US Troops Kill Son of Iraqi Governor

uh... sorry...

rtdrury July 21st, 2008 7:06 pm

"Just look at the US democracy - almost completely destroyed - how did this happen?"

I put ALL the blame on the repusakin and demorat parties. The RNC and the DNC are no longer interested in you, they are ONLY interested in "POWER TO THE PARTY", and FUCK the USA. Why do you think congresses approval rating is lower than bushies, kind of hard to do wouldn't you say unless they don't give a flying fuck about the voters. Just look at who we are stuck with for president. It's the RNC-DNC system. If we could somehow elect independents to congress the RNC and DNC would loose most of their power and we just might get our democracy back.

Some Vietnamese history from The Pentagon Papers:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent11.htm

"President Eisenhower is widely quoted to the effect that in 1954 as many as 80% of the Vietnamese people would have voted for Ho Chi Minh, as the popular hero of their liberation, in an election against Bao Dai."

wolf123 July 21st, 2008 3:14 pm

I live in Shanghai, where I first read this site and posted. I need to practice English, and CommonDreams has good articles. I travel a lot for business; while in hotels, I can read and post whatever I please, as I said, in India, South America, Europe, China. Following so far ?

"HOW much freedom in the www would you have to post? Like almost ZERO. By your asinine statement it is apparent YOU have not been in China in a very long time. Try posting about China (in China) what you post so freely about the US on this site and see how many years you will spend in a Chinese prison".

I was there three months ago. You are clearly clueless about China; you are probably one of those right-wing Americans that thinks Hugo Chavez is a 'dictator' and that Ahmadinejad wants to 'nuke' Israel. American 'News' is the worst I have seen in all my travels. You probably live in Alabama and have never seen another country except for a military base or war.

In China, you can say almost anything about politics; I frequently argue on websites that we need to use less coal and more solar and wind power, that not enough money is spent on research into new engineering areas, that too many American Treasury securities are tying up China's wealth. There is a healthy debate about economics, politics, the direction of the country: you just can't call for an overthrow of the government, as some have, and been arrested for. Same in America: you cannot call for assassinating Bush, or overthrowing the government. Wake up and look in the mirror, American fascist.

Learn to speak Chinese, then knock yourself out: post whatever you want, argue with Chinese, they would love to hear an ignorant, militant American :-)

http://www.sina.com.cn/

You realize China has moved on since Chairman Mao ?
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5162b8d90100a7z5.html

"Unless you have never studied the history of Europe let me enlighten you, in 1939 a man called Hitler started a war by 1941 except for Switzerland all of Europe was ruled by him or his buddies. NOW in your wildest fantasies do you really think you would have as much freedom to post on the www as you do now in socialist Europe under the nazis?"

What's your *point* ?
That History could have turned out differently ?
Yes, the Cuban missile crisis could have lead to a nuclear war between the American hawks and the Soviet Union hawks. You would not be here now, posting ignorant babblings.

"My post was to citizen1 who by other posts made by him/her it appeared he/she lived in the US.
AGAIN you "progressives" put up strawmen to try and make your blatantly absurd statements sound believable."

Ahhh. Then "So many brave men and women have given their lives so you have the freedom to post your blatant nonsense." applies only to Americans, in America ?
Most other countries in the world just let people post what they want, but in America, some military people had to kill and be killed to 'win' that 'freedom'. Always about the 'freedom' with you people. I see.

Not really. I still have no idea what you are talking about.

realist928: "I don't see us over there creating these types of situations (killing innocent civilians by direction)"

Terrorists deliberately target civilians to combat imperialists while imperialists target oil and other levers of domination/control, while claiming to target terrorists/dictators. We can't criticize the terrorists without also criticizing the imperialists because the imperialists initiated the conflict. End the imperialism, then we might be able to justify helping other societies with their problems, but only under a worldwide concensus. This was part of the common sense swept under the imperial rug. What were Americans thinking? (probably dreaming about their next McMansion)

wolf123, in Vietnam, throughout the cold war, and right up to and including Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan today, for the USA at least, expanding democracy has always been a pretext behind the real agenda to expand capitalism, along with the imperialist, militarist and zionist agendas. We're so sick of this diabolical masquerade we could puke. Just look at the US democracy - almost completely destroyed - how did this happen?

wolf123, Sorry, again your lack of historical knowledge and belief in myths is almost unbelievable. Your use of strawmen to bolster your argument of twisted logic knows no bounds.

All of your 'evidence' comes from one man, Dennis Simon, who works for the very conservative Southern Methodist U. Wouldn't all the resources of our intelligence (The Pentagon Papers) be more accurate?

The Pentagon Papers said we must prevent the election we had agreed to because it was obvious Ho Chi Minh would easily win over 80% of the vote. Therefore, we were preventing DEMOCRACY!!!!!
democracy
1: a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can freely elect people to represent them.
Which part of DEMOCRACY are you having trouble understanding?

Also, if there is to be democracy in Iraq, then the occupying Americans must get out because the vast majority of the people want us out. They also do not want 58 permanent bases nor for the Big Five western oil corporations to take their resources.

Jan: "Well the US was completely in the WRONG in Vietnam"

Yes but we don't discuss much why the US was wrong in Vietnam. Beyond the ethical and legal it was ideologically wrong because socialism benefits people and those controlling the US government knew it. They knew it then and they know it now. They can't have their hierarchical wealth mal-distribution in a socialist society. So they invaded Vietnam. It's important to elevate the capitalist/socialist clash in the current discussions cuz the capitalist beast thinks it won the fight while we intend to cage it here shortly.

Keith July 21st, 2008 4:17 pm

"the division into North and South Vietnam was temporary until there could be an election reuniting them. The US agreed to this."

Sorry, again your lack of historical knowledge and belief in myths is almost unbelievable. Your use of strawmen to bolster your argument of twisted logic knows no bounds.

http://faculty.smu.edu/dsimon/Change-Viet.html

In July of 1954, a conference was convened in Geneva in an attempt to resolve the problems in Indochina. Although an agreement was reached, its provisions were quickly violated and the plan never came to fruition. The agreement reached on the 20th and 21st of July included:

(1) the nation of Vietnam was guaranteed its independence
(2) national elections, under international supervision, would be held two years hence (July 1956)
(3) in the interim period, Vietnam would be divided at the 17th Parallel(just to the north of Hue on the map). Control of the north would be held by the Viet Minh forces led by Ho Chi Minh while control in the South would be held by forces who had fought with the French.

The United States disapproved of the agreement, did not sign the accord, and announced that it felt no obligation to abide by it. Instead, in September 1954, the United States became, along with Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand,
Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand, a member of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). This alliance was designed to resist the spread of communism in southeast Asia.

Thereafter, the situation evolved such that there were two Vietnams. The north defined itself as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. It became a communist regime led by Ho Chi Minh with its capital in Hanoi. The "southern" nation was called the Republic of Vietnam. It established its capital in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and was led by the French-educated Catholic, Ngo Dinh Diem.

The South refused to abide by the Geneva Conference that declared a Republic because, according to them, under Ho Chi Minh and his government, North Vietnamese people were not free to choose or to vote.

The United States recognized the sovereignty of South Vietnam, as did some eighty-seven other nations. Indeed, South Vietnam is a member of several special committees of the United Nations, and would have been a member of the United Nations itself had it not been for a Soviet veto in 1957 in retaliation for the United States not according full diplomatic recognition to North Vietnam.

1960 South Vietnam Communists and others attempt to overthrow Diem and unify Vietnam.
"North Vietnam wished to unify North and South Vietnam through
military force." (Kind of like North Korea wanted to unify all of Korea by force.)
The North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam, South Vietnam did not invade North Vietnam,
After reunification, political and economic conditions deteriorated to near-famine conditions. Millions of Vietnamese became boat people over the next two decades (tens of thousands became fish food).

"Over 3,200,000 Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans died in that prevention of democracy."

It is apparent YOU do not have the foggiest idea what the difference between democracy and communism is, let me enlighten you.

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
democracy
1: a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can freely elect people to represent them.

communism
1: a form of socialism that abolishes private ownership
2: a political theory favoring collectivism in a classless
society

So much for a history lesson on the Vietnam War now let us get back to what information led the US forces to go into the governors house. So far all I've read is (due to a sever lack of information in the article) conjecture and speculation and nonstop bashing of the US. Perhaps that is the reason the articles author gives no definitive information.

sandyk77, the entertainment media creates with its war stories a positive feedback that inflames militarism and hasn't been discussed much. We should probably watch it less but discuss it more. A future horror we may face is certain developing countries embracing that same feedback channel, inflaming militarism, nationalism, xenophobia, and fascism to challenge our own, on a new battlefield.

""As they entered the target building, coalition forces encountered two armed men. Perceiving hostile intent … they shot and killed the men."

Parsing out English 2.0 is always so interesting.

They "entered" the building. Note how innocuous that sounds. "To enter" omits any sense of soldiers in uniforms kicking in doors and waving around loaded weapons.

It was a "target building" which of course means that anything that happened inside, no matter how horrible in terms of lives lost, etc., was A-OK. It was a "target," see, and so it was, well, targeted. Collateral damage and all that.

The use of "coalition forces" instead of "American troops" allows us to maintain the illusion that this is the new WWII and we're still with the "Allies."

They encountered two armed men and perceived hostile intent. Well no shit Sherlock. Usually when well armed soldiers "enter" your "target building," they perceive hostile intent in the eyes of any of the folks thus targeted.

Too bad we USAmericans lost the ability to read between the lines back when we lost the ability to read, period. Our arrogant stupidity is going to end up costing us ALL a lot, sooner rather than later.

wolf123, the division into North and South Vietnam was temporary until there could be an election reuniting them. The US agreed to this. The Pentagon Papers said when our intelligence concluded that Ho Chi Minh would easily win over 80% of the vote, we prevented the election. The Pentagon Papers also say the 'domino theory' was not true. Over 3,200,000 Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans died in that prevention of democracy. You seem to think that it is perfectly all right to kill communists and then you refer to most posters to this site as communist.

Couldn't Iraqi insurgents say: "I simply punched the ticket on a few bastards (I know they were your friends) that were trying to (and eventually did) INVADE and OCCUPY the UN recognized sovereign nation of IRAQ. That's a war crime? According to the Geneva Conventions and the UN you committed the war crime."?

Demonstorm July 21st, 2008 12:28 am : That's it exactly.

Wow... the arrogance of Americans is running thick here today... Almost nauseating...

But anyways...

You'd think that so-called "American Intelligence" would know that the villa belonged to the governor.... yet they came storming on in, to find a couple of guys who were probably packing heat because, oh I don't know, the general lawlessness of Iraq and rampant kidnappings... instead of the Iraqi thugs they expected, they encountered American thugs instead and were killed for it.

Hu Jintao July 21st, 2008 9:00 am

If you lived in China instead of Europe HOW much freedom in the www would you have to post? Like almost ZERO. By your asinine statement it is apparent YOU have not been in China in a very long time. Try posting about China (in China) what you post so freely about the US on this site and see how many years you will spend in a Chinese prison.
Unless you have never studied the history of Europe let me enlighten you, in 1939 a man called Hitler started a war by 1941 except for Switzerland all of Europe was ruled by him or his buddies. NOW in your wildest fantasies do you really think you would have as much freedom to post on the www as you do now in socialist Europe under the nazis?
My post was to citizen1 who by other posts made by him/her it appeared he/she lived in the US.
AGAIN you "progressives" put up strawmen to try and make your blatantly absurd statements sound believable.

Jan July 21st, 2008 7:48 am

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/indoch/inch029.htm

Sorry but according to the Yale Law School Avalon Project and the book "The Vietnamese Boat People, 1954-1975 to 1992" The biggest diaspora in Vietnamese history occurred between 1975 and 1992, when more than two million people fled by boat to escape North Vietnam's oppressive communist regime. Before this well-known exodus from Vietnam's shores, however, there was a massive population shift within the country. In 1954, one million fled from north to south to escape, famine, and the communist land reform campaign.
YOUR buddies the communist North Vietnamese also INVADED South Vietnam the same as the US invaded Iraq. Actually the US made up some excuses for the invasion that's more than North Vietnam. After North Vietnam CONQUERED and OCCUPIED South Vietnam your commie buddies sent over 600,000 South Vietnamese to reeducation camps, less than 200,000 came out alive. I know in your myths and fantasies it was probably the food that did not agree with them that killed so many, it could not have been you commie buddies doing all that killing of unarmed civilians now could it?
If you had any reading comprehension ability and read what aldo July 20th, 2008 11:26 pm posted it appears he/she is threatening my life which I do not take lightly so I gave him/her a not so subtle warning.

Galen July 21st, 2008 4:39 am

"Thank you for admitting your Viet Nam War Crimes."

I simply punched the ticket on a few commie bastards (I know they were your friends) that were trying to (and eventually did) INVADE and OCCUPY the UN recognized sovereign nation of South Vietnam. That's a war crime? According to the Geneva Conventions and the UN your North Vietnamese buddies committed the war crime. What's good for the US in Iraq is good for the North Vietnamese in South Vietnam but then again you "progressives" have a duel standard, If the US does something (like invade a country) then FUCK the US but if your commie buddies do the same thing then it's OK with all of you after all you have to stick up for your buddies. If you think the "Homeland Security goons" are interested in me I would advise you to lay off for a while what ever it is you are smoking.

Now there you go again blaming poor old Rummy in your old and continuously proven false myths about Iraqi chemical weapons. I know it hurts you terribly to know that your commie buddies the Russians actually helped build the plants and supplied the dual use chemicals.
1971. Iraq begins chemical warfare research at Rashad to the north east of Baghdad. Research is conducted on a number of chemical agents including Mustard gas, CS (tear gas) and Tabun. Iraq starts biological warfare research in the mid-1970s with small-scale research, later with Soviet assistance a purpose-built research and development facility was authorized at al-Salman, also known as Salman Pak.
1980, September 22. The armed forces of Iraq launch an invasion against Iran. The Iraqi army, trained and influenced by Soviet advisers, has organic chemical warfare units and possesses a wide variety of Soviet delivery systems. When neither side achieves dominance, the war quickly stalemates. To stop the human-wave attacks by the Iranians, Iraq employs home-produced chemical agents as a defensive measure against the ill-prepared Iranians.
1982. Iraq also establishes Muthanna State Establishment, also known as al-Muthanna, and operated under the front name of Iraq's State Establishment for Pesticide Production. It has five research and development sections, each tasked to pursue different programs. In addition, the al-Muthanna site is the main chemical agent production facility, and took the lead in weaponizing chemical and biological agents--including all aspects of weapon development and testing in association with the military.

KEM PATRICK
I see you also have found that "Some people sure do have a serious reading comp problem here."

I look forward to other articles here on CD on solar power and other sources to generate electricity besides oil and have another lively intelligent conversation with you.

this is just another way of telling the iraqis that they must do exactly as we tell them to do, or we will start "breaking legs". this used to be called murder, but in the bush white house it's called "attitude adjustment". welcome to the fourth reich!

mu "deer" ~DAGA~ MY 2:45pm POST WAS THE ONLY POST I HAD MADE HERE, prior to replying to your condemming me. So I was well aware of what comment you were referring to.

How can you derive from that comment that I was condemmng the Iraqis? You must have a reading comprehension disability or perhaps you're brain damaged.

Where in your bullshit bibles does it say that when you are filthy rich and powerful, you shall go around the world to blast and blight your poorest neighbors?
_________________________________

I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it's somewhere in the Old Testament-- probably after the "begatting" part.

So many have had their lives destroyed by the US of Zionist of lies, warfare and corruption. The US of Z is the worlds number one terrorist organization. The worlds worst per capita carbon polluter. It has manufactured and dropped the most bombs. Clusterettes and daisy cutters, phosphorous, chemicals, defoliants a cluster bombs. Rockets and bullets, any target will do.

US of Z imprisons the greatest number of people , even in its own country. A nation full of gun worshipful prison guards, who have taken the Stanford prison experiment into their to hearts, with foreign imprisonment, torture and disappearance a specialty. A people with an unlimited capacity for duplicity and creation of wealth from the robbery of nature and peoples. It brooks no blame or responsibility. No adherence or notice of international law, whatever that is. The US of Z uses the UN as its toilet paper. The only nation to have knowingly used atomic weapons, let us never forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So these are the shining examples of the race of human beings, when they achieve great wealth and power, of what they will do to others. Where in your bullshit bibles does it say that when you are filthy rich and powerful, you shall go around the world to blast and blight your poorest neighbors? May the human race, and especially those in the US of Z who are ungrateful and rejecting Gaian bounty and responsibility be sent to damnation real soon now. May your poisons,bombs, radiactive wastes and nuclear warheads explode in your faces and burn your children.

EVERYONE in Iraq is armed..the USA insisted that this be included in their new laws, the RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS...to appear the NRA....so Every Iraqi is a now a legitimate target?

I would love to see US Police forces use that same Criteria in the USA "Fatherland"...would make "COPS" look like Tarantino flick

wolf123 July 20th, 2008 3:40 pm
"So many brave men and women have given their lives so you have the freedom to post your blatant nonsense."

You still haven't addressed the issue, Wolfie.

Sure, some Americans invented IP and TCP protocols. Well done. You can also thank the Chinese for inventing gunpowder so that your Colonial Army could fight the British more effectively than the Native Americans fought the Colonials.

But where does 'brave men and women have given their lives so you have the freedom to post' come into play for a Chinese person 'freely posting' in Europe ? And from China ? And from South America ? And from India ?

Again: people all over the planet have freedom to post their thoughts on the Web. *Which* brave men and women gave their lives for this ? Are you arguing the guys who worked on the initial ARPANET were killed for their research ?

Or are you arguing that American military men and women died so that Chinese people have the freedom to post ?

I'd like to hear your convoluted logic on that one :-)

wolf123 July 21st, 2008 4:23 am said:

"Just to give you a heads up if you are threatening my life, in Nam I had 178 confirmed VC and NVA kills in 1 year. I may be an old fat fucker but I can still put around between your eyes at 275 meters."

Well the US was completely in the WRONG in Vietnam. Ike wrote in his memoirs that the U.S. did not allow the elections promised after the French withdrew because 80% of South Vietnam would have voted for Ho Chi Minh. Ho led the resistance against the Japanese and the US should have kept backing Ho the way they did against the Japanese. The vast majority of the Vietnamese wanted the US to stop imposing itself and let Vietnam be for the majority of Vietnamese. Your kills are part of the total WRONG - If I were you, I would never boast of having killed even a fly to prevent the vast majority in Vietnam from expessing their legitimate will to be free from French and then American domination. Why do you bother writing on this site?

mu dear Kem-P
I was commenting on your July 20th, 2008 2:45 pm-comment.

If you have said something different elsewhere or on other occations is irrelevant. Maybe you should make up your own mind b4 you write anything further.

~DAGA~ What I wrote was, if anyone busted into my home, there would be gunfire and I always try to fire first when in a fire fight.

I was not condeming the Iraqis in any way whatsoever. I do not believe we should be in Iraq at all, period. And I have said so about 200 times here on different threads. Some people sure do have a serious reading comp problem here.

Wolf123 - Thank you for admitting your Viet Nam War Crimes. Your boast that you can still make a head shot at 275 meters should get the Homeland Security goons interested in you. They monitor sites like this just to catch assholes like you.

And the problems in Iraq right now are the result of the ILLEGAL US invasion and occupation of that country, in violation of the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, both of which the US is signatory to. Prior to the invasion, Iraq was a functional society with hospitals, power stations and women free to leave the house without a male escort. Bravo. The US has smashed a functional Western style country in the Middle East into complete ruin.

Oh, and BTW, Saddam was given the chemical weapons he used against the Kurds and Iran by the US. The approved salesman was DONALD RUMSFELD.

Go ask your buddy Rush for some more 'Hill-billy Heroin'.

Idiot.

Hu Jintao July 21st, 2008 1:40 am

Your post shows your absolute, complete and total lack of knowledge about the internet.

'Really, who should I be thank for this privilege to use the *World Wide* Web ?'

http://www.tech-faq.com/who-invented-internet.shtml

"Despite what he may have said, Al Gore did not invent the Internet. The Internet was invented in the United States during the late 1950s to the 1970s by a group of researchers and scientists at the newly formed Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) after the former Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Realizing that the United States had suffered a great technological blow by allowing the USSR to hold the first successful satellite launch, ARPA set out to create a brand new technology unlike anything that had ever been done before; and the Internet was the result of their hard work."

So thank the USA, and why praise jesus, HE had absolutely nothing to do with the internet and the rest of your babbling rant makes about as much sense as my 18 month old granddaughters babbling.

Demonstorm July 21st, 2008 12:28 am
"invading another country is the "supreme war crime,"

So why have you not complained about the Chinese invasion murder and ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Tibetans, Thats right ONLY white people can be racist and only the US can be guilty of war crimes. THE PROGRESSIVE RANT.

rumiluv July 20th, 2008 10:47 pm

Well if you read a newspaper you would know that among other reasons many obviously wrong, was the consensus of the intellegence agencies of 9 countries that Saddam had WMD's (NOT NUKES) but bio and chemical. We know he did at one time because there are thousands of dead Kurds and Iranians to prove it. What happened to them, I don't know, but we also went into Iraq to LIBERATE the Kurds (who are extremely grateful to us) and the Shia who feel their manhood has been tarnished because an infidel army had to do what they could not. As far as STEALING their oil, I'm paying over $4.10 a gallon for regular gas, WHERE THE FUCKING HELL IS ALL THAT STOLEN OIL???????

aldo July 20th, 2008 11:26 pm

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??? You make even less sense than Hu Jintao. Just to give you a heads up if you are threatening my life, in Nam I had 178 confirmed VC and NVA kills in 1 year. I may be an old fat fucker but I can still put around between your eyes at 275 meters.

Keith July 20th, 2008 11:28 pm

"They don't have any jobs, any money, any clean water, any healthcare, any electricity (130 degrees F), etc. They have to wait in line half a day for gas, roadblocks and barricades everywhere they go, etc."

Well if the shia and sunni would stop killing one another and tried to live in peace and harmony (LIKE THE KURDS who have virtually none of these problems except when the shia or sunni INVADE their land), then the shia and sunni could sit back and enjoy what $140.00 barrel oil could give them like the Kurds are and WE could get the FUCK out of there!!!!!!

decrepittex July 20th, 2008 10:46 pm

Just where did I say fighting in Iraq is for our freedom? You also need to take a course in reading comprehension. I just love you progressives, you can't comprehend what you are reading, you use strawman arguments all the time, and you claim I say what I did not say. The objective is to start at the top with the first post and read DOWN, not start in the middle and read both ways and fuck up your brain which really doesn't need to be assisted in that matter.

Dream Warrior - If Jesus (Yeshua benJusef) were to appear today, as he is supposed to have been, a man of Semitic descent (dark, curly hair, dark eyes, olive skin, NOT the blond, blue eyed pale Northern European... that's a Greaco-Roman Zeus cult leftover in the basement of St Peters), and spoke as he is reportedly to have done...

He would just be one more corpse. Killed either by the IDF, as a Palestinian 'terrorist' or by the US as an 'insurgent'.

Galen July 20th, 2008 11:39 pm
"They hate us for our freedoms â„¢." - G.W. Bush

oh sooooo THATS why bush is taking away all our freedom... so they wont hate us anymore.... gotcha

lol sorry.... couldnt help myself

i've come to be very suspicious of our current admin.... congress and military motives.... we're not there for freedom of any sort... i'm sure that its not just as simple as oil... and sooner or later... if we all live that long.. ppl will find out what 9 11 inspired iraq was REALLY about... this "war" of many names...

in the mean time...

i hear statements from malaki.... he want us out.... looking for time table... asap and stuff along that nature....

and then a few days later a relative of someone in the iraqi govt is shot dead by our military... "accidentally" of course...

sorry... but i've been saying that this admin has done many things right out in the open but ppl dont want to believe that our prez is that evil... but he is... and this occupation is... and cheney... well i use him to scare my kids to behave.... sorta like el chupacabra!

for men that claim that jesus is their savior... if jesus really is the son of god.... man oh man... i would HATE to be in THEIR shoes come their day of reckoning!

Don The Engineer,

That the troops aren't always aware of what they're really doing, because of being PTSD'd, etc., is one thing; but your post shouldn't be headed 'Don [The Engineer]', for it's naive. Engineers are also people profiting from manufacturing WMD and so on; work for the major polluters and destroyers of this world; etcetera. Your apologetics are nonsense, [at best].

Check out 'Salvador Option Exposed' at the 'Brussels Tribunal' (no space and dot org) index; reading the articles copies following the considerable list of resource links at the top of the page and then Max Fuller's articles linked at the top of the page. Other author indexes there are surely good to read through too, but this is all I've read so far.

There's also 'Operation Gladio' and many other important historical facts of DARK kind to carefully learn about and never forget.

This is just one of MANY children of Iraqi government officials the US has murdered, including the unlamented sons of Saddam Hussien.

But I bet you Bush would scream bloody murder and launch an all out bloody assault if the twins, Barbara and Jenna, the former(?) Bush party girls were blown away like lint.

To citizen1.
No american soldier has ever "sacrifices" his life for your freedom. He has wasted it for United Fruit, Standard Oil ,Locheed -Martin, but never since 1776 have American men fought for freedom, and at that time they were fighting the same way and for the same reason the Sadr militsia does today.

To Kem patrick

It is true that we don't know what nefarious activities the boys were doing in the privacy of their home. maybe forbidden sex or just jerking off, I dont know, but the fact is they were at home. So the Q you should ask is: What were the US marines doing there ?

Sandyk77 - Tell that to the victims of Charles Ng, the Marine trained rapist and murderer, veteran of Viet Nam.

Oh, that's right. you can't.

They're dead.

Feeling sorry for this new breed of Fascist killing machine is futile.

Here in Canada, the media is playing up the latest of our war dead as a hero.

He joined the Canadian Armed Forces as an adventure, and enthusiastically volunteered for front line postings.

He got all the excitement he could handle. He found an 'IED' the hard way.

They shipped what was left of him home yesterday.

I've been watching the new HBO miniseries Generation Kill. It enlightens me and makes me furious at the same time.
These kids, barely legal age, are sent to a war zone without the proper equipment & training to do the job assigned them. And sometimes they don't even know what they are in Iraq for. I don't blame the individual troops, they are scared to death and trying to survive. But they are taught the Iraqis are nothing but dogs to be killed, taught to have no compassion for those residents in THEIR country that the US is occupying.
No wonder they come home mentally deranged. War is an abomination to the human soul and war is never justified as a first resort. Old rich men start wars (may they rot in Hell, especially Darth Cheney)and poor men/women die for their greed. This cycle needs to end!
Our kids are suffering and dying for Shrub's Folly. It's time for them to come home!

wolf123 July 20th, 2008 3:40 pm
So many brave men and women have given their lives so you have the freedom to post your blatant nonsense.

Who 'gave their lives' so *I* can post from Europe ?
My countrymen in 1949 (China) ?
The Europeans so I can use Internet cafes and hotel high speed Internet connection ?
The Neanderthals so that the CroMagnons can take Europe ?

Really, who should I be thank for this privilege to use the *World Wide* Web ?

You realize pretty much *everyone* may post on the Internet, don't you ? Or does your Mommy tell you during home schooling that only America lets people speak out... praise Jesus.

Thank you to MotherSpeak. What you say makes so much sense as most of the other posts do not.

Firm but fair, Demonstorm!

You know as much as I agree with some of the feelings and thoughts fueled (no pun intended) by the lack of desire for our country to be in Iraq I have to say that some of you are a bit off (e.g., Demonstorm)and this negativity at this point only serves to undermine what privilidges we have b/c we live in a country built on such foundations as "freedom of speech". I am sure that there are some soldiers who deserve a bit more respect that being called a "terroist". As far as I am concerned anyone that creates the space for a "Jihad" is a terroist - white, black, purple, agnostic whatever...I don't see us over there creating these types of situations (killing innocent civilians by direction)...get a grip and get yer head out of your ass.

Are we free to chose between AT&T or Sprint. Are we free to chose between Chevron and Mobile oil, what a choice! What a democratie! Wow. I think the soviet had the same choice in the time of Staline, maybe not, ok, I am pushing it, sorry.

If a foreign army invaded my country and went street by street every day, randomly smashing my neighbors' doors down and "accidentally" shooting anyone they thought was a threat to them, then I'd be dead fairly soon after they invaded. You know why? Because I would be out there on the streets shooting at every last mother's son of them.

We commited a war crime by launching an illegal war of aggression against Iraq. Look it up, Wolf123 and all you other Rethuglican anti-Constitutional trolls here on CD. It's in black and white in the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and the Nuremburg Charter. Actually, invading another country is the "supreme war crime," from which all other war crimes spring. Not that the Rethugs give a rat's ass about the law, as evidenced by their support of illegal invasions and a President who has broken more laws than I can even count any longer.

As for the argument that the soldiers are "Defending themselves," that is complete and utter bullshit. The Iraqi people have a right - if not an obligation - to fight back against the invading army that is illegally occupying their home. Bush and the Rethugs call them "terrorists," when they are, in point of fact, patriots. I wonder what the Rethugs would do if a foreign army invaded and occupied the US someday? Sit on their hands and do whatever the enemy soldiers told them to do? Actually, yes, most of them probably would, being pussies who would rather send other people's children off to do their fighting for them. But most non-Rethuglican Americans would fight the hell BACK, and be heroes for doing so.

Of COURSE our forces are going to perceive a threat, in every Iraqi they see! Because they ARE a threat to them. They shouldn't be there in the first fucking place. So I guess our "boys" might as well shoot every man, woman, and child they come across. Because the ones they don't kill today will go on hating America and all Americans for the rest of their lives.

And justifiably so.

America is the true Terrorist.

"They hate us for our freedoms (tm)." - G.W. Bush

The figure of over 1,200,000 Iraqis deaths is the INCREASE over what it would have been with the normal rate under Saddam. So you cannot say that Saddam killed more. He killed 1.2 million FEWER!

Saddam complied with the UN resolutions, he was the enemy of al Qaeda, and he had no WMD. In March 2003, the USA had 24,000 TONS of VX, sarin, and mustard agents. Anniston, Alabama had 77,000 rockets filled with these agents.

Wolf123, You seem to want to talk about every military conflict in the world except Iraq. Don't listen to me. Listen to the vast majority of Iraqis who say they are worse off after the invasion than before. One quarter of the population is either dead or a refugee. Do you think they feel liberated? One in eight Iraqi children die before the age of five. Sixty-three per cent of Iraqis agree with attacks on American troops. They don't have any jobs, any money, any clean water, any healthcare, any electricity (130 degrees F), etc. They have to wait in line half a day for gas, roadblocks and barricades everywhere they go, etc.

The CIA put Saddam in power in the first place because he was so strongly anti-communist. Carter had sanctions against him---immediately dropped by Reagan. Reagan and GHWBush strongly supported him and Iran and progressives like me criticized them for doing so.

rumiluv asks " What in the hell are we doing there?!" Well, Project for a New American Century and the Pentagon wrote it down in black and white well before 9/11. They said we must take control of the Middle East because of the importance of OIL. Iraq has the #2 OIL reserves in the world and sits in between #1 (Saudi Arabia)and #3 (Iran). Guess who is next if Cheney and Bush get their way?

And this has killed 4,123 of the troops you love so much and will cost us $3 TRILLION (Stiglitz & Bilmes).

wolf123, I hope you could speack German today. Because in my opinion you don't deserved to live if the moto of WWII is your modus operanti.

wolf123 6:31pm: "...most of those posting there think ALL Iraqis are as pure as newfallen snow and ALL US troops are spwan of the demons from hell!!!"

No! But, IT's THE IRAQIS GODDAMN COUNTRY! What in the hell are we doing there?!

Wolf, a lot of young men and women have given their lives
so all of us can post here. But if you believe the fighting
in Iraq is for our freedom then you sir are the idiot. Iraq's only crime was sitting on top of all that OIL that
George Wanker Bush and Dick "Deadeye" Cheney wanted for
their buddies in the oil "bidness". Fighting for freedom my
ass!

They (military) shouldn't have been there in the first place, but the blood sport continues anyway.

quousque July 20th, 2008 9:05 pm

I support our troops, BUT I don't believe in a god (unless you count Bacchus) so god can not be with us (or them).

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS

GOTT MIT UNS

Keith July 20th, 2008 7:13 pm

And when we crossed the 38th parallel into NORTH KOREA we were not occupying the country? It is estimated that there were over 40,000 north Korean Regulars and civilian insurgents fighting behind our lines.

www.state.nj.us/military/korea/ops.pdf

"... irregular enemy forces established some ambushes and fireblocks along the road and rail lines serving as the Eighth Army's main lines of communications," " ... despite large numbers (estimated as high as 40,000[)], they were largely disorganized..."

"If the USA was invaded and occupied by the Russians and Chinese, would you say it was comparable to the tv show Cops?"

Iraq has NO viable police force, the US military unfortunately is the Iraqi police force, the US military is doing the same thing police forces ALL over the world do when entering a house that a suspected ARMED and DANGEROUS criminal is occupying (I get international TV and a local COPS TV program is a popular program in England, France, Germany and Spain). YOUR straw man argument of some other country occupying the US is just that and nothing more, the US invaded and among other reasons most of which turned out to be false, liberated the Shia and Kurds of Iraq from a brutal murderous dictator, a Russian or Chinese invasion of the US IS not the same and YOU KNOW IT. NO matter how much you despise and hate bush, he is in no way comparable to Saddam. If that is the argument you are trying to make I will no longer respond to you because I feel I should not take advantage of someone with such an infantile intellegence.

wolf123 -

What you're calling the REAL world is what I call Hell. As can be seen by our Iraq incursion, we make our own worlds. I look forward to the day when people who justify monstrous behavior by citing goon squad procedures no longer volunteer to make mine.

I'm a "military mom" - not by choice or vocation - and I do a lot of work to bring an end to this war. (see www.raisingsandradio.org and www.motherspeak.org for example). I also counsel troops who want to resist war. I do want to bring up a trend that I see around the US...and in this commentary. That it is "them" - the "others", the bad warriors - who are to blame. Sure, they are perpetrators but, by and large, the vast majority of the troops deployed to the so called War on Terror are decent people who have been duped by 1) US culture that valorizes violence, from Joe, Moe and Curly to "Weeds, for example 2) a culture that also unconsciously agrees to throw away a large section of our young people because they are poor, or undereducated, or can't get jobs in their rural areas and then uses them up for doing our dirty work of managing resource collection by killling 3) that our young people are very young when they're recruited, often by #$@#$#% lying sons of bitches who are themselves threatened with deployment if they don't meet their quotas 4) that our young are trained to kill by a military that has perfected desensitizing our young and then shutting them off to any and all connections to family, friends, and life outside the military 5) that most of these young people are terrified out of their wits on the combat zone and we cannot simply judge them using our usual, old tired moral system 6) that the Pentagon itself is quite frank about not wanting to spend money to heal our young injured in war but to use that money, instead, on purchasing more weapons and maintaining militarism (it is a huge @#$$ industry as we now know).
I find it quite incredibly that, after decades of hearing about the effects of war on young warriors, we persist in our belief system that "they" - the warriors - are fully to blame for the terrible stuff they do during war. Terrible stuff is WHAT the military -- and therefore, WE the People too -- demands of them...backed up by what American culture says "men" "warriors" "patriots" do. And WE, all of us, learn this from our first days on the planet. If we're naive enough to believe these cultural imperatives (democracy, individualism, what is a hero, a man, etc, etc) - and, let's face it, MOST of us are naive for at least a part of our life - we're bait.
Let's look to ourselves, our assumptions, and, particularly, our culture for the answers to our warriors' activities as invaders.

The longer the U.S. stays in Iraq, the more it looks like the Zionists in Palestine. MURDER INCORPORATED.

In Korea, our enemy was most definitely an ARMY. We were not occupying the country and fighting insurgents. We have absolutely no right to be in Iraq in the first place. There were 935 lies taking us into this fiasco. If the USA was invaded and occupied by the Russians and Chinese, would you say it was comparable to the tv show Cops?

esarge July 20th, 2008 3:32 pm

"entered = bashed down door, and stormed in probably shouting and cussing at the people, possibly throwing flash grenades, humiliating the men and women, terrifying the children in the house, possibly overturning furniture, throwing the family's belongings on the floor, breaking things…"

"bashed down door", based on the above story this is the only part of your statement that may have any validity, the rest is pure, total and complete conjecture on your part. Unless YOU were there you don't know, your statement is great for riling up the idiots that live in fantasy land but that is about it.

If you own a TV it might be educational for you to watch a program called "COPS" or the other shows like it, on this show you will see local police bashing down doors, and storming in shouting and cussing at the people, humiliating the men and women, terrifying the children in the house, possibly overturning furniture, throwing the family's belongings on the floor, breaking things… as they enter DRUG houses, DROP houses for imprisoned illegal aliens, houses where a criminal might be armed or a serious confrontation might happen. THIS is to confuse and disorient the inhabitants of the house to insure the safety of the police and capture any criminals. If you don't like the police then you probably detest this behavior, the wife and family of the policeman don't give a fuck what you think, they just want their husband and father home alive after work and the criminal arrested or dead.

"A statement from the U.S. military said its forces had wounded and captured an al Qaeda financer in the house."

Maybe maybe not, BUT if there was, WHAT was the 17-year-old son and another relative of the governor doing with him in their house? As Don The Engineer said, possibly they were engaged in nefarious activities. OR as most of those posting here think ALL Iraqis are as pure as the new fallen snow and ALL US troops are spawn of the demons from hell!!!

"the Iraq debacle is an occupation, not a war."

Tell that to the men and women over there, kind of like Korea was a "POLICE ACTION" and not a war, twisting semantics does not change what it is.

I think a lot of Dems often act like wimps----not impeaching Bush and Cheney, not forcing Rove to testify, not filibustering, and allowing elections to be determined by machines made by conservative corporations.

Jesus H Christ. I didn't say that "there is no difference between the parties." I didn't say anything like that at all.

There are several significant differences. For example, Democrats always go along with Republicans, regardless of who has the majority. (It's not the case that Republicans ever cave in to go along with Demcrats.) Also, Republicans are allowed to steal elections, while Democrats roll over for it. It never works the other way 'round.

Also, Democrats are far more 2-faced than Republicans. // So sure, there are differences. I never said otherwise.

Wow! So many violent thoughts, and that is just the bloggers. One of the few things that General "bootlicker" Petraeus did right in Iraq was start a policy of not kicking in doors and getting in gun battles with innocent people who thought they were being robbed. It sounds like that's exactly what happened and it probably was caused by a deliberateley false tip. In the early days of the occupation a British General had the audacity to suggest that the US troops were too trigger happy and tended to shoot up the entire area. He said that didn't go over well with the US Generals. One of our generals did point out that for every door kicked in, Iraqi shot and killed by mistake, that we would make a hundred enemies. By those standards, we have lost the occupation. The idiots who say that the surge worked should try walking down any street in downtown Baghdad without a gun and see how long they last.

RichM--- I know very well which Dems voted for the authorization and totally disagree with them. But that doesn't change the truth of what I said. If among the ones who made the right vote, the Dems outnumber the Repubs 21 to 1, then you cannot say there is no difference between the two parties.

OK Keith (2:31), let's handle that point. First of all, 27 Dem Senators, including virtually ALL the big-name leaders like Kerry, H Clinton & Biden etc, voted FOR the Iraq War Resolution.

More importantly, though, the Democrats's game is always to falsely posture as "the party of the people." Consistent with this false posture, what the party leadership does is to calculate how many Dem votes are needed to pass a given Republican initiative, and to make sure these votes will be there. Then they allow the rest of their caucus to vote in opposition, to make it look like "the Dems tried hard to resist, but just didn't have the votes."

They play this kind of game constantly. It makes the actual vote tallies misleading. What is much more important than the actual vote tallies is the fact that in the larger picture, the Democrats ALWAYS go along with the Republicans (ie, strategies of corporatism & militarism), regardless of whether they're in the majority or not. They simply try to do it in a way deliberately aimed at nurturing the kind of illusions your post is reflecting.

How can one tell that it's deliberate? First of all, it ALWAYS happens. The pattern is far too consistent to be overlooked. Second of all, the Democrats NEVER raise devastating counter-arguments against the rightwing. They NEVER expose the criminality or venal motives of what the Republicans are doing. // For example, even while criticizing Bush's management of the wars, no Democrats (except Kucinich) have attacked the wars themselves. The Dems' position is that they could manage the wars more efficiently, not that the wars are criminal.

Quick, somebody rile up WOLF123.

wolf123-----You said: "Words can not describe the depth of moral decay you have sunk into. So many brave men and women have given their lives so you have the freedom to post your blatant nonsense."

I was saying that if that statement is supposed to include what we are doing in Iraq, then you are seriously wrong because there is no way in hell that Iraq was a threat to our freedom to blog. In fact, Iraq was a buffer against the radical Islamists. If you were only talking about WWII, then it doesn't really make any sense when the topic is our killing Iraqis.

RichM----23 senators voted against Iraq war authorization:
21 Democratic, 1 Republican, 1 Independent

133 in House voted against:
126 Democratic, 6 Republican, 1 Independent.

If that is not a statistically-significant difference, I would like to know what in the &^#@ is!

karlof1 July 20th, 2008 4:06 pm

PLEASE take a reading comprehension course. I was talking about the RULES OF ENGAGEMENT in Iraq and how the Germans and Japanese would have won in WW2 if the rules of engagement were the same. WHY don't YOU bother to find out what the rules of engagement ARE in Iraq before you make asinine statements.

ALSO after you take your reading comprehension course read a history of the BEGINNING of WW2, like how the German air force was pulverizing the RAF in the first months of the war, how the English left all their heavy equipment (tanks, artillery etc.) on the beaches of Dunkirk and how if Hitler did not switch from pounding RAF air fields to pounding English cities he very well could have invaded England.

Keith July 20th, 2008 4:35 pm

What the HELL are you talking about? YOU also need to take a reading comprehension course, I said NOTHING about 9/11, WMD's and Iraq threatening our freedoms. PLEASE get out of your fantasy world and join the world of reality, you may not like it but you will not (maybe you will still) make a total fool of yourself.

ezeflyer (1:25 pm) comments simply, "Another Bush/Republican murder."

- In the 1976 vice-presidential debate (Mondale vs Robt Dole), Dole famously referred to the 2 world wars as "Democratic Wars" (because Democratic administrations were in power during both wars). He was ferociously criticized by the media, the next day, for claiming that there was anything the least bit partisan about the 2 world wars. And indeed, for anyone who saw it, the claim came across as vicious, poisonous & deeply dishonest.

It's striking to see a Dem Party apologist making the same kind of dishonest claim here, re the Iraq war. Suppose (as could easily happen at any moment) the murder had been committed not in Iraq, but in Afghanistan -- a war that Obama apparently intends to escalate. Would that still be a "Bush/Republican murder"?

The cooperation of the two parties in all US crimes abroad, over the decades, is for all practical purposes 100%. The two parties have limited disagreements on things like gay marriage & abortion, but when it comes to crimes of empire, there is no disagreement whatsoever: they stand shoulder to shoulder. Anyone who tries to label the crimes "Republican" or "Democratic" has no intellectual integrity, nor respect for historical truth.

wolf123---The Iraqis were NOT threatening any of our freedoms. We would still be blogging if we had NOT invaded and occupied Iraq. Do you know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, was the enemy of al Qaeda, and had no WMD? In March 2003 neither Kuwait, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, nor Turkey felt threatened by Iraq. As Rice and Powell said in 2001: they were very well contained and a threat to noone.

We have caused the deaths of 1.2 million Iraqi innocents, 4123 of our troops, at a cost of $3 Trillion (Stiglitz & Bilmes), and according to our 16 intelligence agencies: have made ourselves LESS safe.

wolf123--You are totally ignorant of WW2 history and a tribute to the stupidity that enables the crimes of the US Empire. The last time the continental US was attacked was during the 1812 war by the Brits who chased away what few defenders there were of Washington DC and proceded to burn the nascent city. In WW2, neither the Japanese nor the Germans had any possibility of invading the US mainland--Hell, the Germans couldn't even cross the Channel to finish the Brits. So take your crap and exit stage Right.

wcdevins July 20th, 2008 2:37 pm

Were you born this stupid, or do you have to work hard at it every day to keep up this level of stupidity??????

JUST WHERE DID I SAY MY "view of paradise - superior firepower will win out."

If you had even the remotest clue WHAT the rules of engagement were in Iraq then you would be forced by basic intelligence to agree that if only half of those rules were in effect in WW2 all those east of the Mississippi would be saying "Sieg Heil" and those west of the Mississippi would be bowing to the emperor of Japan.

Sorry your myths and fantasies do not cut it in the REAL world.

citizen1 July 20th, 2008 2:42 pm

Words can not describe the depth of moral decay you have sunk into. So many brave men and women have given their lives so you have the freedom to post your blatant nonsense.

KEM PATRICK July 20th, 2008 2:45 pm

As Don The Engineer July 20th, 2008 1:05 pm stated, "There's not enough information in the report to say what happened.
And there's a possibility that the boys were engaged in nefarious activities. We just don't know enough yet."

With so much tribal animosity in Iraq and Afghanistan the various tribes have found out the best way to even old scores is to dupe the US military into doing their killing for them. You even the (usually decades) old score and no one can really say your tribe did it.

"A statement from the U.S. military said its forces had wounded and captured an al Qaeda financer in the house."

"Hey, we kicked in this door, and these guys all had guns pointed at us, then this guy showed us his al Qaeda credentials, so we shot them."

"As they entered the target building, coalition forces encountered two armed men. Perceiving hostile intent … they shot and killed the men..."

entered = bashed down door, and stormed in probably shouting and cussing at the people, possibly throwing flash grenades, humiliating the men and women, terrifying the children in the house, possibly overturning furniture, throwing the family's belongings on the floor, breaking things...

This kind of behavior should be banned globally. People should be allowed the sanctity of their homes.

wolf123: for one thing, the Iraq debacle is an occupation, not a war. In a country where lots of people are armed, no less. Maybe you just think all Iraqis should be shot? Rules of engagement have to be different in an occupation than a war. Raids on people's homes are a police action and a little more restraint must be used or you will create other problems and turn the population against you - oh wait, we already did that. I've got an idea - let's get the hell out of there!

If anyone stormed into my house, I'd probably be shot, ___ or someone would be. I'm always armed, and as someone else noted, all Iraqis are allowed to have an AK-47 in their house.

Our soldiers are terrorists.

Our soldiers are war criminals.

Our soldiers are pathetic cannon fodder.

I do not support our troops.

Everyone is armed in Iraq - it's the NRA's (and Wolf123's, apparently) view of paradise - superior firepower will win out.

Don't insult anyone who served by equating Bush's folly in Iraq with WW II. The only rule of engagement needed in Iraq is complete disengagement.

Oh, sheeeee...it!

lapaz000 July 20th, 2008 12:41 pm

"... according to the racist rules of engagement, if a US soldier feels threatened– i.e., detects hostile intent– then he or she has the right to destroy that perceived threat."

NOW all we need to do is change the racist rules of engagement to.
If a US soldier feels threatened– i.e., detects hostile intent– then that soldier has the right to wait around until that soldier is killed before that soldier responds to the hostile intent.

ARE you out of your FUCKING MIND?????? It's obvious you have never been in combat. There is an old WW2 saying, "He who shoots first lives, he who shoots second is a casualty".

Aside from your myths, the ACTUAL rules of engagement in Iraq SUCK!!! If only half of these insane rules were used in WW2 the west coast would be speaking Japanese and the east coast would be speaking German now.

Another Bush/Republican murder.

Another Merry Mixup!

I confidently predict the outcome in advance of the findings of the US military's Thorough Investigation: it was a Clean Kill.

And in any case, from the perspective of an invading and occupying army, it falls under the exculpatory dictum familiar to all sports-loving Amerikans: no harm, no foul.

Hey Gang,
There's not enough information in the report to say what happened.
And there's a possibility that the boys were engaged in nefarious activities. We just don't know enough yet.

Please hold off being hasty to judge.

For an alternative movie perspective, I urge you to watch Red Dawn.
While watching, consider what could have happened in light of the sparse details given in this news release. Say, when they went to the home of a regular citizen, and picked up the 2 girls. If someone didn't like the (slimebag mayor's in this case) kid and recognized him, he'd have likely as not been killed if the occupiers stormed that house. That's all I'm saying. Whether they were armed at the time or not, the occupiers go on the information given them by informants. That is how an astute enemy uses the occupier's might against their own interests by purposely mis-guiding (or NOT) lethal force.

It's a sub-story in the book of war.

Son of Iraqi Governor
Son of Iraqi President
Anyman, woman or child
It's all the same to US Troops

I recently re-watched Mel Gibson's "The Patriot". It's a movie that grows on me every time I see it, and is a great allegory on the US adventures in Iraq and Vietnam.

Cornwallis is shown as trying to at least minimally follow the rules of war and not sow too much hatred, but the logic of fighting that kind of war, a war against a people, led him inexorably into the position of condoning mass atrocities.

The problem is that there is no way to send young men - enlisted men or officers - into that kind of a war and expect them to come back with their humanity intact, unless they come back as war resistors.

there will be no justice for the murdered Iraqis because, according to the racist rules of engagement, if a US soldier feels threatened-- i.e., detects hostile intent-- then he or she has the right to destroy that perceived threat. If the butchers of Haditha can get off, don't expect these soldiers to, as the president likes to say, "be brought to justice."

this incedent is going to make for a very very messy 'diplomatic situtation' ----American troops out NOW!!!