Hi Ira Player; Re: "You are of the group with a mindset that would have vaccines banned because 1 in 1,000,000 have a negative reactions. Forget the benefit to the many. Forget the number that would die without the vaccine. Point to the relatively few negatives from a positive event and exploit it."
While I do not agree much with Raymond Duray, let me point out some flaws in your analogy. First, the benefits of vaccination are very obvious to all. The benefits of the continuing US occupation of Iraq are so difficult to discern that the majority of the Iraqi people wish it to end immediately, and the American people are also slowly changing their mind on it. Second, we only have 140,000 troops in all of Iraq, and six just lost their jobs for torturing prisoners. The "bad apple" rate, just for that single problem, is therefore about 40 per 1,000,000. That's 40x worse than the "1 in 1,000,000" vaccine problem you quote. But despite the fact that the fatality rate for small pox vaccination is far less than 1 in 1,000,000 it is still considered too unsafe to use in the general public.
I don't think your vaccine analogy is very apt for the Iraq situation. IN EVERY SINGLE GUERILLA WAR EVER FOUGHT, BOTH SIDES COMMITTED STUFF FAR WORSE THAN WHAT IS SHOWN IN THOSE PICTURES. What you saw was only what was (a) photographed, (b) reported to the authorities, and (c) not suppressed by those authorities. People don't photograph stuff that they consider criminal, so these photographs are very limited. Most of this sort of photograph are going to be kept secret by the people who took them. For us to see them, someone has to report them to the authorities. And those authorities have to do something about it, but it's now clear that the order to do this (i.e. to humiliate Iraqis in order to "break them down" so that information could be obtained from them) came from above. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski has been suspended from his position over this. For those who don't know, a "Brigadier General" is an officer who typically leads several thousand men.
We have 140,000 troops in Iraq, and 7 have been suspended for this, (so far). As far as rates go, that's about a 40 per 1,000,000 rate. This is far worse than the approximate 1 per 1,000,000 rate that small pox vaccines kill people. But we have only seen the beginning. God knows how many troops are involved in this sort of thing.
Some time ago, I posted, on this thread, that it was likely that at least one US soldier was deliberately killing unarmed civilians in Falloujah. (See #reply-20033760 for the numbers.) This sort of thing is inevitable because of the psychological factors of human beings in the extreme situation of combat, and the large number of troops that we have there. These guys didn't take photographs, but other soldiers know what they did, and eventually, like with the sexual humiliation of Iraqis, the truth will probably come out.
I'm not blaming our troops for doing these things. This sort of behavior HAS ALWAYS BEEN PRESENT IN EVERY GUERILLA WAR EVER FOUGHT ON THIS PLANET FOR THE PAST FOUR THOUSAND YEARS. We Americans are only human. If we are cut, do we not bleed? Of course our soldiers are only human, and suffer the limitations of human frailty. Instead, I blame our leadership for putting our soldiers into a position where this sort of thing would happen, in return for no military, economic, political advantage, and for no advantage in the "war on terror".
And I'm not saying that Bush ordered our troops to commit these crimes, per se. In fact, I think Bush is a God fearing man who is shocked and outraged as much as anyone by these photos. What I'm saying is that Bush knows so little of the extensive history of guerilla wars on this planet that he was taken by surprise when this showed up.
Of course I am angry at the troops that did this, but I have even more anger for their chain of command. This sort of thing can be minimized by making it very clear to the soldiers that they will obey not just the letter of the Geneva Convention, but also the spirit. This is something that HAS NOT BEEN DONE. Instead, we have repeatedly read rumors about all kinds of degradation and humiliation (without the pictures to prove it, so far), taking place even at Guantanamo, thousands of miles from the fighting, and now this.
-- Carl |
