Two US soldiers tortured to death, where is the outrage from the left now????

So in other words. Fuck the rest of the world, they're on their own. American lives are too important.

Gotcha.

Answer me this question and I'll allow that it is a 'war':

Who are we fighting?

Just a hint, don't use the words Insurgent(s), Terrorist(s), Terror, Terrr(presidential version), or any random organization that you would also define as an enemy based on their being one of the aforementioned prohibited undefined words (unless you also define those words and who they apply to).

Only if you do it poorly.

Those who oppose a stable, free, democratic government in Iraq. The good thing is that we don't have to identify them, they find us. That's also the bad thing, by the way.

Next question.

You didn't answer the question, you evaded it. Define who "Those who oppose a stable, free, democratic government in Iraq." are (or go back and answer the original question). Your lack of definition, as is, can still apply to anyone, anywhere. Be specific.

First off, this war was illegal from the beginning. So calling it proper isn't at all accurate. Dismissing the deaths of "detainees" as "It's a war, what are you going to do" is vile.

Your argument is equivalent to saying, since people violate the speed limit, we should just shuck all the laws. All I'm saying is that we should do our best to live up to our laws, our treaties, and our values. I've never called for the US to be isolationist. I've repeatedly called for us to more fully engage the world.

Following orders, following the law, and respecting our values, doesn't "handcuff" our soldiers. And it's not my standard, it's our standard. I just expect us to do our best to live up to it. I don't imagine that sometimes some of us won't fail. But I do think we need a President who stands up for those values. I do think that when our soldiers violate the law that they are held accountable. I do believe that the only way to succeed in Iraq is to be the "good guy". If we can't win the populace over, we've lost. And if we've learned anything, it's that people hate hypocrites more than outright bastards. If we continue to claim the moral high ground and not live up to that claim Iraqis will continue to support the insurgents over us. Our values are what makes us a model for the world. They aren't so high we can't attain them, but they are high enough that sometimes, some of us will fail. Those that do, and their victims also, should be secure in the knowledge that they will be punished fairly, legally and as humanely as we can.

Apparently your own ass was too lazy for you to step in and politely tell him that you already covered that topic and the OP had already bowed out (I'm not sure if it's because your deluge of quotes outwitted him or nauseated him, not that it matters).

You just described most of the politicians in the Iraqi government.

You have your own definition of war which is apparently very narrow. I'm not going to debate semantics with you when it is irrelevant to the discussion. Whatever we are doing over there, be it war, occupation, crusade, genocide, call it what you will, is dirty business with dirty people.

Don't expect us to fight using the Marquess of Queensbury rules.

I hate to group people who oppose the "war" together, but you guys really need to coordinate your attacks. It's a war, so we have to follow the Geneva Conventions, ooh, but it's not a war because Groucho can't give you the names of all the combatants. Can you really blame the Bush administration for trying to have it both ways when everyone else is doing the exact same thing?

I expect us to fight using our laws. Our laws require following the treaties we've signed. The problem is that the White House hasn't been able to understand that the "war" part is now over and the "occupation" part is underway. The insurgents should not be treated as enemy soldiers. They should be treated as criminals. The problem is that there is no real civilian authority to enforce Iraqi law. And no justice system to turn captured insurgents over to. I don't have a solution to the problem. But if we want to win the "hearts and minds" the best tools we have are our values, our history of liberty, and the high standards of conduct our military men and women aspire to.

The only justification thus far for it being an actual war is that the legislative branch has not ceased funding it. Which it could at anytime. Unlike in a real war, wherein peace would be negotiated after an observable end to the conflict. My definition of war is not in any way narrow. It is the only avaliable definition when you are talking about what a war is. A construed nondeclaration of war is not war, legally.

You are also apparently using a nonapplicable version of 'war' in this case. The way you use it implies the United States could 'war' on Walmart, or Bob from accounting, purple fuzzy bunnies, or any other people they might not like. If you still think the semantics of it are irrelevant, then you don't really understand the limited scope of war. Insurgent, terrorist, terror, terrr, people who oppose democracy; all of those things don't mean anything if they're not well defined by the time you have to order soldiers to shoot at them.



We're not following the Geneva Conventions. That's not even an argueable point. There's plenty of evidence that would place US Officials under warcrimes tribunals (even if they were later proved innocent) if we were indeed at war.

I'm not expecting you to name every participant enemy, but I DO expect you to have a definable, identifiable group of people our soldiers can shoot at if you expect them to partake in war.

Yes, it's dismissive, but I stand by it. People die in "war", even a proper war. We can try to minimize it, but we can't totally prevent it. So let's move on.


How could you possibly get that from what I've said? The equivalent analogy is that we don't lose the moral high ground in condemning a driver who drives 50 mph blowing through stop signs in a school zone, just because we went 10 mph over on the highway and once in a while forget to use our turn signal.


You can't define any of those orders, laws or values nor can you quantify the magnitude that they have been violated. I don't see an army (or intelligence agency) that is out of control and their techniques and record would compare well with any in the world. I do see that they are in extreme pressure and under a microscope where every mistake is magnified a thousand fold.


I am not in the least convinced that being the "good guy" will win anyone over and there is some strong evidence that many Iraqis despise us because we are weak and won't do what it takes to get the job done. Basically the bad guys have too big an edge for us to play totally clean. Remember the uproar when the Army was caught planting stories in the Iraqi media? Would a good guy do that? No, but not fighting the huge amount of propaganda with our own (far more moderate propaganda) puts us into a hole that is impossible to climb out of.


Again, unless you can define these standards we're never going to get anywhere. You may think good guys don't kick down doors of innocent Iraqi houses looking for insurgents launching rocket attacks. Sometimes there are no easy choices.

I'm sure a decent percentage of coalition deaths are a direct result of us trying to do the right thing and be the good guy. We're willing to make some sacrifices (in lives and dollars), but it is unreasonable to ask us to do more, IMO.

Fundamentally I think the invasion of Iraq was a good thing for the Iraqi people. I think it's a tad ungrateful for them to ask that we sacrifice more and hold us to such an impossible standard at this point.

If you don't think the war benefitted (or at least had a huge potential to benefit) the Iraqi people then no amount of being a "good guy" makes a difference.

There is a line somewhere and I think we're generally on the correct side of it. You apparently don't think so.

How many times have you given this speech? I guess since you got it all worked up already, you might as well get the maximum mileage out of it.


Well, as far as I know Walmart and fuzzy bunnies don't have bombs, aren't blowing up our humvees, shooting down our helicopters, and capturing and killing our soldiers. And in our war on fuzzy bunnies I don't think we have hundreds of thousands of military forces deployed, with tanks, fighter jets, etc. So I think we might have a little more slack in calling what we're doing in Iraq a "war" than say, the "War on Bob from Accounting". But that's just me.


So if a sniper is shooting at you from the roof and we're at "war" what do you do? Now what do you do if we're not at "war"?


Okay, then why are you arguing about it?


Who exactly are you debating here? Me or the thousand neocons and right-wingers that somehow pissed you off before I posted?

Okay, you win. I'll personally tell all the soldiers to stop shooting at anyone until we figure out what we're going to call it.

As I said before, it's frustrating when the party in power gets it from all sides and those sides are contradictory. For example, you say the "'war' part is now over", so then it might be reasonable to congratulate the army on a good job for accomplishing their mission. Might even get a banner printed up for the occasion.

It may be that the majority of Americans now oppose the war (we are historically a bunch of gutless front-runners, after all), but that is meaningless when that majority can't agree on what to do instead.

I never claimed it was a reasonable result of the US ignoring the GC, and I condemn these atrocities as much as you do. However, I do consider it to be a completely *predictable* result of the US ignoring the GC in other highly publicised areas.

You may not have, but the previous poster did.


There is absolutely no connection between the GC and these atrocities.

You're not actually saying that you believe that if we had followed the GC to the letter for the last 50 years that our kidnapped soldiers would have been treated humanely, are you? I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I don't see any other conclusion from your above statement.

Some terrorists use such claims as a rationale for their actions, to gain world support. But if an act of terrorism had not been in retribution for Abu Ghraib, it would have been for Danish cartoons, if not that then because we support Israel, if not that then for some other manufactured outrage.

Maybe we should follow the GC, maybe not. But that is a separate issue and wouldn't have made any difference to these guys. I've said in other subthreads that this kind of talk (i.e. rationalization or appeasement) is counter-productive.

So, just out of curiousity, what previous actions by the US government do you see as connected to the recent atrocity? I only ask because you are giving the impression that these bad guys just woke up one day and decided out of the blue to torture and murder some people.

I'm sure they had a reason. A misguided reason to be sure, but a reason. People don't just wake up and decide out of the blue to torture and murder some people. At least, not in the numbers that are going on in Iraq. Something motivates them. I'm curious as to what it is you think made them act that way.

I don't think I'm giving the impression at all that they just woke up and decided to strap a bomb to themselves, just the opposite.

I'm sure each terrorist has a thousand reasons for his actions. Every terrorist has a unique set of reasons and many times they are even contradictory (i.e. it would be impossible to make all of them happy). And just about everything we've done in the past hundred years has been used by someone for recruitment. Certainly the invasion of Iraq is the proximal cause and it makes no difference what our intentions were, those supporting terrorism have simultaneously sabotaged the rebuilding and blamed us for it.

We could change our actions to make recruitment more difficult, but at what cost? If the cost is low enough and the change is right/just, then I would probably be in favor of it.

However, the focus should be on removing terrorism as a valid tool for instigating change or drawing attention to a cause, because we will never eradicate it through appeasement. I think we'd be a whole lot closer to peace and prosperity in the mideast if all muslim leaders came together to condemn terrorism (and the "insurgency" for any reason, rather than viewing it as an unfortunate, but foreseeable and understandable consequence of our actions.

Most of the non-combatants killed in Iraq during the war have been killed by thier own people, not us. We have had a certain amount killed as 'collateral damage', and even a few murders, but the insurgents, Al Queda, and death squads do a far better job of it than we do.

But we are at least trying to punish those of our folks who have abused or murdered folks. We don't celebrate them. Of course I think some of those we have puished have been scapegoats. We really should have a way of going after the CIA bastiches behind a lot of this.

Bah! The Book of Mormon is better!!!

I don't know about Billy, but common sense from watching the results of their actions tells ME thet terrorists are little better than animals.

Payback is a bitch yes....

I thought US soliders were above international laws, so I do not see why crying for help from there once one has placed oneself above it.

If one walk around kicking antfarms, chances are one get bitten.

I did not even bother reading the article, but let me guess, they were tortured to death in some country far away from USA? I guess one can ask what did they do there in the first place? And of course now revange must be taken out on all that has a bit darker skin, a family name that is hard to pronaunce and of course all people who do barbeque pigs.....

If only the US ppl would let others be, and not try to inforce their "freedoom" and shit on everyone, earth would be a much more peacefull place.

Take Iraq for example, I would have dared to travel there at anytime whilst Saddam was in charge, now when there is an american freedom, I would not dare to set my foot there.

After all this, I must say I do not accept torture of any kind. But go invade countries chances are it happens, especailly to a solider who represents a country that systematically violates human rights (USA).

Is that sarcasm? Because there are hundreds of places in the Bible where such things are said, or appear to be said. Some of it is taken outta context, or is a result of mistranslation. But many passages (particularly in the Old testament) refer to things that would be considered criminal in todays world. Oh, and I AM Christian btw.

Oh yes make sense to make it a religious thing. By saying the qoran is trash one also trash the bible, since the qoran reqognise Jesus as a profet.

Seems people forget that Islam, Christianity and Jewism are quite tied up and have the same roots.
Claiming islam is a hostile religion is about as right as saying christainity is a hostile religion (because of Una Bomber and KKK). Religion is pretty much what one take and use it for. Maybe its easier to justify cruelty in the name of a god?
For example 911 or invasion of Iraq ( when it actually is politics and financial interests)

Not beliving any gods it suits me well if all religion could be trashed and people would start using logic and common sense instead.