Uh, can a man be a "spy" inside his own country?
And where did you get the idead that they can be "executed", just like that?

@Ranger:
Uh, are you telling me that it was the doctor who attacked her convoy and took her into custody, and not iraqi combatants?
The point is, when she was captured, she could have been droped on the spot. Why did they bother to allow her to get medical treatment in the first place? If we use "an eye for eye" analogy here, she would be dead. If she isn´t, its because the iraqis aren´t the animals some assume they are, isn´t it?
You think hanging the dead bodies from a bridge is bad? Well, how about going over the head of a body with a tank? Is that ok? How about shooting soldiers surrendering? Is that ok too? And howe about shooting a chicken truck, packed with women and childrean? You want links? How about you read the words of the iraqis themselfs, if you don´t take my word for it?
Check back the links thread. I posted a link for iraqi blogs, where you can hear from them in person. I doubt anyone even bothered to click on it...

I never mentioned Bush. I said "the leader nation", not "the leader of the nation". There´s a huge diference. Check my post again.

Uh, you do know i´m not from Spain, don´t you? Unless you mean Brazil, under wich case you don´t have much of a case there. It was the spanish who wiped out the Aztecs, and searched for El Dorado, with Cortez and Pizarro, not Portugal. We have our fair share of blood, but in Africa. Not in South America. Diferent continent.And we didn´t "obliterate" anyone either.
Check your history books.

We are there already. Although your president seems to make it a point to keep forgeting our meeger contribution (much to the desperation of our Prime Minister), we are there nonetheless. And if you mean me in person, i will be there soon enough aswell, god willing.

Utter bullshit. You don´t really believe this, do you? Again, i urge you to read the blogs of the iraqis themselfs, where they will explain to you exactlly why they have rebeled, and when they did.
I think you can do better than those Pentagon pencil pushers, and come up with a better explanation than that. All you have to do is try.

Even the english would withdraw after the battle was over, to allow the enemy army tend to their wounded. They did not shoot them on sight, nor did they cared if the wounded would live to fight another day.
Wich reminds me. Are we really "evolving"? Shouldn´t Mankind be progressing as time goes by? If so, why are we still acting like baboons fighting over a piece of meat? Could it be that with all our new laws, our human rights babble, and our high tech technology, we aren´t any better than your average Neanderthal? Are we "evolving"? I think not.
To tell you the truth, this sort of thing is what one expects of Saddam and the like, not from those who seek to "liberate" and "illuminate" others. And if this is the best the US can come up with, i see no diference at all between them and those you seek to overthrow. Diferent shit, same smell.
:confused:

@lulu
Are you for real? :confused:
Perhaps you should consult the latest figures on civilian casualties. Do that, and then come here to discuss it. But not a second before.
I give you the same advice as i did Ranger. Check the links thread for Iraqi blogs. Or better yet, i´ll repost it here, to save you trouble:

http://www.justinalexander.net/iraq/

http://www.iraqvictims.com/

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-brad010404.htm

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

The general consensus is that about 10.000 civilians have died so far in Iraq. The wounded reach the 100.000. And this is not counting Fallujah, as it´s still a closed city. Acording to the latest numbers from Fallujah, at least 700 are dead.

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

spys or saboteurs are unlawful combatants, who do not wear uniform or military insignia and they may be captured after being shot, they do not have the rights of POWs as lawful enemy combatants have. that is international law. didnt you learn that during your time in the army? we had to know exactly whom we were allowed to shoot in which bodyparts how often under what conditions.
as the occupying army is responsible for security he can be a spy in his own country and shot as such. if he was wearing a uniform, he would have more protection; as during WWII the polish liberation army, who was still fighting, allthough they had lost their country to germany and the ussr, wore uniform and was recognized by the germans as regular army.
international law is fun, until WWI it even provided for retaliation against civilians. for every soldier killed by spies/saboteurs/terrorists 10 civilians could be shot, but only 10, if you shot 11, it is a war crime. the german army used to make use of that provision and shot civillians after terrorattacks on the wehrmacht in WWII.

genius, i would really like to see a quote from the geneva convention allowing that.
until then i highly doubt your comments.

__________________

Same here.

And as i said earlier, you cannot be a "spy" inside your own country. Especcially in an occupied country.

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

@Genius:
Btw,
???
Uh, what´s the point of capturing a man, after being shot??
Don´t you mean the other way around?

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

@ lulu -- Nice to see you again. I've [almost] always enjoyed reading your posts over on the old forum. Welcome to the new forum. For the record, I have to agree totally with what you said to SwamP_ThinG there.

Yes, it's true. I have no doubt about that. They never even denied it (it was wise of them not to even attempt to) and they claim to have totally discontinued the practice now. I hope they have.

When I was in Vietnam the Special Forces units used to keep a friggin' fishbowl full of dexedrine capsules available for anybody that felt they needed them - they always kept the fishbowls next to the coffee urns in the communal mess hall. So far as I know personally, this was only done in Special Forces, Ranger and other long-range (behind the lines) reconnaisance units. I imagine that pilots in air units were offered them too, though I never actually asked. Some of the chopper pilots were notorious for regularly flying 15-20 hours straight without so much as a piss stop, which kind of makes you wonder. I really don't think that any other units dared offer those things openly like that, but they were always available on the black market. In fact you could buy any kind of drug you wanted just about anywhere over there. The North Vietnamese and the Vietcong always smoked opium right before a fight, to help them get their courage up. You could actually smell it drifting out of the jungle around you, and then you knew for sure that they were coming very soon. Opium apparently kills pain, too, and they could get hit by bullets several times and hardly seem to even notice it.

I'll admit I sometimes helped myself to some of those bennies, especially when I knew I was going to be out in some remote and particularly nasty area for an extended period of time. You really had to be on your toes all the time on LRRP patrols. I can recall being so high on them on one particular snatch-and grab patrol (we went out to take a few prisoners alive and bring them back for the intelligence boys to play with) that while laying under a poncho alongside a Vietcong trail for about a day and a half it seemed to me that my senses were so heightened that I could actually count the number of mosquito's swarming around my head in the dark just by listening very carefully and sorting out each different insect's unique little buzz just by ear alone. Yowza. Of course I may have just been getting psychotic as hell from lack of sleep, which is exactly what happens to you if you take those things for too long.

I really don't think it's particularly wise to have combat pilots taking them - or anybody else for that matter, especially for an extended period of time. Genuine sleep-deprivation induced psychosis is never more than "one benny too many" away, they say (and they're right).

@ SwamP_ThinG

Maybe for the intelligence she might ultimately provide? Maybe as a hostage? Maybe as a bargaining chip to trade for their own prisoners eventually? Maybe just to fuck her to death later? Who knows? Maybe they were just nice guys, following the rules. I was not there, so I really can't tell you.

I do know that the Iraqi's there on the scene at the time have repeatedly credited the hospital staff with saving her life, in more ways than one, because they told the Iraqi soldiers she was too badly injured to be moved without killing her.

So...you would get out of your tank while they are firing RPG's at you, just to move a corpse? If the guy on the ground couldn't move his own head he must have already been dead, or very near it, right? What would be the point?

Do you actually have some specific proof to offer of this ever happening intentionally in Iraq? If you're going to point to that picture that I posted, well, those two guys were actually killed by a bomb from an aircraft that was striking a nearby target, while they were waiting to surrender to any US troops that they saw coming. They just never actually got a chance to, I guess, before the bomb hit nearby, decapitating them both instantly.

I don't know about you, but I'd expect a chicken truck to be full of chickens, myself. Wouldn't you?

Is there? How so?

The Iraqi's are notorious for fabricating, and for believing any rumor that makes them look good and us look bad. If you believe their blogs why don't you believe our blogs as well? Are you biased toward the one over the other or something?

No. Actually I did not know that. I thought you were from Spain for some reason. My bad. I stand corrected, and I apologize for my mistake.

As I said above; it was my mistake, and you have my apology. I retract my derisive jab, and I shall feel just as sorry for you as I do for us from here on out.

Great. Then you can report the real "truth" about everything that's going on over there back to all of us here, when you get there. We'll be looking forward to seeing if your current views are changed in any way by the actual experience. I'd be willing to bet my very last dime that they most definitely will be.

I probably shouldn't, I suppose. The original source of the article was the front page of Al Jazeera after all...and we all know they're nothing but a filthy Islamic fundamentalist rag. Right?

I do believe it tho, because our own news media carried the video of the Mayor's of Falluja's statement on the news here, too.

I agree.

The point is that we could easily have killed 100,000 and wounded a million, if we'd wanted to. In fact, we could kill them all, every man woman and child. But we haven't. We have tried to minimize casualties whenever possible.

I might point out that in Vietman we killed 1,100,000 and wounded more than 600,000. Just to give you some sense of proportion there...

I would not bet on that.

Mafkarat al-Islam’s correspondent in al-Fallujah reports that for more than 10 days the Resistance fighters in the besieged city have been remarking about a phenomenon that they find strange and surprising.

Resistance fighters have frequently noticed that many of the American aggressor troops are laughing as they storm into districts in al-Fallujah.

The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent personally witnessed this clearly when he was close to the events as US aggressors tried to storm an-Nizal neighborhood in the besieged city on Saturday.

The correspondent wrote that he saw two American soldiers laughing, such as to arouse pity for them, despite all the Resistance gunfire being poured at their position and their comrades dying around them.

__________________

[QUOTE=Aether]I would not bet on that.

Mafkarat al-Islam’s correspondent in al-Fallujah reports that for more than 10 days the Resistance fighters in the besieged city have been remarking about a phenomenon that they find strange and surprising.

Resistance fighters have frequently noticed that many of the American aggressor troops are laughing as they storm into districts in al-Fallujah.

The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent personally witnessed this clearly when he was close to the events as US aggressors tried to storm an-Nizal neighborhood in the besieged city on Saturday.

The correspondent wrote that he saw two American soldiers laughing, such as to arouse pity for them, despite all the Resistance gunfire being poured at their position and their comrades dying around them.

__________________

Laughing in the face of adversity or danger is really not all that unusual for soldiers in combat, and it's hardly unique to just US troops. I've seen similar behavior myself, many times, and it had nothing at all to do with drugs, other than the pure adrenalin rush you always get during combat, perhaps. It's more a cowboy sort of thing, if you know what I mean, like the famous southern "Rebel Yell".

Benzedrine isn't a "euphoric" anyway - it's just a very powerful stimulant - it's pure speed. You don't really feel like laughing when you're taking it. You just get super-intensely focused on whatever it is you're doing, and you seem to possess a virtually limitless energy.

More typical "symptoms" would be not eating, not sleeping, not shitting or pissing but once every 12-24 hours or so, and appearing to be wide-eyed and hyper-alert ALL the time.

Precisely. And that´s why that iraqi should have been given similar chance.
Both were wounded, while fighting on opposite sides. But only one got "executed". Guess wich one?

Precisely. If the iraqis who captured her, or any others for that matter, wanted her dead, all they needed was to simply "move her". But they didn´t.

And just how do you know they were being fired on? Any secret source you have there? And even if they were, how much is necessary to swirve 2 feet out of the way? Especcially since the man was on the "sidewalk", practically. You should pay more attention to the data being presented.

Well, then why did you bother to post it in the first place, if not to cause shock and awe (pardon my expression)?
Btw, just how you figured that it was a bomb? There´s no crater in sight, in the photo, so how do you figure that? By the dust covering the bodies, maybe? Or do you know something about it that i don´t?

Preciselly again. So why would the US Army fire at a truck full of chickens, mmm? Maybe they were short of meat in the galley?
Yes the back of the truck was filled with hundreds of chickens, while the cabin was packed with 3 adult males, 2 adult women, and 3 children. Two men, 1 woman, and 2 children were killed in that checkpoint. The story ran the media, a while back. They found no weapons, although the soldiers claimed to have been fired upon from that truck. I´ll see if i can digg it up again.

Is that so? What ever gave you that idea?
Yeah, i guess they are a bunch of ignorant Pinocchios, n´ést pas? Better disregard them all, then. Even those who claim Saddam was a bad man! After all, acording to you they are ALL gulible liars...
Who´s to say the people who accused him weren´t "fabricating" it too?


No problem. I just wanted to remember you that Spain also has troops in Iraq aswell (at least for a few more weeks or days). So, even if you thought i was from Spain, you were mistaken about them not being there already too.
But i do understand your confusion. There are many in the US and world wide(except Europe, due to obvious reasons), that think Portugal is a spanish province. Just the other day i heard such an abomination on CNN!
Baah, we´ve learned to live with it...


If i get the chance, and i find an Internet cafe over there, i will write my memoires.Assuming, of course, everything goes acording to plan. There are many ways to fuck up my trip over there, all of them quite possible.
But i doubt i will change my basic views. I might change on a point or two, but i wouldn´t count on any 180º degree turns.


Contrary to the general belief, i don´t make out Al Jazzerah to be some flawless and unbiased network. I know they are not. However, even if that statement had came from the Bible itself, some sanctuary of wisdom and truth,or came out a fortune cookie, i still wouldn´t give it much credit.
I judge things by myself, not by the opinions of others. "Non sequitor", that´s my motto.
If you say the presence of "better" or "worst" troops on the ground is a factor, amongst dozens of other factors, i would agree. But, if you claim that it was the sole factor, then that is pure simple mindedness.
I suppose you think the power cuts, the bombings, the insecurity, the crime rampage, the hunger, the lack of hospitals and all that, were not a factor, right?
Btw, if you think having "hard ass" troops or not is the main cause for them timming their rebellion, how do you explain Basra? The troops there have been the same ever since the conflict started (the british), so how do you explain the recent uprisals? There wasn´t any change on troop capacity there. And Najaf? Or Mossul? Or As-Sadr City?

I disagree. Although i am pretty shure there wasn´t any institutionalized intention of targeting civilians, i do believe a lot of casualties could and should have been avoided. I will give you the example of a small town , where the population was killed in their beds .
Check these other stories out aswell:

US TROOPS ADMIT SHOOTING IRAQI CIVILIANS

US Marines Turn Fire on Civilians at the Bridge of Death

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0401-04.htm

Btw, and how about journalists? Do you think the US Army has been trying to minimize casualties there too? How do you explain the bombing of the Al-Jazeerah, and Al Arabyia offices in Baghdad? And the shooting of the Palestine Hotel, where the spanish Jose Couso and a ukranian camaramen died? Was that "necessary" to the war effort?

Vietnam war killed more than it wounded? Sounds crazy. Could be true, but it sounds crazy just the same. Usually a war causes more wounded thal deaths.
Also, you must know for shure that the first years of the Vietnam war were just like Iraq today. And then is escalated, just like what is happening now to Iraq. Given enough time, maybe you can break that record.
Just for the record, what do you think was the US policy towards civilians in Vietnam? Where do you stand on that one? Were they/you trying to "minimize civilian casualties" there?

PS:Check the "draft" thread. I´ve got something for you there.

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.