Tell you what: Let’s not use the ‘‘stress of combat’’ excuse this time.

[bigtree]

Lurching into ludicrous in the Iraq ‘war on terror’

By Molly Ivins - 06/06/2006
http://www.montanastandard.com/articles/2006/06/06/newsopinion/hjjdjdjdjbjijj.txt

AUSTIN, Texas — So, Haditha becomes another of the names at which we wince, along with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and My Lai.

Tell you what: Let’s not use the ‘‘stress of combat’’ excuse this time. According to neighbors, the girls in the family of Younis Khafif — the one who kept pleading in English: ‘‘I am a friend. I am good’’ — were 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1. What are they going to say? ‘‘Under stress of combat, we thought the baby was 2’’?

‘‘We have a Haditha every day,’’ said Muhanned Jasim, an Iraqi merchant. ‘‘Were (those killed in Haditha) the first Iraqis to be killed for no reason?’’ asked Ghasan Jayih, a pharmacist.

Well no, but we Americans don’t count collateral damage unless we’re forced to. We prefer to ignore collateral damage, especially if they’re under 5.

article: http://www.montanastandard.com/articles/2006/06/06/newsopinion/hjjdjdjdjbjijj.txt

[acmavm]

1. Americans are turning into the most expendable nation on

this planet. We do very damn little of any benefit and a whole hell of a lot that causes irreparable damage.

[Minnesota Libra]

2. I didn't realize until recently that there are other "security forces"....

.....running around Iraq looking very much like "US Military" but who are in fact no our "Military" at all. They are "mercenaries", "private security forces" (or insert preferred term here). So I'm not completely convinced as yet that our own "US Military" are the ones doing all this. BTW, keep in mind that desert camouflage is available on almost any street corner in America so the appearance of camouflage uniforms isn't absolute proof that we're dealing with rouge members of our own "Military".

[treestar]

6. That could be, though we probably have something to do with

their being there, I would assume.

It could be hard to prove against them, anyway. But one of the witnesses was a Marine. But he'd have to have known the people personally.

It could have been an unfortunate accident, too.

It will probably be hard to ever really know. The massacres in Palestine are argued about over and over and sometimes it is claimed they were not "massacres" and you can drown in details by partisan sides until you don't know what happened.

[msongs]

8. it could have been albino dwarfs from the north pole too nt

[treestar]

11. It could have been Al Qaeda - though I wonder if they would be

sharp enough to pull it off - well, then again, they did pull of 911.

:tinfoilhat:

[bigtree]

9. sheez, why should anyone ignore the elephant in the room?

The bombing raids, the search and destroy missions, the stunts where they would go out and shoot into buildings to draw fire, the checkpoints restricting free movement of a supposedly free people . . . all of these are U.S. responsibility.

And, let's not forget who supports, supplies, and often directs these Iraqi units which devolve into these 'rouge' militias.

The notion that our forces and commanders are detached from the killings is ludicrous. You want to make some fine point of distraction from the complicity our forces? Our military doesn't even count Iraqi casualties. How much do you think they consider the 'collateral' effects of their actions as they pursue their dominating ambitions?

[rodeodance]

3. I do not see it as an excuse--but it is a factor.---Murtha has said the

same--as have others.

[kittenpants]

7. I agree w/ you that it's a factor & have said so in other posts...

but it annoys me when news anchors try to "justify" these atrocities by pointing out how much stress the soldiers are under (for instance, as they did on CNN this morning). Why don't they point out how much stress the 'insurgents' are under having had their country invaded, their livelyhoods disrupted, their families killed...? I don't support either side's indiscriminate slaughter, but why do they only feel the need to humanize the murderers on our side?

[bigtree]

10. very good, kittenpants

well said.

[LostinVA]

4. I agree with Molly 100% n/t

[treestar]

5. We just have this psycho issue that our lives mean more than the

lives on those not Amurkan.

Or, at least, the freeper-types do.