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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sig who wrote (123929)	1/29/2004 3:37:22 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Sig; Nice to see that you're finally coming around to the fact that there were no WMDs. I wonder how it will play in November, LOL. Re: "If the UN Inspectors had finally given Saddam a clean bill of health what would have happened to the no-fly zones.?" No real difference. Because of domestic political considerations (i.e. Nadine), the US pursues a policy of doing what Israel wants in the Middle East. The US would probably have continued the no fly zones, which were associated not with the WMD threat, but instead with Saddam's repression. Of course, now that Saddam is gone, it is US soldiers who have to do the repression. Re: "To the underground prisons and torture cells?" These would have remained as well. By the way, do you know whether the prisons where the US is currently housing so many thousands of Iraqis are underground or above ground? I would think that we would just take over Saddam's prisons and use them for our own ends. And as long as you're going on and on about what an evil empire Saddam ran, here's a reminder on the subject. Note that when their guys do it it's calld "torture", when our guys do it it's called "beating" or some other toned down word: West says he tried to protect his troops A senior U.S. officer charged with threatening to kill an Iraqi detainee testified yesterday that he allowed soldiers to beat a suspect and that he fired a gun near the man's head, but not at him, to save his troops from harm. ... washingtontimes.com US soldiers sent home for beating prisoners of war Three American soldiers have been discharged after being found guilty of viciously beating and harassing Iraqi prisoners of war, some of whom were already injured, a US military spokesman said last night. Master Sergeant Lisa Girman, 35, was the most senior person in charge during the incident at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. She knocked a prisoner to the ground and repeatedly kicked him in the groin, abdomen and head, encouraging subordinate soldiers to do the same. Another of the three, Scott McKenzie, 38, dragged a prisoner by his arms across the ground and, holding his legs apart, encouraged soldiers to kick him in the groin, abdomen and head. McKenzie then threw the prisoner to the ground and stepped on his injured arm. Timothy Canjar, 21, held a prisoner's legs apart while others kicked him in the groin, and violently twisted his already injured arm. ... guardian.co.uk Fox News report on same subject: foxnews.com Another incident: usatoday.com These are just the incidents that resulted in someone getting punished. As with Vietnam, as time goes on, the quality of the people we have in Iraq will drop, and the excursions from military law will become more frequent. The drop in quality is already heralded by the stories of cooks and typists being retrained as combat infantry, while civilians take over the cook and typing jobs. The sad fact is that few people make good combat soldiers, and the Army, with its psychological and physical testing, already took the cream off the top. The cooks and typists are not who you want to be out there getting shot at. I know that the US Army is not equivalent to Saddam's government. But our presence in Iraq is slowly making our soldiers that way. How long before the war heads start arguing that we're losing the war in Iraq because we're being too soft on the Iraqis? -- Carl

To: Sig who wrote (123929)	1/30/2004 1:41:36 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

<the underground prisons and torture cells...> ...are all still in business. Still full of prisoners. And still run by the same people, since the U.S. has put Saddam's torturers on the payroll of Operation Iraqi Freedom. We fired just about everyone else. What particular skills do you think Saddam's secret police have, that we hire them, while firing everyone else? The U.S. has now admitted to killing prisoners, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And nobody has been brought to justice. Just like under Saddam.