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

To: Ilaine who wrote (131163)	5/3/2004 2:54:21 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

is it only during wars that you disapprove of that this type of thing is inevitable? quote.wikipedia.org

To: Ilaine who wrote (131163)	5/4/2004 1:37:31 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi CobaltBlue; Re: "... did British soldiers sexually abuse prisoners during WWII ..." No, as far as I know. The difference is that this is a guerilla war. Guerilla wars are well known for being nasty. What's changed is that the people that we once would have physically tortured and secretly murdered, we now just humiliate. In some ways, those pictures you saw were an "improvement" over the state of the art in treating prisoners during a guerilla war. And don't be shy, it will eventually come out that this sort of thing was going on in pretty much every prison run by the US. Our military runs things by the book, and eventually that book is going to be leaked. I wonder if you would have still been so gung-ho for this war if you'd have known that this war was going to destroy our President's crediblity and the honor of our nation's military, before handing us a bloody defeat. Re: "... and/or the war in Kosovo?" Kosovo had two parts. There was an air war and a peace keeping mission. There really wasn't much of a guerilla war there. How many of our guys got killed in Kosovo? It was negligible. Re: "In other words, is it only during wars that you disapprove of that this type of thing is inevitable?" This is an interesting question. In general, antiguerilla wars are nasty things. The gruesome or disgusting activities tend to show up when you're fighting a war against guerillas who have strong backing by the civilian population. If the backing is weak, then you let the local population form their own security forces and you keep your hands clean. Wars of this nature are a lot more often won. So when ever you get yourself into an unwinnable guerilla war, you can expect to see this kind of thing. Remember the phrase "zippo inspection"? But there are many reasons for disapproving of a war. I didn't approve of our use of air power in Kosovo. -- Carl