I am glad to see that the front-pagers of the Daily Kos appear to have joined Think Progress in their headlong retreat from the charges that our soldiers used ‘chemical weapons’ against innocent civilians and insurgents. The charge was first leveled, of course, by an RAI film crew, and picked up by the usual suspects- George Monbiot, the foreign press, and credulous lefties across the United States.
In backing down, Hunter at Daily Kos* begs us to remember what this is “all really about”:
It’s worth keeping the debate in the light, because indeed, and somewhat miraculously, the more central point in the Fallujah debate is finally being poked at: whether giving Iraqis “freedom” means killing them in large numbers, and whether or not we are in the military position we are in largely because our unquestionable military prowess cannot compensate for the dunderheadedness of our truly contemptible war planning, which relied first on the Iraqis greeting us with flowers, and then when the oft-predicted Iraqi schisms arose and gave way to the oft-predicted violence, taking on entire urban centers in an effort to separate the insurgents from the civilians by way of 2000lb bombs.
This sentiment is echoed by the ‘Moderate’ Voice’s Michael Stickings (really, Joe- what the hell is going on over there?):
Dave makes a valid point: Does it even matter if WP is technically a chemical weapon? Shouldn’t we be more concerned with the use of WP as a weapon? Or, that is, shouldn’t the discussion focus on whether or not WP is a useful, legitimate, and, well, morally defensible weapon? (Or, perhaps, morality doesn’t matter on the battlefield? — if so, then say so.) Beyond this, shouldn’t we be concerned with the perception of the use of WP as a weapon in Iraq? Kos is right, after all: WP seems like a duck. How does this affect U.S. credibility in Iraq, throughout the Middle East, and around the world? Does that even matter?
A more disingenuous retreat than the two examples offered here can not be found, because pretending that the very specific charges that our troops used illegal chemical weapons against unarmed and innocent civilians is really all about the larger appropriateness of the battle for Fallujah is tantamount to accusing an innocent man of rape simply to raise the larger issue of sexual assault. This dodge does, however, add some insight into the motives of those who chose to believe and, worse still, repeat these charges, despite the abundance of evidence refuting the charges.
In other words, these posts are yet another indefensible dodge, but par for the course. I, for one, will have more to say on the whole battle for Fallujah another day, but for now am comforted by the notion that at least some on the left appear to no longer think of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines as war criminals.
That, in and of itself, is progress enough for me and reason for thanks this Thanksgiving weekend.
Jeff has some related thoughts.
rilkefan
Are the front-page DK posters part of some Borg-like collective?
And would you prefer to be referred to in future as JohnTim or as Johntim?
ppGaz
Good job. You were way out in front on this story.
dorkafork
“How does this affect U.S. credibility in Iraq, throughout the Middle East, and around the world? Does that even matter?”
They spread malicious lies about how WP is a chemical weapon, and now they’re concerned about the perception of the US?
W.B. Reeves
John, you sound like someone in search of vindication. Characterizing these two pieces as a “head long retreat” is a bit shaky since TP explicitly denies that it is doing any such thing and Hunter’s piece doesn’t even address the suggestion. Still, your characterization might be appropriate if you can show where either TP or Hunter have explicitly contradicted their earlier statements on the subject. You didn’t seem able to do this in your earlier thread on TP. Hence your resort to mining the comments thread for damning statements.
As far as I know, every side commits attrocities during wartime. Its one of the reasons that war ought to be avoided, except as a last resort. I don’t see any point in pretending that we are exempt from this reality, regardless of whether one is pro or anti war. However, the partisan political benefits of such a pretense are clear.
John Cole
Um.. TP specifically states they never called WP a chemical weapon, when they sure did, and now are arguing over ‘what is right.’
Same for Hunter and Stickings.
Not only am I vindicated, so are the troops, who they were smearing.
James Emerson
Raping ’em with chemical weapons…
Well, not really too different than raping ’em with explosives, schrapnel, fire, and what have you. Nearly all battle field death has a chemical reaction somewhere along the chain of events leading to that death. Whether some peon skates on a technicality is arguably immaterial to the piles of bodies left behind to rot under the desert sun.
To me at least, it matters little how we collaterallized the citizenry of Fallujah. Fallujah was just another atrocity of a string of atrocities along the course that we are apparently staying, until the powers that brought us this war decide the time is ripe to influence Election 2006.
Nothing more, nothing less.
But the real point to be made is not about castigating our troops over the use of the same weaponry that we castigated Mr Hussein for utilizing. The troops should be held harmless as they are following the orders generated by the command structure and, ultimately, the orders of their civilian overlords.
The real criticism to be made is that we are accomplishing exactly what? With tactics that can only make Osama smile, and Zarqawi’s coffers swell, and apparently creating the best possible recruiting environment for jihadists everywhere, it would seem as though we have become our own worst enemy.
Wouldn’t ya think?
Steve
Wow, even though Hunter never claimed WP was a chemical weapon, and indeed argued that the definition was a technical issue which pales in comparison to the larger issue of whether the civilian deaths in Fallujah were justified, now he is in a “headlong retreat” because he continues to claim the issue of whether WP is a chemical weapon is largely irrelevant. John Cole, vindicated in his own mind.
Indeed, Hunter has repeatedly ridiculed bloggers like John for focusing on whether the Iraqi civilians in Fallujah were “illegally” killed with chemical weapons or “legally” killed with incendiary weapons.
For people like John, it is enough to know that our troops are good people; that they surely deplore any loss of civilian life; and that we fight a human war where we do our very best to minimize civilian casualties. War is hell, some number of civilian casualties are inevitable, and that’s that.
For people like Hunter, you can accept all those things as true, and still question whether we are killing too many of the Iraqi people in the name of bringing them freedom.
slide
I know John is for the legalization of marijuanna but that must be really good shit he got his hands on. Headlong retreat? Vindication? lol. Right.
John Cole
This:
Wholly eluded Steve.
I have no problem with a discussion such as Hunter is entertaining, but not in the context of the charge that our troops are war criminals.
joshua
Now that the smearing of the troops is over, maybe we can get around to armoring them and maybe bringing them home alive.
rilkefan
Johntim, where did HunterkosarmandosorryIleftoutyourname write that our troops are war criminals?
ppGaz
Right in that almost-blank space below where the Bush administration never said that there was a connection between Saddam and 911?
rilkefan
“Right in that almost-blank space below where the Bush administration never said that there was a connection between Saddam and 911?”
I wouldn’t call Cheney an “almost-blank space”. He must weigh like 100 kg. Maybe you mean the spot in his skull where the soul or conscience would be in a fully-formed human being.
If Hunter has written that our troops are war criminals, I’d like to see it.
rilkefan
And I wonder if BJ liberal commenters ppGazkristadougj ever wrote something like that.
ppGaz
Funny. And sad, but still funny.
He wrote it on the wall of a restroom at the Howard Johnson’s on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near TMI. Among other places.
I wish I’d written that.
Talk to the soujournerppGazkristarilkefandougj hand.
W.B. Reeves
More to the point, I would like to see where TP ever stated unequivocally that White phosophorus was a Chem weapon. I went back through several days of posts on this topic and I couldn’t find a link to any such quote. All I could find was the article about the Pentagon intelligence summary. While I find the report to be pretty insubstantial as evidence, I still didn’t see where TP stated that WP was, in fact, a Chem weapon. Does anyone know what John is talking about? Anybody got a link?
Rob
I’ll admit it, I’m having trouble following what the problem is here.
Are we arguing over did we or didn’t we use WP as weapon?
OR
We did use it as a weapon, but that may or may not be a war crime?
OR
We did use WP but NOT as a weapon, but that is still bad?
Or something else entirely?
I mean it, I have lost the drift of these threads.
John Cole
Rilkefan- You aren’t serious. Every time they refer to it as a chemical weapon, they are of course calling our boys war criminals. Using chemical weapons is a war crime.
More specifically, Kos:
Hunter:
John Cole
Reeves-
The whole damn post is an assertion that WP IS a chemical weapon, and look here, EVEN THE PENTAGON SAYS SO.
John Cole
Rob- We are arguing over certain people stating over and over again that WP is a chemical weapon and that we used it intentionally and indiscriminately on insurgents and civilians.
Did we use WP? Yes.
Did we use WP on insurgents? Yes. And contrary to what people want to believe, it is not illegal or against the laws of land warfare or a violation of any treaties.
Did we use ‘chemical weapons?’ NO. WP is not a chemical weapon, it is a conventional munition.
Did we use it intentionally on civilians? No.
Did we use it indiscriminately on civilians? There is no evidence to this assertion.
Did some civilians get killed in Fallujah? Undoubtedly.
Rob
Did we use it as a weapon (to burn people) or was it used for light?
John Cole
Rob- Immaterial.
I should probably clarify- immaterial if the ‘people’ were combatants. It would be illegal to ‘use’ (assuming intentionally) a pointy stick on civilians.
Stormy70
Wow, go away a few days and the Left has to back down from a troops smear. Typical “jump on the latest rumor” websites involved again. Kos “screw them” will never see my traffic. He is a vile human being with sad little minions, who march to a made-up tune with every post. At least Pp didn’t fall for their nonsense this time.
Pumpkin pie is GOOD. (said in a Pulp Fiction voice.)
W.B. Reeves
John, we’ll have to agree to disagree about this. While I understand your view, the fact remains that nowhere, either in the title or the text, did the article draw the conclusion you impute to it. On the contrary, their point was that the Pentagon was inconsistent in its use of the classification, the Pentagon summary being the slender reed they chose to hang the charge on. Their stated conclusion is far from the one you describe:
This was their position before you began your criticism. It appears to be the same position that they adhere to now.
foolishmortal
You appear to be implying that believing our armed forces to be war criminals is something shameful. Is this shame also incurred if such a belief is plausible or accurate? Does honor demand that one willfully deny one’s reasoned opinion to better protect the honor of our troops?
Prisoners are turning up beaten to death in our custody. Bodies have been burned, torture rooms have been found. I’ve heard the occasional rumor of rape. I take no joy in it whatsoever, but the fact of the matter is that, in all likelihood, the US military has war criminals in its employ. What is the patriotic response to this?
Stormy70
This is what the left always tries to leave unsaid, but it will eventually come out. Is spitting on the troops far behind?
Jack Burton
(Repost of my comment elsewhere – but I still think it’s relevant for this continuing garbage)
The scum of Falluja, in addition to being the Hollywood of beheading video productions, murder, burn, disembow and hang American citizens from bridges in the City. And here we are debating whether or not we did, or should have, used WP in taking the city. There will never be a winning of the hearts of the people of Fulluja, so how about we win the battle by inflicting as much damage on then, and as little on us. Maybe you guys would be happier if we stood across the street from each other and had a good old fashion duel. God forbid we try and win without dying ourselves. That way, the only innocents who die in that Falluja would be the innocents who get their heads cut off for mass video distribution. As for the morons who claim that WP won’t burn clothes, as stated in the documentary, that pretty much voids your right to speak about anything regarding the subject.
The only error in this whole deal is that the Pentagon did anything other than say “we used the means available to us to clear the city”. Plain and simple.
It is horrible that civilians died in the battle, but they died because they lived and stayed in a city that was the center of terrorist activities in Iraq. It is tragic, but hardly a surprise – considering the events that were set in motion the day charred corpses hung from the bridge.
If I had a time machine, I’d love to go back to the mid 90’s and find just one website dedicated to the horrors inflicted on the Kurds or everyday Iraqis by Sadamm and his goons. The torture, chemical weapons, etc. I wouldn’t find a single one of you armchair QBs giving a damn, so spare me the moral outrage. The only thing that matters to you is that you have the US military in your crosshairs and you will spare no expense to humiliate, slander and undermine their efforts until the only thing they’re allowed to do is Katrina relief.
Rob
Stormy70 – You really need to grow up. If you have a point, make it. So far, all I see from you is name calling.
Darrell
Key phrase being ‘reasoned opinion’. If one is accusing our military of “targetting civilians” with “chemical weapons”, does not ‘honor demand’ that these accusations be called out as the hateful smears that they are?
Jack Burton
By the way, war criminal is just another in a long line of lefty catch phrases that ultimately apply to everyone who disagrees with you.
Racist, xenophobe, halliburton, bushilter, Bush Lied people died, no blood for oil, blah blah blah.
We’re going to just keep throwing war criminal around anytime someone questions what our troops have done. We flushed the Koran down a toilet – ahhhh, war criminal. We made a prisoner wear ladies underwear – ahhh, war criminal. Of course these comments typically come from folks who’ve think that we should take a quick five from battle and read these guys their rights prior to gently cuffing them and placing them in the humvee with the flashing red and blue lights.
Unlike the monday morning qb club who doesn’t answer for anything they’ve done or decided (just critcized those that have) I understand that the stress of war, seeing your friends killed, etc. may sometimes make you do things that the average American may have aversion to. It may mean an investigation, it may mean a prison term, bust in rank or pay, etc. but it doesn’t automatically make you a war criminal. You see, I tend to give our soldiers the benefit of the doubt prior to calling them war criminals. Do you?
Darrell
If you really do support the troops, at a bare minimum, you give them the benefit of the doubt. So many on the left, not only don’t give our troops the benefit of the doubt, they go out of their way to assume the worst, usually without basis, often making shit up, then spread lies to smear the military.. all the while claiming to ‘support the troops’.
Jack Burton
bingo
dorkafork
ThinkProgress says that this:
is not making any sort of claim as to whether or not WP is a chemical weapon.
Well, wait a second, how exactly does the original post state that?
Sure, a Pentagon quote in the first instance is presented as “the original post states”, yet an imaginary Pentagon position created by TP is not any sort of “claim” and tells us nothing of TP’s position on whether or not WP is a chemical weapon.
You remember when you were a kid and you pulled the old “I’m not touching you. I’m not touching you!” stunt? It’s sad when people argue with the same logic.
W.B. Reeves
“The worst” in this case appears to be that the soldiers were following what they took to be lawful orders. If it were to be shown that they were not lawful or if it should turn out that the majority of the nation doesn’t support the action taken, it wont be the fault of the troops. The responsibility lies where it belongs, with the leadership. I haven’t seen anyone suggest we’re in My Lai territory here, with women and children shot in heaps.
John Cole
The favorite ‘I’m not smearing the troops, I am attacking the chain of command!’ nonsense. Thanks for the college try, but that doesn’t work.
WP is dispersed at the soldier, squad, platoon, company/troop level in various forms, and it is up to the soldier’s disgression to use the round just as it would be up to the individual soldier’s disgression to pull the trigger of their M-16.
The Pentagon does not tell troops when to fire WP- it isn’t that big of a deal. It is a regular old conventional ordinance, and they deploy it when they see fit. So when you say you WP was used incorrectly, you are smearing the 25 year old LT, the 24 year old SSG, the 19 year old PFC, and whoever else called for the fire, acted as the FO, etc. you are not smearing the Pentagon or the leadership who ‘ordered’ them to fire it, because no such order took place.
Nice try, though.
James Emerson
What’s my Lai?
W.B. Reeves
Of course TP is making a claim. It’s claiming that the Pentagon is defending its policy by stressing that WP is not a Chem weapon. People can decide for themselves if that fits the facts. What it tells us about what you imagine TP’s position to be is nil.
foolishmortal
I define “smear” as knowingly making false accusations with the intent to defame.
I personally do not believe that the use of WP as an incendiary weapon to be a war crime, but I allow for the possibility that someone may honestly, but mistakenly, do so. The principal thing that bothers me about John’s recent tirades on the subject is the blanket assumption of bad faith.
RTO Trainer
WP isn’t used for illumination. It is used, often though not exclusively, as a weapon.
What does this clear up for you?
James Emerson
Resonance…
Like I was saying, put aside the quibbling over technicalities and ask yourself what have we accomplished by using WP?
Sal
I’ll admit to not having followed every vituperous and/or meandering post on this subject. And not trying to flame or troll, but have a few questions.
WP is a chemical, and can do great damage to a person. It’s not trivial that the Pentagon, however arcanely, classified Hussein’s use of it as a chemical weapon.
If WP is deployed as weapon against human targets, civilian or enemy, how is that not use of a chemical weapon?
If WP is not purposely or recklessly used against human targets, but still ends up harming people, is that use of a chemical weapon? I don’t think so. It’s an unintended effect of use of a chemical. The key word here is “recklessly”. What’s reckless in wartime, or a battle (they’re not the same)? That has to be a big gray area, and absent other info, I’d tend to give a lot of weight to the guys in the field. But not all weight.
But if you’re flinging it around at random to “flush them out”, that’s pretty reckless. That’s just taking potshots, hoping some of them hit the right target. WP shouldn’t be used to “flush them out”, even if it’s certain who’s there (and is it ever?). Start adopting the attitude that we can use chemical weapons (which is what this case would be) and you can’t bitch about the other side doing the same.
That said, I’m not saying US troops used WP as chemical weapons. Unless there’s better evidence, I’d say no. But it’s not inconceivable. WP can be a chemical weapon. If Zarqari, et al, used it against US troops, you can bet it’d be described that way.
But, like I said, the evidence I’ve heard that our troops did is slim. But not non existant. Could be wrong. Lots of wars bring up atrocities committed by troops of all sides. Doesn’t necessarily represent the particular military as a whole. Out of hand dismissals of such allegations are as wrong as immediate acceptance of them. Maybe worse, because the outright dismissal of them is typically the government (of any stripe) response. The US is better, I believe, but every government tries to cover up it’s crimes.
John, you’ve been particularly agitated about this issue lately, and I don’t really see why. I can see your vehement opposition to Kos & ThinkProgress (sp?), but they weren’t blaming the whole military, etc. They reported allegations that some – some, not all – soldiers may have used chemical weapons. Sure, It’s reported partisan style – you don’t do the same? They’re not slandering all troops, putting soldiers at risk, committing treason, etc.
And why criticize them for backing off their original posts as more knowledge became available? As you’ve pointed out, this is one of Bush’s faults. Isn’t this correcting a good thing?
Thanks for reading.
John Cole
Sure, James Emerson. If you are just going to flat out make up what is, and what is not, a chemical weapon, then we used chemical weapons in iraq.
I think bullets are chemical weapons. Now I can go to indymedia and scream that police are using chemical weapons on American citizens.
Foolishmortal- Because it has been bad faith. When pointed out they are wrong, they don;t say, “Oh! Ok. My bad.” They instead try to prove that WP IS a chemical weapon, to include pretending that old intel documents PROVE it is a chemical weapon.
Like I said, bad faith.
John Cole
No, they didn’t. And we are right back at the beginning.
This is like a left-wing anti-war version of John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt.
And Kos and TP and RAI are not claiming ‘a few soldiers’ may have used WP as a chemical weapon. They are saying they RAINED FIRE FROM THE SKY!
(sorry Sal, if this seems hostile, but I am not angry at you- just frustrated with having to go through this again- John)
BumperStickerist
First – the Pentagon report does not say that White Phosphorus rounds were fired by Saddam. Whether those rounds reported by the Kurdish brothers were White Phosphorus or not is (still) an open question.
So, nobody at the Pentagon or in the United States military *knows* what type of rounds were fired.
Second – It reads like the Pentagon taking a more cautionary approach by classifying CIVILIAN REPORTS OF WHITE PHOSPHORUS Attacks as ‘Chemical Weapons’. This also makes sense.
For instance – Say I fill up baggies with Bisquik and toss them into a crowded movie theater-
If somebody calls up 911 and says ‘Some guy is tossing baggies filled with Bisquik at the movie theater’ … the Police Hazmat team is going to respond.
Why?
Because the police will not trust that the person in the theater reporting the incident could make an accurate assessment of the substance.
So, based on ThinkProgress logic, the police would consider flour a hazardous material, because an initial report characterized it as such.
.
RTO Trainer
Won’t it?
Do you know how fire support is practiced and called for on the modern battlefield? It’s unlikely (possible, but unlikely) that anyone over the rank of 1LT called for fire during the battle. The individual making the call also specifies the munition to be used.
This is just as much a tactical decision as pulling the trigger on the rifle.
John Cole
And they haven’t really corrected the record, they are just moving on to what they think will be the more fertile “WE MASSACRED THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS IN FALLUJAH!”
W.B. Reeves
Do the troops set the order of battle? Do they determine what ordinance the military requires? If the use of WP at Fallujah were determined to be a war crime, how could anyone seriously argue that the troops could have been aware of that, considering the casual way in which you say the military treats its use? The troops did not get a vote on whether to attack the city of Fallujah. That decision was made by others who had responsibility for planning and directing an assault on a major urban population center. If the use of incendiaries in a civilian area raised the spector of war crimes, it was up to those decision makers to guard against it and direct our troops accordingly.
I can’t find it in my heart to condemn a soldier for decisions made under fire. Politicians in the rear get no such pass from me.
RTO Trainer
In this case it was not a matter of more information becomeing available. It was about making allegations without having doen the research of existing information to find out if there were any merit to the allegations.
If they (RAI24, Kos, TP….) had read the text of the CWC in good faith the issue would never have come up.
John Cole
WP is not a chemical weapon. The Pentagon does nottell the soldiers how to use it every time it is employed. When I was in, 5 paragraph op-orders merely provided you with whether or not certain assets would be available (arty, etc). I am sure RTO trainer can provide a more detailed response, but from where I stand, if a ‘war crime’ was committed, it would be only in the case that soldiers did not take the appropriate caution using it, or, they intentionally targetted civilians.
So, no matter how you twist it and contort it, if you claim a war crime has occurred, or “if the use of WP at Fallujah is determined to be a war crime,” the people to blame are the troops. The Pentagon or the administration will never get charged with anything, because the appropriate use of WP is legal.
I intend to give them the benefit of the doubt, until you folks provide a shred of evidence to the contrary. And that evidence needs to include more than the post hoc attempts to reclassify WP as a chemical weapon and a few bodies which may or may not be civilians but which exhibit no signs of WP burns.
RTO Trainer
So the DoD civilain ladies who formulate the MTOEs are at fault for including WP in the basic load?
The decision to attack Falluja is the schwerpunkt of the issue because it made teh use of WP a possibility?
If so than these same people would be at fault, and not the troops who performed the actions, if using bootlaces as garrotes they had deliberately strangled civilians in Fallujah.
I don’t think it can work this way.
rilkefan
Is there an official BJ position on how many civilians it’s reasonable to conclude we killed in Fallujah?
Didn’t understand Johntim‘s slide from “Some [small number of] troops committed acts similar to but technically distinct from war crimes” to “Our troops are war criminals”. It’s almost as reasonable as citing Hunter’s belief in X’ to show Kos has changed his stance on X.
W.B. Reeves
Neither of which is germane to what I said.
Some would argue that sending a force armed with incendiaries to assault a major urban population center is intentionally targeting civilians.
Unless, as you say, they intentionally targeted civilians.
John Cole
WB Reeves- If your very position is that simply sending soldiers into Fallujah, period, was a war crime, there is no point pretending we can even hash this out.
I might note that Juan Cole disagrees with that position.
RTO Trainer
Then that “some” would be also ignorant of how fire support is employed on the battlefield by the US military.
As everyone since this thing started has said, yes. However, one would hope that troops still enjoy the presumption of innocense. Absent some credible evidence, why is this an issue?
Pb
Seconding Steve here… I don’t see how Hunter has changed his position at all, either. However, John is still way off the deep end on this one. I’m surprised he didn’t manage to wedge in another Nazi comparison, but at least he managed to make an analogy to rape.
John Cole
That was a perfect analogy. I am sorry you didn’t like it.
Rilke- Hunter and Kos both clearly believe that we used WP on civilians. I don’t know where Armando stands on the issue, but I would assume he believes the same thing they do- he was in defending Kos ealier this week.
And I do believe they have shifted their stance. Ifyou don’t, fine.
W.B. Reeves
No but I believe the Commander in Chief outranks them.
Yes, in the hypothetical above. For the reasons cited above.
As John noted, it is a question of whether the use of WP was appropriate and legal.
W.B. Reeves
This was, as I’m sure you would notice on second reading, a reference to the Pentagon, not the troops in the field.
RTO Trainer
So the Presidnet was supposed to have decided at some point prior to Fallujah that “Hey, the WP stuff can be misused, so we won’t use it anymore?” How far back are wanting to go with that indictmnet? WP has been employed in every conflict since WWII?
The decision to attack Fallujah also made it possible that 5.56 ball ammunition could be misused. What follows from that?
What indications, what credible evidence have you that the use of WP was inappropriate or illegal? If you have none, why doesn’t presumption of innocense apply?
RTO Trainer
So the Pentagon is guilty until proven innocent. Thanks for clearing that up.
Ric Locke
W. B. Reeves:
Bzzt! Bullshit.
U.S. forces spent days spreading the word — leaflets, going over in helicopters with bullhorns, sending people in, everything they could think of and some things that make it seem like they maybe weren’t thinking clearly — making as absolutely sure as possible that the “civilian” (=non-terrorist (my comment, my terms)) population evacuated. The only thing they did that might restrict exit from Fallujah was to search for body-bombs and question males of military age — and most of those they let through (and many of them turned up with IEDs and mortars, later).
Indiscriminately attacking a population center did not happen and was never considered. Anybody who tells you different is a fucking liar. The accusation itself is worse than the “chemical weapons” smear.
Some stayed behind, yes. Tell me: If you tell somebody it’s perfectly safe to stand in the middle of the freeway, and that person gets flattened by a truck, is it the truck driver’s fault or yours?
Regards,
Ric
W.B. Reeves
Not even close. What I’m suggesting is that if you send troops into a civilian population center, armed with incendiaries, knowing full well that the use of same against civilians is a war crime and you do not make it abundantly clear that the City is not a free fire zone, you can’t escape culpability for the result. Particularly when you might have restricted use of the ordinance before the fact.
RTO Trainer
You have no knowledge of how we operate on the battlefield.
There is no such thing as a “Free Fire Zone” in current doctrine. No area can be considered as one, city or open field.
Resonable care is easier in an open field than in a city, but in either case reasonable care is the requirement.
We don’t restrict ordinance. No reason to and every reason not to. We do restrict how ordinance is employed. That’s been explaind, but for some reason you either reject it or don’t care.
W.B. Reeves
I never said anything remotely like this.
Darrell
You know what makes that position so f*cking despicable? It’s that we lost, what 45 or 50 of some of our finest marines in Fallujah, precisely because we chose not to just indiscriminately firebomb the entire city.. we purposefully avoided that option to preserve civilian life.. At great cost. But none of that matters to so many on the left. It’s not just that they ‘misunderstand’, no, they’re making up lies, making up smears against our troops that they know to be lies, then defending, excusing, and promoting their smears when challenged
RTO Trainer
Then you are aware of credible evidence that WP was improperly employed at Fallujah?
Ric Locke
W.B.’s error is called projection.
If nuking Baghdad would get Bush out of office, WB would push the button twice. He (?) assumes that everybody else has the same attitude toward collateral damage.
Regards,
Ric
Kimmitt
And now the teacup is revealed; the tempest was inside it the entire time!
W.B. Reeves
Yes, and we both know the reasons why.
One might think that since the use of such incendiaries against civilians is admittedly illegal, that “reasonable care” would require foregoing their use in an urban population center. Sending forces that casually employ WP into a City guarantees that civilians will end up on the receiving end.
W.B. Reeves
To bad you couldn’t point to a single “lie” in what I wrote.
Ric Locke
Darrell,
Don’t overstate.
Iraqis, like any other sensible people living in a hot, arid, nearly treeless environment, build their structures of masonry — brick, concrete, and adobe.
Firebombing worked on the densely-packed wooden structures of Europe and the even more densely-packed wood and paper structures of Tokyo. (I am sympathetic toward arguments that it shouldn’t have been used even there, though I disagree, but that isn’t the topic.) Against the somewhat dispersed, largely masonry structures of an Iraqi city it would be well-nigh useless.
The weapon of choice for “reducing” Fallujah would have been artillery bombardment, specifically the “walking time-on-target” or “fire curtain” technique, with airdropped bombs to fill in the cracks (or widen them). Note that we didn’t do that either.
Regards,
Ric
W.B. Reeves
Go back and read what I was responding to. Your question is a non-sequitur.
RTO Trainer
Use of anything against civilians is admitedly illegal. Why use WP as a canard?
Why do you continue to attach unsupported characterizations to this act? If you know of evidence that the employment of WP was “casual” then point it out. We don’t use force, no matter what form that force takes, casually.
As for lies in what you post, while obtuse, you don’t appear to be stupid enough to leave an out and out lie out her an public. You sure are fond of unfounded allegation though.
W.B. Reeves
Actually, I think Bush is exactly where he belongs; holding the bag. I’m not particularly eager to see him out of office since I’ve no reason to think the next bagman will be any different. BTW, if I believed in bombing things in order to get my way, you’d have heard of me before now.
Ric Locke
W.B., the lie is on such a fundamental level that it’s no wonder you find it so easy to deny it.
That is, either you are lying, or you are so pig-ignorant that your views are not merely worthless but counterproductive.
There is no law against collateral damage. There can’t be. If civilians are in the way of a legitimate military target and get toasted, it is tragic and always to be avoided, but it is not a “war crime” — not in US law, not in “international law”, not under the Geneva Conventions.
Using any weapon deliberately against civilians as the target is illegal. That includes white (and any other color) phosphorous, high explosive, low explosive, bullets, grenades, sand out of the road, and gratuitous insults. The United States doesn’t do that in the sort of action that involves groundpounders of any type. We arguably threaten to do it in the case of atomic weapons and other WMD, but for troops in the field it’s not only absolutely against the rules, it’s so thoroughly against the rules that it’s rarely even considered. This is not to say that junior troops, especially junior enlisted, might not bring up the possibility in bull sessions, but even they know it’s a fantasy, and a dangerous one at that.
I was aboard the ship that did the first field test of “smart” bombs. That was 1973, and since then the United States has spent literally billions of dollars on making sure that its weapons were as accurate as possible — and one of the major drivers of that effort was to eliminate collateral damage to the extent we were able. What you are basically saying here is that that entire effort has been wasted; that, no matter what we do, you will accuse American forces of “targeting civilians”. It’s a lie. Not only is it a lie, it’s a lie that goes to the heart of what American military people consider worthwhile.
Tell me: had we nuked Fallujah, turned it into a green-glass crater, what complaint or objection could you offer that you have not brought up over white phosphorus? And, since the answer is clearly “none” and nukes are a cheap method of clearing large areas, why shouldn’t we just use them instead of painstakingly trying to clear civilians out before sending in troops with rules of engagement so strict they often result in Americans dying when the rules used in WWII or Korea would have them not merely surviving but victorious? If you’re going to scream “war criminal” at every grenade explosion, is there any reason for us to be moderate in any way?
Regards,
Ric
RTO Trainer
W: Unless, as you say, they intentionally targeted civilians.
R: As everyone since this thing started has said, yes. However, one would hope that troops still enjoy the presumption of innocense. Absent some credible evidence, why is this an issue?
W: This was, as I’m sure you would notice on second reading, a reference to the Pentagon, not the troops in the field.
R: So the Pentagon is guilty until proven innocent. Thanks for clearing that up.
W: I never said anything remotely like this.
R: Then you are aware of credible evidence that WP was improperly employed at Fallujah?
What did I miss? If the allegation hinges (as it does) on whether WP was improperly employed, and you give the troops who employed it a pass and hold the Pentagon responsible somehow, and you are not presuming guilt, then you must have or know of credible evidence that WP was improperly employed.
The alternative is that you know that this is an unfounded allegation and you simply wish to engage in a smear.
W.B. Reeves
If you bothered to read the entirety of my exchange with John you would know that I was adopting his criteria vis a vis the illegal use of WP. This was in the course of explaining why I don’t accept the argument that questioning the use of WP is the same as accusing the troops of war crimes. Likewise, it was John who described a regime in which the use of WP was “no big deal”. You yourself have stressed elsewhere that practically anyone on the ground in combat can call in ordinance.
I don’t think I’m obtuse. I think you have an ingrained reluctance to question the chain of command and I don’t.
RTO Trainer
Your lack of military understanding shows again. I am an NCO. Part of my job is questioning the chain of command. In addition, as a Soldier, every PVT Joe Snuffy is supposed to be able to determine the differnce between a legal and an illegal order and to respond appropriately to it.
Use of WP is no big deal. However, no use of force is ever casual.
You’ve simply discounted, out of hand, every bit of information on how the military operates and continue to perpetuate unfounded allegations. I don’t know how else characterize this except as obtuse that isn’t quite a bit more insulting or becoming another unfounded allegation.
Ric Locke
No, you’re obtuse.
Your charge is that U.S. troops deliberately and indiscriminately turned their weapons on civilians, which would be a war crime if the weapons in question were Nerf™ balls and water balloons. You then attempt to obfuscate the issue by hastily assuring us that you don’t blame the troops, you blame their commanders for telling them to do it.
RTO Trainer and I know better. There is no soldier, sailor, Marine, or airman in the U.S. military, however low-ranking, who has not been told repeatedly that deliberately attacking civilians is against the Laws of War, the law of the United States, the Geneva Conventions, and many other rulesets. Nor is there anybody in the military today who has an excuse for not knowing that obeying illegal orders is itself illegal. All those things and many more are not just included but heavily emphasized in basic training and every stage of training after that. Nor is that new. I went to boot camp in 1969; one of the courses there was the Laws of War and our responsibilities under them.
Your charge lands directly on the heads of the troops in the field and cannot be bumped upstairs no matter how much you might wish it. If you fail to understand that, you are either obtuse (I prefer “pig ignorant” myself) or deliberately lying.
Regards,
Ric
RTO Trainer
But Ric,
This isnt’ about what the regulations and laws say. This is about W.B. Reeves personal sensibilities which we must all strive to know and not violate. All else is just semantics and apologetics.
Hunter
Lord help us, at some day far in the future, we will someday reach that pinnacle of society where people finally figure out that different people post on Daily Kos. People who, to be honest, don’t even much check what each other’s opinions even are, much less coordinate them in some master strategy.
My opinion on the issue hasn’t changed from my first post to the last, as can be quite plainly seen. Other people may have different opinions, and state them in different ways.
I give up. Let’s not pretend you’re any more eager to discuss this honestly than you accuse Kos or me of. You even said above:
Once again, I’ll cede the point that it ain’t a chemical weapon (ignoring, sigh, the fact that I stipulated it openly in the very first post I ever wrote on the subject) if you cede the point that this is a g-ddamn civilian.
Nope, can’t even get that far. That’s how f’ed up this war was, from day one. Can’t even figure out that much.
I give up. I wrote about five more paragraphs responding to various points in this thread before finally getting it through my thick skull that it was neither necessary nor productive. So be it.
Ric Locke
RTO Trainer,
No. It’s not WB’s sensibilities; it’s an orchestrated lie, based on the obscene caricature of the military perpetrated by the self-described (and self-congratulatory) “pacifists”. The caricature itself originated in Dzerzhinsky Square; it was originally pointed against the Germans, and later turned to use against us. (I have personal knowledge, which you are free to discount as coming from an unknown name in a blog comment. It’s true anyway.)
You and I know that given the training U.S. troops receive, accusations of war crime on this level fall only on the troops because they’ve been extensively trained on the subject. Accusers like WB are either blank-mindedly ignorant or deliberately perpetrating the falsehood, and claims of “supporting the troops!” from them are simply contemptible.
Regards,
Ric
John Cole
Hunter- I am well aware that thereare diffewrent people posting on the front page, which is whyI attribute the things Kos says to Kos, the things you say to you, and the things Armando says to Armando.
I managed to do this even before Rilke showed up!
If you maintain that your post, titled White Phosphorus, Continued, which links to two posts which both question the assertion that WP is a chemical weapon and that war crimes were committed, is in no way indicative of a change in editorial tone, I will accept you at your word.
this opinion of an editorial shift was further reinforced by the following statement:
That, to me at least, was an a statement that ‘Hey- they weren’t chemical weapons, but look at what did happen.’ Regardless, I think it is still accurate that using outrageous assertions of war crimes and the use of chemical weapons to raise awareness of another issue is inappropriate.
BTW- Of course that is a civilian, but the facts surrounding the death of that child are in no way clear.
Ric Locke
Hunter,
Yep. That’s a civilian. Now let’s have you establish:
That you know what “Inchiesta” means;
That the child pictured is an Iraqi;
That the child pictured is or was from Fallujah;
That the child pictured was present in Fallujah when Americans attacked;
That American attackers knew that child was present when they attacked;
That the American attackers took no precautions against those injuries;
That the injuries depicted came from white phosphorous.
What I see is a horrifying picture, accompanied by allegations from a source known to oppose the United States for other reasons. You and your cohorts are all hot that the whole thing should be handled under police procedure and American jurisprudence. Where’s your chain of evidence, sir?
Regards,
Ric
RTO Trainer
Likley she is a civilian. Perhaps even a non-combatant, a status I’ll even stipulate.
I see no indications from what I can see in the photo of WP injury. If you want to see what that looks like you can go to my blog. Want to know the give-away? The clothes aren’t burned. That’s not some mysterious phenomenon as the Italian documentary would have you beleive, its a clue.
If the body is burned and the clothes aren’t, someone has staged it. This body isn’t burned. As with the examples there from the RAI24 documentary, this appears to simply be a several weeks decomposed corpse.
Steve S
Thank you!
I always look forward to reading what Al Sharpton, er I mean Jeff Goldstein has to say about the daily Outrage!
Ric Locke
RTO Trainer,
It’s better than that. The website belongs to RAI News, the employer of Giuliana Sgrena. Remember her? The Italian <sneer>journalist</sneer> who delivered the bag to her buddies the head-loppers, then misjudged her speed charging a checkpoint, trying a stunt to get more publicity, and got her buddy killed?
Real credible source, that. That picture could just as easily have come from the camera phone an <sneer>insurgent</sneer> claiming a bonus for having got another baby with his IED. More easily. Sgrena has more access to such sources than to anything controlled by the U.S. military.
Hunter’s use of such a source says volumes about his contempt for you. Remember that when he bleats that he supports the troops.
Regards,
Ric
Tacitus
My opinion on the issue hasn’t changed from my first post to the last, as can be quite plainly seen.
Certainly not, Hunter. In implicit acknowledgement of this, I do believe that John Cole has maintained, rather more politely than you deserve, that you are a damnable tedious fool on the subject — from his first post to his last.
But really, yes, bravo for doing your bit to spread this nasty smear about your own countrymen at war. Not that I question your patriotism. Heavens no.
RTO Trainer
Ric,
Absolutely.
That Hunter is willing to post a photo like tjat without any knowledge or certitude of what it is, without consulting with anyone who would have an informed opinion as to what exactly it depicts, and to simply acept what he’s told about it by those he is already inclined to agree with speaks volumes as to his objectivity and the bent of his biases.
The opinion I have given is not based on any deep medical knowledge, merely on Army buddy aid training on how to recognize and tereat WP injuries. I’d dearly love to have the opinion of a medical examiner or even a general practitioner as to the accuracy of the competing theories.
Still there are areas in which physical laws must hold sway. The indictment, to my mind, is that he can be told that something (anything) would burn (melt? please.) human flesh but leave clothing intact. How can this not be a bullshit flag of epic proportions?
And yet it goes unquestioned, so long as it supports the worst possible interpretation of our actions.
So how about it Hunter? How is it, on what basis, do you accept the RAI24 version, whole?
Ric Locke
RTO Trainer,
One more, then time for bed.
Hunter is a leftist, and therefore like most (all?) leftists, Hunter is a relativist.
Relativism means a lot of things, but the pertinent one here is that, for the relativist, “true” and “false” are antique concepts, belonging in the same category as dinosaurs, black&white TV, and phones with wires. We can do ever so much better than that now.
The “better” is narrative, which can be compelling or not. Narrative is, of course, just a story, though relativists can chop some fine logic and generate a lot of hot air denying it. A narrative is compelling if it grabs the interest, and most especially if it confirms prejudices.
The WP narrative is certainly compelling, what with the illustrations of burned babies and all, and of course it confirms his prejudices, which are built on the caricature of the military I mentioned before. He therefore accepts it and contributes to it, trying to make it more compelling to others and therefore score points with other relativists. Little things like laws of physics aren’t allowed to intrude.
Hey, the National Enquirer, the Sun, and a host of other tabloids make a good living off the same principle. How can it be wrong?
Regards,
Ric
rilkefan
Ric, you got the sign wrong. We’re the reality-based losers, you’re the Empire creating its own reality.
rilkefan
Hey Johntim, enjoy.
RTO Trainer
Rilkefan,
Are you changing the subject becasue you have no answers for the present topic?
Kimmitt
Heh.
Mickey Finn
The fact that this stuff will strip the hide off an Armadillo is apparently secondary to arcane definitions of what constitutes “chemical” weapons. Clinton couldn’t parse with y’all! I’m sure the same relativists–a popular epithet around here– who defend the use of this ghastly mixture by American forces wouldn’t hesitate to point out it’s benign qualities if Saddam had used it. The breathtaking rationalizations-which indicate that the administration has, in fact, altered our national DNA-turn my stomach. Reading this comment section is like listening to the president lecture the Chinese on human rights while Cheney lobbies congress not to hinder the government’s use of torture.
Pb
Tacitus,
Pay attention, man.
John Cole
WP has been in use for decades, and the idea that the miitary use of WP has somehow changed because of a ‘change in our national DNA’ is absurd.
Get a grip.
Perry Como
Why is the use of chemical weapons so bad? Death is death; maiming is maiming. From my limited understanding, chemical weapons are mostly an area of denial weapon.
The entire WMD debate has been skewed by including biological and chemical weapons in the mix. The only weapons of mass destruction that exist are nukes and possibly fuel-air explosives. Bio and chem weapons are too limited in uses.
W.B. Reeves
I suppose it isn’t surprizing that the commentators attacking my earlier posts in exchange with John didn’t bother to follow the thread of the discussion. Much easier to launch broadsides against statements never made and positions never taken. Rather like accusing people of endorsing every allegation in an Italian TV documentary because they raise questions about the use of WP.
To summarize for the reading impaired: John asserted that anyone who thought the use of WP in Fallujah might amount to a war crime was smearing the troops. I disagreed. I attempted to outline the reasons for my disagreement. Now one doesn’t have to accept the validity of my reasoning or indeed that of others who are concerned with the use of WP. The latter group present a broad range of opinion and can’t be reduced to single view. However, it appears that the rhetorical cudgel of “smearing the troops” is too useful, too delightful, to admit any dissent. Even if attacking those who disagree requires ignoring the actual argument and simply making stuff up.
Anyone who has the time or interest can go back and read my prior postings. If they do so, it is readily apparent that I never took a position as to whether or not “war crimes” took place at Fallujah. I was disputing John’s contention, implication really, that one could not argue in good faith that the target of such criticism was the chain of command rather than the troops in the field. I don’t expect that he would agree with the reasoning but if he came away with a better understanding of why some might honestly disagree with his position that would be enough for me.
As for those who choose to attack imaginary arguments rather than those actually made, a few correctives:
I made no allegations nor perpetuated any such. I presented a different view of the question. One that RTO evidently doesn’t agree with but one he, for some reason, chooses not to address.
I never made any such charge. I do, in fact, hold the higher chain of command responsible for what happens on the ground in Iraq. I consider them far more culpable than the men and women under fire.
Still, I can’t be to irritated at Ric since follows this up with:
Well if Ric thinks that my short exchange with John is part of some global conspiracy against the both the German and US military, I don’t imagine that I can disuade him. It does go far to explain his penchant for invention though.
Eric Bryant
I guess I’m not understanding why WP is any worse of a way to get burned to death than, say, by the direct blast effect of an HE round, or by secondary incinderary effects by burning fuel, construction materials, clothing, etc. And for that matter, is it worth than a drawn-out death by bleeding out through a gunshot or shrapnel wound? In other words, it’s but one of many ways that war brings painful deaths, and trying to parse out WP by declaring it as a chemical weapon seems to have little humanitarian purpose.
Seems to me that a much more useful debate could be constructed around the question of the appropriate amount of force to bring upon a civilian population during wartime.
RTO Trainer
They are area of denial weapons in former Soviet and US (NATO) doctrine. They don’t have to be used as such.
When discussing terms like “chemical weapon” and “weapon of mass destruction” the definitions are important because they are terms of art in law and diplomacy. Termof art, if you aren’t familiar witht he phrase, mens that the plain meaning of the words in it may not be sufficient to understand it–its an idoim pertainig to a specialized field.
And it makes arguments concerning them, by definition, semantic.
Which gets me around to pointnig out that chemical and biological weapons are included with nukes in “weapons of mass destruction” because that is how the term is defined. A large enough conventional explosive will yeaild ‘mass destruction” yet it isnt’ included in WMD, because it’s not part of the defined meaning.
And there is much specialized lingo pertianing to war nad military matters. Ever see a news report refering to an artillery “barrage?” The reporter isn’t aware that “barrage” not only has a specific meaning in our useage and what they are witnessing does not meet that definition, but they are likely unaware that we don’t do barrages anymore; artillery is only fired at specific defined targets.
RTO Trainer
Despite the fact that it doesn’t work that way and cannot.
But feel free to discount that…again.
RTO Trainer
Eric,
It’s because a mythos has been built up around WP that the facts have not yet been able to penetrate.
RAI24 and their adherants would like you to believe that WP is a poor man’s Napalm. That it produces huge clouds of fire and corrosive gas that will burn a person from the inside out, leave clothes intact while melting flesh and that simple exposure to the gas or WP itself will kill.
In fact, none of this is true.
WP is a waxy solid. It ignites on contact with oxygen. It is packed into artillery or mortar shells with a small high explosive charge that breaks apart and dsiperses the WP into small pieces. It spontanteously ignites in air at about room temperature to form “phosphorus pentoxide” – actually tetraphosphorus decaoxide, P4O10.
P4(s) + 5O2(g) P4O10(s)
This product manifests itself as a thick heavy smoke. Tetraphosphorus decaoxide reacts with water to form phosphoric acid, a major industrial acid. One common use of phosphoric acid is as an ingredient in cola drinks.
In pure forms and in great enough quantites, however, phosphoric acid is mildly toxic and caustic. It will irritate skin and eyes. Internalized WP can lead to some severe health effects, damage to internal organs and a condition called phossy jaw where the mandible (for some reason especially effected though the rest of the skeleton is susceptible) is erroded and weakened. Internaliztion of WP is quite unlikely, especially in the qunatities necessary to cause these adverse effects, but obviously not unheard of.
Injuries related to WP are caused by direct contact with burning pieces of the waxy solid. The injuries are either primary; discrete burns in the immediate area of conatct, or secondary, burns caused by the ignition of clothes or other materials that have come into contact with the WP.
There is no caustic cloud. There is no melting of skin. There is no general or systemic injury. In fact most persons who are injured by WP do not die as a result though they do sustain severe injuries, usually several severe injuries.
Deaths that do result are usually the result of shock from the burns if it goes untreated.
Hunter
RTO/Ric — I find you the perfect encapsulations of your movement. You honestly think that the entire world’s press is anti-American and is faking all these pictures, all those reports. There is no line past you won’t move — now you’re even convinced that the pictures from Fallujah are fakes.
Luckily, I don’t have to convince you. And I don’t give a crap what you believe. The actual “press”, as opposed to rubbernecking desk jockeys, is getting the pictures, getting the story, confirming the story, and publicizing the story. If you honestly think that every photo is faked, every reporter is a tool of terrorism, every bomb hits only those we intend for it to hit, and every name on the official lists of civilian Iraqi casualties is a faked one, feel free. Luckily, thanks to the actual reports of people who are there, we have about 10,000 similar photographs.
Jack Burton
Hold on there a minute Hunter. Can you please go on the record, right here and now, that you believe the pictures of dead bodies with non-burnt clothing to be proof of WP use?
Please do so and get this whole thing over with now.
ppGaz
While presented in classic Darrell-overspeak, I have to say, in this case, Darrell, you are right.
The folks on the left would do well to take a couple steps back from this thing. Ends do not justify means, even when the goal is one I might agree with (end the war). Some people never seem to catch on that the military is not to be used as a political football. Not only is it wrong, but the abuser will pay for the abuse until hell freezes over, which is as it should be.
RTO Trainer
Hunter,
Who has done any independent confirmation of the story? I’ve seen nothing that even suggests that confirmation has been done. Where the story has gone forward, they cite only RAI24. RAI24 makes no mention of having spoken to weapons experts or physicians, two groups I can think of that might readily provide such verification.
Then RAI24 relys on the words of SPC Jeff Englehart, who we have learned later never actually saw anything he commented on and has since backed away from his comments saying RAI24 took him out of context and misquoted him. Add to this the material misstatemetns he made concernig the nature of WP, it’s properties and its interaction with living organisms and he very effectively impeaches himself to anyone with even a passing familiarity, as myself, with the subject.
Can you point to any effort of confirmation of this story that I have overlooked somewhere?
I do not state, and have not stated, categoricaly that the photos have been faked. I have no knowledge of that one way or the other and I do not doubt that they are genuine. I do question the context of the photos, which is unknowable from only the images, because they conflict wholely with my own knowledge and experience just as you might question a photo of Al Gore bearing the caption, “William Jefferson Clinton.”
Any indication of the context would be helpful. Any indication of verification of the facts in these reports would be welcome. To date neither has been offered that I have found and I have been actively looking.
I am not insuasible. I do require a relatively high standard of proof, however, and that my questions be answered as fully as possible in order to accomplish that. I would expect the same of you adn have endeavored to provide as much information to that end as I have so taht, even if you are not persuaded, you might at least see why I question it.
In short, your characterization of Ric and me is unfair. Were I the cynical type I might think it an attempt to distract from the facts in question. As it is, I simply think that the emotional argument holds as mcuh or greater value to you than the rational one. So you know I put little stock in the emotional argument nearly witout regard to the topic. So if you don’t mind, just the facts.
Hunter
First reports of WP use were in the Washington Post, November 10th, 2004.
Jack Burton
Answer the question Hunter, do you believe that the pictures of the dead people with intact clothes are proof of WP use. Don’t deflect, just answer.
I do find it more than a little laughable that many of the same people who wouldn’t trust the military if they said the sky was blue would never consider that the “freedom fighters” might actually fake or misrepresent some photos of their dead. I’m surprised they didn’t roll out King Tut’s body and claim it’s proof of willie pete use in Falluja.
RTO Trainer
Hunter, no one disputes that it was used. No one has ever denied it. DepState got it wrong on how it was used, but even they never denied it’s use.
Teh Washingto Post states that WP creates, a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water.” Sort of. It is extremely difficult to extinguish wiht water, you have to divorce hte WP from all available oxygen sources and water will do it, but it requires fully submerging it, even then it will continue to react, though very slowly, with whatever oxygen is available in the water. And ther is no “screen of fire.” It’s a screen of smoke. Fires from WP use are secondary–materials set alight by the burning WP–which are extinguishable in the normal fashon depending on what is burning. The pieces of WP disbursed by the round are quite small and will only burn for roughly 60 to 90 seconds before being consumed.
I’ve seen no correction on any of this by the Post.
Then they state that, “Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.” Which is completely false. Bodies burn where WP pieces make contact. A WP victim will have a black or ashen spot or hole where each piece made contact.
To the Post’s credit they do offer an opinion from a physiacian. Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, “The corpses of the mujaheddin which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted.” Ignoring that his use of the word “mujaheddin” might indicate a bias on his part, I have no doubt that they received burned corpses. I do and will continue to question the idea of “melted” corpses. I’ve seen no photos of such an effect, and if it is true, then I don’t know what caused it, indeed I don’t know what could, but it was not WP. Without a doubt, nothing that will burn a body will leave clothing intact.
Hunter
I think “proof of WP use” would be in, to be hopelessly g-ddamn obvious about it, the military confirmation of WP use. And the hospital and clinic reports of insurgents and civilians with WP injuries. And the press reports of WP injuries and deaths. And the damn video of wide-area dispersal of WP over the city. If anyone commenting here still needs “proof of WP use”, then not even the Defense Department itself is going to be in your corner for that one.
As for that photograph, and the others, I think anyone who can claim a digital picture is “proof” of any particular method of death is either Bill Frist, an idiot, or both. And so we are stuck with the reports from on the ground, in the clinics and hospital, all of which reported WP casualties a full year ago — and were uncontested, until the damn Italians had the audacity to get photographs from Fallujah that hadn’t previously been released, and report the exact same WP usage that the Washington Post reported at the time of the attack. Only this time, because of the photographs, the implications stuck.
John Cole
Hunter- I think you need to review the charges being leveled by the Italian film crew. For a hint, I will point out that chief among their accusations is not the benign statement that ‘WP was used.’
Then figure out how in one statement you can state “anyone who can claim a digital picture is “proof” of any particular method of death is either Bill Frist, an idiot, or both,” and then follow that up with “Only this time, because of the photographs, the implications stuck.”
In other words, we have no idea of the provenance of these photographs, and they prove nothing, except they prove everything. And that isn’t even going into the fact that the photographs offered up don’t appear to resemble WP wounds.
And please try to do all this without presenting another one of your ‘melting the skin off kids’ charades and pretending that I don’t care about innocents who were killed, because I do. But I also care about people claiming that our troops deliberately and indiscriminately targeted civilians with ‘chemical’ weapons.
RTO Trainer
What video of “wide area dispersal?” Since there is no such thing it’d be intersting to know how it was filmed.
Had I known that these pictures were suposed to be WP injuries, I’d have been contesting them. The photo you selected was not WP injury. The two on my blog that are from the RAI24 documentary are not WP injuries either. I can’t even say for sure that it’s a burn at all. My estimation is that it’s not. Perhaps I’m late to the party. I’ll apologize for that if I must. I don’t think it alters the facts.
So I’ll ask again; what verification has there been, either of the RAI24 documentary or of any of the stories that have relied on it?
What independent authority has definitively stated that those photos are what RAI24 and you claim they are?
John Cole
And Hunter- no one is denying that there were civilian casualties. I am sure there were.
rilkefan
John: heads up.
John Cole
Rilke- I am with Hunter on that one. It is fucking disgusting. They should find out who that is and turn him over to the Iraqi criminal justice system.
rilkefan
“I am with Hunter on that one.”
John, I didn’t think there would be any question how you would react – just a reminder that Hunter is one of the most analytical front-pagers at DK and one who I think you would naturally find worth engaging.
John Cole
I don;t know what there is to engage over- we both agree that civilians were killed (although we probably disagree on how many, how they were killed, and who, ultimately is respondsible for those deaths). We both agree that WP is not a chemical weapon. We both agree that our troops used WP.
I think what we we don’t agree on, and which seems like an impassable gulf, is that our troops deliberately and intentionally inflicted civilian casualties, which is what RAI is charging and Hunter seems to believe.
If I am wrong, let me know.
rilkefan
“Hunter seems to believe”
I thought he holds that the conduct of the war has led to an unfortunate number of civilian casualties and subsequent PR damage and increased insurgent support, plus the general karmic burden. Truth to tell though I find this whole brouhaha less interesting than you so I’m not claiming any fluency here.
Jack Burton
It’s pretty simple. There’s claims and admissions, but not a damn shred of proof that a single civilian died as a result of WP. I think we all agree they did, but some anti-American Italian jackass “documentary” is far from the proof the children at kos would have you believe it is. Dead people at the hospital, fine, and I bet most of them were freedom fighters or whatever romantic term we’re using for head chopping terrorists these days.
What nobody has shown to date, is a f-ing shred of proof that anyone other than terrorists got shipped into the void via WP.
So having said all that Hunter, answer the damn question. A week ago these pictures were everyone’s favorite proof that our soldiers are war criminals, now it looks like a pathetic smear job.
Or are we now getting to a “fake but accurate” moment? While the pictures may be fake, the real question is did we use WP on civilians. I love how we just ease from a hack smear job to an alleged investigative discussion.
RTO Trainer
To be plain,
All teh grusome photops in the world don’t mean a thing to me, nor do their authenticity, unless someone wishes to hold them up as evidence that US troops deliberalty engaged civilians which is the only issue in the whole debate that matters to me in the slightest.
That is what RAI24 did. Hunter appears to me to agree as well. You don’t think that’s what Hunter is saying. What have you seen or read from him to give you that impression?
Additionally, there’s an argument to be made that the simple perpetuation of the story, especailly perpetuation without correcting it’s flaws, that causes the PR damage.
ppGaz
thought he holds that the conduct of the war has led to an unfortunate number of civilian casualties and subsequent PR damage and increased insurgent support, plus the general karmic burden.
That’s a rather antiseptic overview, isn’t it? Isn’t he the guy who did the prolonged “carmelized kids” rant over there a couple weeks ago?
rilkefan
ppGaz:
I’m prone to antisepsis, sure – I believe in reason over emotion in prose. Hunter showed a picture of a “carmelized kid” and expressed some emotion, but the thrust of his argument was as I presented it, at least as I read it. With the ranty stuff striped away on either side, I would think Hunter and John could engage each other to the profit of all concerned.
The post in question is, again, here, RTO. The “nut graph” is the indexed list toward the middle. Judge for yourself.
ppGaz
Right, thanks. That’s the article to which I referred, and I had read it several times when this whole thing boiled up in here.
There are several layers to this issue. Because the parties to the controversy assign different priorities to the layers, it is necessary for them to pay attention to what the others are saying. Otherwise, one person might rant about melting kids, while another is focussed on the verbal assault on the fighting forces involved in the use of the weaponry. I would say that John’s position is in the domain of the latter. That has also been my position.
It does not require dismissal of the concern for melting kids to defend the troops who are out there using these weapons. The two concerns are not exclusive. I have no desire to melt kids or see kids melted. But I also know that defending the military — the people on the ground, not necessarily the paper pushers in the Pentagon — can be done without either advocating the melting of kids, or ignoring the horrors of war.
If citizens and their pundits can’t handle these kinds of distinctions, then they aren’t equipped to have a military in the first place. If people think they can have a clean, telegenic war in which the bad people just evaporate and the good ones get to live happily ever after, then they aren’t ready to live in the real world.
I take Hunter’s browbeating to be just that … browbeating. It appears to be browbeating without regard to the injury he might cause to the health, safety and mental well being of people in uniform. It’s for that reason that I have taken the position of speaking up for John in this context, and will continue to do so.
I also think that Hunter’s tirades are headed for Jane Fonda territory. By that I mean, I get the distinct impression that this is more about him and exerting his will over this discussion than it is about kids, or weapons, or war. People don’t hate Jane Fonda because she was against a war. They hate her because she put herself above a lot of other people who had stakes in the situation, many of which were life-and-death stakes. It was her ego against their circumstances. I don’t think it was an honest mistake on her part. If it were, she could have apologized 30 years ago, instead of waiting until now when it was useful for a book tour.
rilkefan
Arrggh. Hunter calls carmelization “an inevitable part of urban warfare” and clearly places the onus for such decisions on the civilian leadership, noting that Bush pere chose not to engage in that sort of warfare. He writes, “street fighting in neighborhoods where there are, indeed, children … may or may not be a wise military decision” and goes on to advocate policies not requiring such decisions. He’s making a practical and a moral argument, the latter part of which of course non disputandum est, the former however being subject to discussion.
I would guess you’re seeing his anger and misunderstanding its direction. Perhaps he’ll come back and refute my interpretation, but for the moment I think it’s crystal clear that he is targetting Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld and not the military, and that his argument does so as well.
RTO Trainer
Well, there’s three minutes I’ll never get back.
Let me paraphrase, you tell me if I’m off base or not: We should not fight.
Here’s how I get to that conclusion from what I just read. (I’m going to take all the melting skin stuff as read (over and over again) as well as assuming that Hunter is equally opposed to having children gut shot or blown inside out) Fighting in urban areas means that it is likely that children will be harmed. To avoid that we should not fight in urban areas. Here’s the militarily nuanced bit where I may be reading into things; since we will eschew urban fighting, we will only fight in open areas, which means that the urban areas are now safe havens for those we mean to fight. They may stay in the cities or come out to engage us at will, while we sit outside and hope that we can recognize them before they get close enough to blow up thier truck or their vest.
I agree, this post does not accuse us of deliberately targeting little girls. It does, though not in so many words accuse us of being indiscriminate.
If you and or Hunter can come up with a means to both fight in the urban area and guarantee that no one except those we intend to actually die, please let me know. I’ll pass it up the chain.
I’ll state this once again; we have a number of doctrinal rules and procedures that are designed to reduce civilian deaths. The goal is zero. If anyone has any evidence that these procedures were either deliberately not followed or were negligently misapplied, I want to see it.
rilkefan
RTO, I take his argument to be specific for this war – I don’t know that he would oppose urban combat under all circumstances. I would certainly expect him to want to set the doctrinal etc. bar a lot higher than it currently is, and I imagine he’ll oppose dropping 2k-lb bombs on neighborhoods, which I take it is the new plan for when we withdraw in the next year or so. But (as far as I understand in my ignorance) the doctrinal stuff is not a military responsibility but a civilian one, and disagreements on the bar cannot be considered anti-military.
Note that I’m something of a nihilist, and I probably hold rather more aggressive policy views than Hunter, though I’m not exactly a student of his thought – I’ve read perhaps a dozen or so of his posts. On which note I really have to ask him to return to argue for himself or for those arguing against him to engage him elsewhere.
RTO Trainer
Because children in the combart zone are specific to this war, or because he dosen’t like this war?
As I said, constructive criticism of the way we minimize casualties is more than welcome. Simply stating that it’s not good enough, isn’t.
Doctrine is not a civilian responsibility except in a approve, disapprove kind of way at very high levels. 6-1 which governs artillery use, is written at Ft. Sill and signed off by the Artillery School chief. As a general rule, the civilian bosses direct our outcomes. How we do what we are told is up to us.
I myself am not a fan of dropping bombs or flying in cruise missles. It’s too easy for the bad guys to chuck a few corpses in to the crater, snap some photos and hand them over to al Jazeera or Reuters.
It also leaves you open politically for accusations of blowing up things that you didn’t want to blow up as when the Republicans accused Clinton of destroying an asprin factory in the Sudan.
Boots on the ground, rifles in hand, and someone with oversight of the impact area is the only way to do it right.
rilkefan
The hearts/minds aspect applies specifically to this war – that argument wouldn’t apply to, e.g., our actions in WWII Germany or Japan.
The great majority of liberals I know accept some level of civilian casualties in extreme circumstances, especially to prevent civilian casualties (including much smaller numbers at home). Many of us found the Saddam-is-starving-the-Iraqi-children argument the only compelling reason to go to war. As many of us feared and expected, however, this war has made things even worse in Iraq from that standpoint. That’s the context for Hunter‘s anger, I would guess.
ppGaz
Perhaps he should not write in anger, but instead should calm down and write more carefully?
In other words, I’d assert that he is seeing his own anger and misunderstanding the way in which his writings are going to be taken.
Which is not to say that you are mistaken. It is to say that he is mistaken. You are talking about him and his writings here as if he is your brother in law. You know, Hunter and I go way back, and I know that he … blah blah blah. But Hunter is not your brother in law. He’s a major contributor to maybe the busiest political blog on earth. Something like a million page views a day over there. He has a responsibility to realize that his angry words can have unintended consequences.
We spend a lot of time around here … and in the blahsphere in general this is true … arguing over what people meant. What did Dick Durbin mean? Bill Bennett? George Bush? John Cole?
Here’s what I think: People should take responsibility for being understood. If people want to be precisely understood, and have their meanings be seen as subtly but profoundly distinct from other meanings, then they need to say exactly what they mean in clear and unambiguous language. And then when they have given that a shot, they should take responsibility for the outcome. If they are misunderstood, it isn’t enough … if you are one of those highly visible, public talking or writing heads … to just stand aside and say, well, you are all a bunch of (*&^#(&*^#’s for misunderstanding me.
You are probably right about one thing here, without realizing it …. this focus on being understood is a big thing with me. When I see somebody say something and then be “misunderstood” my first reaction is, it’s deliberate. Especially if you are talking about a professional or a very experienced talking-writing head.
So that’s just me. If I am overreacting to Hunter, so be it. I am but a mote in the eye of the gods of punditocracy here. But I don’t think I am overreacting. My hunch is that there is a contingent on the left that is just as much a bunch of assholes as are the monkeys and spuds on the right. Self-serving, self-justifying, browbeaters, assholes. Crapheadedness knows no ideological boundaries. We have our Darrells, if you get my drift.
rilkefan
“Doctrine is not a civilian responsibility except in a approve, disapprove kind of way at very high levels.”
From my viewpoint that’s where the moral onus weighs, assuming policy makers are told how the conclusions were reached and are able to exercise informed oversight of the consequences.
RTO Trainer
I think you miss my point.
The doctrine for use of WP is written at Ft. Sill and signed off on by a LTG. That’s it. There’s no reason for it to go higher unless it’s to go to the Offices of the JCS for deconfliction of Joint Doctrine.
Rumsfeld didn’t approve or disapprove of WP. He was never asked. And it wasn’t his job to do so.
I beleive that there must be a huge misapprehension of what Hunter beleives WP is and does. That’s the only reason I can see the focus on this one mundane conventional munition.
rilkefan
Well, duh, but from what I see Hunter‘s not of that contingent, not anything like it, crystal-clear no-idea-what-you’re-on.
(I’m talking about DU-Powerline equivalence here – I don’t think there are any politicians on the left anything like as bad as Cheney/Rove/DeLay/Norquist/Abramoff.)
I think liberals are entitled to a bit of righteous anger that as a consequence of the Cheney admin’s politically-driven lies and arrogant incompetence-driven self-deception we (I mean you and me, too) are killing children.
ppGaz
I just noticed this.
No offense, but I just can’t compute the idea that reasonable, level-headed people would plunge this country into major war to rescue the unfortunate victims of another, fucked-up, country.
So far as it goes, that just represents a difference between you and me, I suppose. But on a wider scale, I cannot imagine a US in which the people in general are going to support a runup to war on that basis. The occasional, desperately necessary short-term intervention for humanitarian reasons …. maybe. But not nation-building on a grotesque, impossible scale … in a part of the world where nation-building has an ugly past and apparently not much of a future either. No way, Jose.
Even the Spuds were not foolish enough to rely on that idea to sell their ill-gotten war.
ppGaz
Well here we have the crux of it. I don’t want children killed any more than anyone else does. I don’t want the war, period. I didn’t want it in 2002.
But here it is, and children get killed. Okay, let’s say Hunter is just doing a perfectly legitimate “Oh, the horror” thing. Fine. Then why focus it on this BULLSHIT WP STORY? I used the caps just out of frustration, don’t take it personally. But seriously, that’s the whole thing.
People who don’t agree with the use of the WP story for this purpose are not baby-eaters. Troops who used the WP ordnance are not baby-eaters either. Hunter doesn’t hate the troops. Everybody is a good guy in this story.
But it’s a damned war. It’s a little late to be coming along now, three years later, and saying, oh dear, it’s a real war and real children are getting killed. Well, no shit. If you want a sterile war, then you better invent sterile warfare.
rilkefan
“I think you miss my point.”
I guess I do. I was under the impression Congress or Rumsfeld could tell the military not to use WP, or not to use it on enemy personnel; not to drop bombs on targets within range x of population center of density-level y; not to subject prisoners of war to treament z.
My understanding is that WP is not at issue in the post we’re discussing, rather the use of incendiaries in neighborhoods; or rather how to fight insurgencies successfully and morally.
ppGaz
Well, you might be right. If Hunter is the centerpiece of this, then I confess, I don’t generally read him well.
I also go comatose over the arcana of war law and the legalities of incendiaries and WP.
But I go back to what I said upstream, if the finer points of fighting insurgencies are at issue, I don’t see how the thing is advanced by drilling ever deeper into the WP story and its attendant issues. Instead, it seems to me we should be going to a higher level view of the problem. Does it make sense to go after insurgencies as if exterminating roof rats, at all? Maybe that just creates more insurgents? So far, based on results, that seems as likely as not, doesn’t it? So why not attack the problem on that level?
rilkefan
Well, I think Hunter thinks that the Italian documentary and the testimony of US soldiers (and whatever shoe is left to drop) indicates stuff occurring that goes against the book and more.
As far as “let’s have a sterile war” is concerned, we’ve all read Slaughterhouse-5 and we all know about the aftermath of Nagasaki and even about what happened in Tokyo. For me anyway the questions we have to ask ourselves are, What short of Tokyo is acceptable, and Is even Fallujah acceptable given the admin’s abdication of their responsibilites and given the use the insurgents made of it and given the testosterone-scented response to the unsightly deaths of four mercenaries. But those questions need to be answered by professionals, not poet-physicists or whatever-the-hell-you-ares.
RTO Trainer
guess I do. I was under the impression Congress or Rumsfeld could tell the military not to use WP, or not to use it on enemy personnel; not to drop bombs on targets within range x of population center of density-level y; not to subject prisoners of war to treament z.
Congress or Rumsfeld could do so, but why would they? We already have doctrine to cover this. DoD did get involved with the doctrine on prsioner treatment, and while they did not change anything that would have allowed or condoned the kinds of thing that went on at Abu Ghraib, thre’s a real argument in that the change at all muddied the watter enough to allow someone to disregard their training.
You fight successfully and morally by 1) not failing (this includes not quiting) and 2) not doing anything immoral.
So long as teh observers and the squad nd platoon leaders have eyes on the impact area and call for fire only when reasonably assured that there are no civilians in that area, then there should be no problem. But things happen. There’s time between the call out and the shot in and suddenly a kid comes over the hill, or a car drives through the area, or there was something down there that just wasn’t visible, or the round falls short, goes wide or flies long. This isn’t immoral it’s accidental. It’s excrable, but it’s also unavoidable unless we simply forego the fight.
I disagree with those who have opposed our involvement in this war, but I have no quarrel with them while the disagreement remains civil. I don’t think the fight was avoidable and I do favor us determining the time and place rather than them.
RTO Trainer
That’s not how we fight insurgencies and terrorism. There are tactical actions that resemble that, but that’s not the strategy and those actions arent’ what will win the fight.
You fight insurgents and terrorists by determining what things they need and then denying those things to them. We’ve done a lot with drying up thier money, but because of the low-tech informal ways money can be moved in Islam we can’t get it all. There’s quite a bit else to go after however.
Add to this that while attrition is not a bad thing it is not a strategy that will win and it’s not one we have actively persued as a military since Vietnam. You can’t tell that by the body count folks though.
There’s also that an insurgency typically lasts 9 to 12 years. We’re only 3 years into this.
RTO Trainer
But Hunter obviously hasn’t read the book and gets angry when someone tries to give him a precis.
RTO Trainer
Starving children? They didn’t make the list.
Congress enumerated 23 differnt reasons, of which WMDs were only part.
Here’s the Signaleer’s Digest Condensed Version of the preamble of Public Law 107-243:
1. The Gulf War was not fully concluded
2. Iraq lost and had agreed to a number of conditions to cease hostilities among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism
3. We believed that Iraq had more and more advanced WMDs than now appears to be the case
4. Iraq had attempted to stymie verification of the peace conditions at every turn unless under threat of immanent use of force
5. The Congress had already found Iraq to be in material breach of its obligations in 1998
6. Saddam Hussein represented a continuing danger to global stability and to his neighbors by, among other things, failing over twelve years to verify the status and inventories of his WMD programs and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations
7. Saddam Hussein represented a continuing danger to his own people and refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait
8. Hussein had used WMDs before
9. Iraq demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, attempted in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and fired on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council
10. Members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, were known to be in Iraq
11. Iraq continued to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens
12. Even unaccounted for WMD materiel could end up in the hands of those who would use them for terrorist attacks
13. Any number of combinations of the foregoing could plausibly result in a terrorist attack on the United States
14. UNSCR 678 authorized force, subsequent resolutions required further actions and Iraq refused at every turn except under threat of immanent use of force
15. Congress had authorized force in 1991 to achieve many of these same goals
16. Congress recognized in December of 1991 that the use of force was or would be consitent with enforcement of UNSCR 687 and 688
17. It has been the policy of the US Government since 1998 that the US should pursue courses that would result in the change of regime in Iraq.
18. The UNSCRs should be enforced
19. The United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq’s ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary
20. Congress has authorized other actions in the Global War on Terror
21. It doesn’t matter whether Iraq be directly involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
22. The President has the authority to take proactive steps against terrorism
23. It is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region
UNSCR 1441 was a bit more concise with only 11 reasons.
rilkefan
Congress may not have been interested in starving children, but we were. I was an opponent of the war but I could have come up with a much better list of reasons to go to war – reasons that I wouldn’t be ashamed to defend today. I would be ashamed to have signed the above list – hell, I hope I would have resigned long ago in the hope my successor wouldn’t be as gullible and stupid and cowardly as me.
RTO Trainer
I rather like that list. What do you find repugnant in it?
Maybe this one is more to your liking. #2 comes close to the starving children thing.
Here’s the Signaleer’s Digest Condensed Version of the preamble of UNSCR 1441:
1. Because we’ve asked, begged cajoled, pleaded and demanded, over and over again, that the Hussein regime comply with its commitments.
2. Because the Hussein regime still has not acted to provide for its civilian population.
3. Because of its failure to comply with its commitments, the Hussein regime remains a threat to international peace and security.
4. Because the Gulf War remains unconcluded.
5. Because the Hussein regime must meet it’s obligations in order to restore Iraqi sovereignty.
6. Because the Hussein regime has not provided an accurate, full, final, and complete disclosure of all aspects of its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles with a range greater than one hundred and fifty kilometres, and of all holdings of such weapons, their components and production facilities and locations, as well as all other nuclear programs, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to nuclear-weapons-usable material.
7. Because the Hussein regime continues to prevent verification of what disclosures it has made.
8. Because 5 years have passed with little substantive action from us aside from asking, begging, pleading, cajoling and demanding, over and over, and we think we’ve set on our hands long enough.
9. Because the Hussein regime supports terrorism, represses its population, and has not yet returned all Kuwaiti persons and property as is and has been required.
10. Because the ceasefire in effect was conditional on the Hussein regime meeting all its obligations.
11. Because it’s too late for the Hussein regime to negotiate new terms.
rilkefan
Remember Bush said list 1 didn’t make war inevitable. If you don’t believe that was a lie and that events have made the first list a black mark on our country, you haven’t been paying attention or I’m not going to be able to convince you here.
Re the 2nd list:
1. comply with its commitments.
Translation: give up his WMD stockpiles. Oops.
2. provide for its civilian population.
Translation: Iraq is one of many sucky countries. Let’s talk about health insurance and the US next.
3. its commitments, threat
See 1. Oops.
4. Gulf War unconcluded.
Translation: pile of crap.
5. Meet its obligations.
See 1, drenched in 4.
6. List of WMD junk.
Translation: we need to repeat 1 to stretch this out.
7. prove 1
Pre-war Blix did this.
8. 5 years begging for 1
Yeah, yeah.
9. You suck and Kuwait wants its toothbrush back.
Cry me a river. With a pony in it.
10. Ceasefire for 1
Hey, ten reasons, we can quit now, right?
11. Too late to prove 1 and be nice.
Ok, 11. Are we done here now?
ppGaz
Partial agreement here, except that I part with you on the “professionals” clause. I am a believer in the sovereignty of the people. If ordinary people cannot decide these things, ultimately, then they are stuck with having kings. I can’t stomach a king, so I insist that ordinary people be given all choices and be allowed to not only make them, but be allowed to be wrong at times. Or stupid, or awful, or Republican, or whatever.
War is a lot of power to give people. Would we rather have its horrors governed by a few, or by many?
ppGaz
Hear, hear.
That list degrades this country, AFAIC. There are several things that infuriate me about this war. Number one is the way the insiders “treated” the intelligence to fit their marketing campaign. Number two …. that list. That list is so far from being a justification for war, I can’t even fathom the mindset that thinks otherwise.
Number three, in case somebody is writing a book about me … and I’m sure someone is … is that the war accomplishes nothing that serves the interests of this country. Shit, it would be a failure if it were nothing but a war for oil.
RTO Trainer
Appears mutual.
My last words: There is a lot more to the obligations Iraq was under than giving up WMDs. Accounting for what they knew they once had would have gone a long way to preventing war. And that’s only one point. I’d invite you to read thorugh the cease-fire articles and the relevant UNSCRs for a full list.
Finally, the Gulf War being unconcluded isn’t a pile of crap. It’s the key to the legality of our actions. It’s why the UN has condoned our actions (after the fact) and continued to certify and cooperate with us.
RTO, Out.
rilkefan
RTO, no hard feelings I hope. Looking forward to discussing the next phase of the war with you here.