. Your statement is indirectly saying that these countries are too dumb to decide for themselves, it's incredibly condescending.

Re: Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Were Killed in the War. One Was My Brother

#57

Post by pjc50 »

mc32 wrote: post #48
krapp wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On balance was it good? It's an open question. No, it isn't an open question. The United States dragged the world into a war based on lies and false pretenses. It invaded and destroyed a sovereign state, allowing museums and priceless cultural artifacts to be looted and burned, murdered millions of people - Iraqis and allies - and left a broken country to the depredations of the insurgent forces their own ham-fisted…

It's an open question because we don't know how things would have panned out if Iraq had continued under Saddam. He might have gone for Iraq-Iran War II with the commensurate casualties, or he may have mellowed out and been much better off than the Bush alternative. We don't know, therefore it's an open question. But, yes, we should have a congressional inquiry with teeth to find out why and punish wrongdoers and est…

Iran-Iraq War 1 was supported by the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq...

(apart from the bit where the illegally conducted private foreign policy was selling arms to the other side in order to fund some other terrorists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair ; really it was the pardoning of everyone involved in Iran-Contra that set the stage for the Iraq war misconduct. Oliver North ending up as a TV host rather than, say, jail)

Re: Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Were Killed in the War. One Was My Brother

#58

Post by kodah »

bo-tato wrote: post #44
kodah wrote: post #12

When I was working in Afghanistan I met a decent number of interpreters and Afghani leaders that were former forced fighters. I even guarded one while he was being interviewed and jailed, he was the first of a few that I'd end up meeting. The story that sticks with me is the last one and I think will sit with me for the rest of my life. I was back at my units "home" base where they spent most of a year. Recently US a…

Why do you assume the taliban killed his family? if they go around killing family of people that do bombings for them they aren't going to find many people willing in the future. I know nothing of afghanistan but where I'm from (latin america) the US has a long history of training paramilitaries and death squads. My guess just based on that story would be US or Georgian connected paramilitary group killing his family…

In a world of infinite possibilities it is possible, but I doubt it. I spent a year in Helmand and Nimroz. In that time I watched the Taliban attack our bases with three large, at times overwhelming attacks. I watched them gather on mountain tops as we turned bases over to the ANA and proceed to slaughter them after we left. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, I believe the stories of forced fighters who had their family members abducted and held hostage, were tortured, and the general sense of enslavement that the local populous felt under Taliban rule. You are right that I didn't, and nobody from HumInt or our sister unit watched these executions happen, but anyone thats served in or lived in Afghanistan for any significant period of time is familiar with the Taliban's patterns. Additionally, two EOD members are fairly inconsequential to the military and any intelligence community that would have to train, arm, and deploy said paramilitary units.

Additionally, in Latin America if memory serves me correct paramilitary units were used because the US didn't want to go there as a military presence for both optics and cost. We (the military) were already present in Afghanistan.

Lastly, as I said earlier as well, this one death and one attack among many. There was very little significance to this attack. EOD was doing civilian route clearance, trying to clear civilian roads of IEDs and bombs planted by the Taliban. We didn't use these specific roads so that the Taliban wouldn't put bombs on them, but they did anyway and used it as leverage on the local populous. These types of operations were part of "hearts and minds" operations. The real message from the US military was sent every year during Opium Interdiction operations where after the Taliban had enslaved farmers to produce poppy for them we would raid the Taliban opium production facilities.

Re: Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Were Killed in the War. One Was My Brother

#59

Post by krapp »

mc32 wrote: post #48
krapp wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On balance was it good? It's an open question. No, it isn't an open question. The United States dragged the world into a war based on lies and false pretenses. It invaded and destroyed a sovereign state, allowing museums and priceless cultural artifacts to be looted and burned, murdered millions of people - Iraqis and allies - and left a broken country to the depredations of the insurgent forces their own ham-fisted…

It's an open question because we don't know how things would have panned out if Iraq had continued under Saddam. He might have gone for Iraq-Iran War II with the commensurate casualties, or he may have mellowed out and been much better off than the Bush alternative. We don't know, therefore it's an open question. But, yes, we should have a congressional inquiry with teeth to find out why and punish wrongdoers and est…

>It's an open question because we don't know how things would have panned out if Iraq had continued under Saddam.

American policy in that regard was already to put up with him because he was the "devil we knew", and we didn't want to risk someone worse filling the power vacuum if he was overthrown. If there were a credible threat of him starting another war with Iran that justified the US changing policy, The US could have presented a case with credible evidence. None of this "you're either with us or you're with the evildoers" nonsense.

Infinite hypotheticals always exist, but they don't carry moral weight in this universe because they could be used to justify anything in hindsight.

Re: Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Were Killed in the War. One Was My Brother

#60

Post by bo-tato »

kodah wrote: post #58
bo-tato wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume the taliban killed his family? if they go around killing family of people that do bombings for them they aren't going to find many people willing in the future. I know nothing of afghanistan but where I'm from (latin america) the US has a long history of training paramilitaries and death squads. My guess just based on that story would be US or Georgian connected paramilitary group killing his family…

In a world of infinite possibilities it is possible, but I doubt it. I spent a year in Helmand and Nimroz. In that time I watched the Taliban attack our bases with three large, at times overwhelming attacks. I watched them gather on mountain tops as we turned bases over to the ANA and proceed to slaughter them after we left. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, I believe the stories of forced fighters who had their fa…

Interesting, thanks for sharing your experience. I don't doubt the Taliban is evil, but I don't think they're stupid. That they hold family hostage to force people to fight for them I can easily believe. That they kill the family of someone that just carried out an attack for them, and hasn't betrayed them or anything, seems counterproductive for them. As far as I understand paramilitary are part of almost all armed conflicts, to do the dirty work that isn't wanted to be associated with the official military. In some of latin america like you say the US had no official military role for optics and cost. Other countries like Guatemala, Colombia, etc the US had official military advisors present, and funding and cooperation with the official military. And then paramilitary groups also operating that are really just an extension of the official military and intelligence institutions, for doing the dirtier stuff.
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