Subject:
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Re: Outrageous Iraqi Geneva Convention Violation
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 25 Mar 2003 18:13:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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519 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys writes:
> > That said, you expounding loudly that Iraq has broken Geneva conventions of
> > war and ain't that a bad thing!!! when your side did same tells me that you
> > turn a blind eye to your side.
>
> Please cite because I don't know what you are talking about.
> >
> > So again, take your head out of the sand, John. "They" are not totally
> > "black" and you're not totally "White"--there *are* shades of gray. Can we
> > still fight for justice even though we're not pure? Of course we can.
> > Should they be accountable for their actions? Absolutely.
>
> That said, what's your point??? I never said we were perfect-- you implied
> that I said that. Okay, how about this: Saddam was black, and we are light
> gray...:-) All I am saying is that we have high ideals and attempt to
> act with
> honor and dignity. Of course we fail. But acting as such is never a part of
> strategy.
>
> Yeah, we fight to win, but we have the luxury of knowing that victory is
> *certain*. So it doesn't have to be at any cost. There is a code of
> ethics on
> the battlefield for the US. That is how our military is trained. Heck, even
> the Iraqi army recognizes this. How else would such "ruses" even work against
> us?
>
> But victory over the Iraqi resistance isn't the objective. It is the means to
> an end, which is the liberation of the Iraqi people from a repressive and evil
> regime. We are only fighting those who resist and defend SH's regime.
> The sad
> part is that there are many Iraqi soldiers who have been led to believe that
> they are fighting to defend Iraqi soil, which is honorable. But we don't want
> their soil, oil, or spoil. We want a strong, free, democratic Iraq.
The US is mostly good (light grey) and the SH regime is almost completely
bad (I can't think of anything good about it at the moment, but maybe there
is somewhere some bureaucrat within it doing good).
The Geneva convention has been mostly honored by us... (when we choose to
recognise our adversaries people/troops as formal belligerents.) In those
cases where it has not been honored by us after we said we would, we have a
good track record of locating and punishing transgressors.
Time and time again, though, our adversaries have trampled the Geneva
Convention. (not all adversaries, not all the time, but there's a pattern
there) See http://www.tacitus.org just now (and search for la belle geneva,
I'm not sure how to do a permalink there) for a recap... Perhaps it's the
nature of the regimes we tend to go up against... for the most part, quite
evil/malevolent regimes (at the time... sometimes reformed later, sometimes
seemingly reformed, sometimes still not)
Where we go off the rails, though, is when we start to say "the Geneva
Convention doesn't apply in situation X"... Our argument that we are good
guys is diluted, in my view, when we treat enemy combatants as non soldiers
and hold that they are not subject to the same rules.
Rich Lowry makes the case for different treatment here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry012902.shtml It's a pretty
convincing case but I'm not convinced. We have to win fair and square, I
think. If we (as a nation) torture or mistreat suspected terrorists, we have
stooped to their level. That doesn't mean we can't respond to violence with
violence, but we have to omit reprisals and inhumane treatment and
indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
Hence while I agree with John's sentiments (those who constantly point out
our faults as a way to say we are all wrong, instead of as something that
needs to be corrected, are no friends...) I disagree with his assessment in
this instance. Our case in the international court of world opinion is
greatly weakened by Guantanamo Bay, and there is not much that can be done
about it now.
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Outrageous Iraqi Geneva Convention Violation
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| (...) I am not saying we are all wrong -- we certainly do a lot of pointless, stupid, shallow things though. Pointing out those flaws is in my view being a good american because my point is the improvement of our circumstances. I have lost all hope (...) (21 years ago, 25-Mar-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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