US Bombs Iraq Hospital...In Your Name

[gr8fuldaniel]

Last Updated: Saturday, 6 November, 2004, 13:14 GMT  BBC [SIZE=3]  US strikes raze Falluja hospital[/SIZE] The hospital was run by an Islamic charity A hospital has been razed to the ground in one of the heaviest US air raids in the Iraqi city of Falluja. Witnesses said only the facade remained of the small Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city. There are no reports on casualties. A nearby medical supplies storeroom and dozens of houses were damaged as US forces continued preparing the ground for an expected major assault.

Is anyone who voted for Bush an accomplice in this deed?

[Edit to add Link]

[Gorgo]

Clinton and Bush 1 did plenty of that, too.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Aequo, You cant undo the illegal action of targeting civilian Hospitals by sending the discussion of it to Butterface.

[gr8fuldaniel]

How about an explanation?

[gr8fuldaniel]

Thank you for reconsidering Aequo. This may be the hot topic of the day. Thanx.

[gr8fuldaniel]

So, whaddya think? Is this just another example of a few bad apples?
Some guys just cant follow orders. Should we punish their parents for not raising them right?

Maybe this is that same guy that shot up that school in Jersy the day before?

Lets say for the sake of argument this strike was actually an order how far up the line of command would an order of this magnitude have to come from? This isnt small potatoes is it?

I thought civilian targets were frowned upon by the whole world.

Am I being naive again?

[bishop]

i don't see how this is different than our "normal" targets.. every target is civilian when you're fighting a guerilla war. it's definitely not going to win over hearts and minds - although i think we lost that fight a while ago.

the article didn't mention any casualties - that's more important than property damage. of course, when we move into fallujah, we'll most likely reduce it to dust. and what will happen to the people of fallujah? *who knows, who cares - says the bushista*

obviously, our forces are trying to "soften" targets before we launch the ground invasion. i'm not entirely sure what the mission in fallujah iis supposed to do though.. the said reason is to quash the rebels that have been hiding there for some time. but this flies right in the face of the broader mission to win hearts and minds. lots of people are leaving according to that article. those who remain will fight and probably die. those who left will come back and become the next wave of insurgents.

will we succeed? well, i guess that depends on which mission you're most concerned with. we can beat anyone on the battlefield.. but we aren't going to win friends by blowing up their homes.

[Pooeypants]

Is this another one those surgical precision strikes again?

[Evil Baby]

would you agree with this bombing if it could be shown that the hospital was being used as an ammunition dump?

[bishop]

i would.

like i said, this is a guerilla war - we aren't going to find any hardened military bunkers, etc... plus, this is a sunni area so it's plausible to assume that some of saddam's guys are operating there - and employing tactics from saddam's regime. that includes using schools, hospitals and mosques as storage locations.

personally if i were them, i'd disperse all of the weapons so that we never get any price catch. and i'd booby trap the living hell out of places that we'd most likely inspect. lots of weapons missing from sites that we chose not to bother securing after we toppled baghdad...

[Scribbler1]

Originally posted by Evil Baby, would you agree with this bombing if it could be shown that the hospital was being used as an ammunition dump?

Like the "baby food" factory in Gulf 1?

The biggest problem with a war like this, and the most difficult for a military trained to fight another army, is the civilian casualties. The Iraqis know this, as well as the Palestinians. Set up the combatants in people's houses, or mosques, and hope the other side doesn't shoot for fear of looking like blatant murderers.
A calculated risk, but the U.S. seems to not want to play that game anymore. Either they bomb houses and hospitals or the insurgents slip through their hands. Of course the case could be made that the insurgents were the ones who put the civilians in harms way, thereby absolving the U.S. for the deaths of civilians. That case which has some merit, but also points up one of the biggest blunders Bush has made in all this, which is not anticipating this might happen. The case could also be made that we bomb these places because it's the easiest thing to do. We just can't FIND these fighters and they know it. We know it too.
It appears to be a calculated risk WE are taking. Kill 'em all or come up empty handed.

[gr8fuldaniel]

I dont like it. There are laws against it for a reason. If this is the only way to fight them, why are their laws against it? Bush and Co. have been making up their own rules all along starting with ripping up our Bill of Rights to haul off American citizens for months and years at a time without a trial or a lawyer.
We are the bad guys. I hate that.

[Scribbler1]

If this is the only way to fight them, we should have reconsidered going in there in the first place. If Bush was told of this possibility and ignored it, this is ALL on him. If no one in his staff didn't think of it or did and didn't tell Bush, they should be told to clean out their desks IMMEDIATELY.

I'm desperately trying to give Bush the benefit of the doubt and consider the possibility he was not properly informed. But if that is the case, the man has to stop the wholesale praising of everyone in his administration (including Tenet) and start acting like Donald Trump.

I think someone ought to whisper to Bush, "OK, you won the election and you don't have to worry about it anymore. NOW you have to worry about what the history books will say."

[bishop]

really, it's been a combination (a competition at times) of bush getting bad advice AND bush making bad decisions. some people seem to think that if we turn fallujah into a big blood bath, that that'll make us successful in our mission..

but, what is the mission? a liberated, free and democratic iraq right? reckless destruction and killing is something that happened under iraq's previous regime. sure, we haven't used chemical weapons, but we've definitely killed tens of thousands of iraqis..


saddam emptied his prisons and gave anyone who wanted a weapon a weapon.. we took the cities without much of a fight.. this was saddam's gift to us - a quagmire.. all he needed was a catalyst in the form of a war hungry president and cabinet. all of this isn't very surprising.. MAYBE, just maybe, if they even bothered to plan for the post-war situation we could've averted some of this.. i doubt it, but when you don't even bother to plan, you end up stuck playing defense.

Neutron bombs should have be used. That would minimize damage to anything salvagable. This Muslim Terrorist town should have been levelled months ago.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Spoken like a true terrorist.

At what point do you suppose we became what we hate?

[bishop]

should we have levelled the town including the women and children too?

[bishop]

Originally posted by gr8fuldaniel, Spoken like a true terrorist. At what point do you suppose we became what we hate?

i think it's the voice of denial. unfortunately, a majority of the country is in denial.. heh, of course that depends on the accuracy of those electronic voting machines.

there is nothing noble in what we're doing..

[gr8fuldaniel]

The New Standard Fallujah Invasion Nears; Bombings and Dissent Pick Up by Brian Dominick (bio) Bombings of Fallujah this week became constant as US Marines and undertrained Iraqi troops move into position around Fallujah. But vocal opposition to the assault from many quarters accompanies final preparations. Nov 6 - The intensity of air raids on the Central Iraq city of Fallujah continued to crescendo overnight as some 10,000 US Marines prepared for what is expected to be a massive urban assault on the city that has been most resistant to foreign occupation. But as American troops, accompanied by hundreds of Iraqi personnel, get ready to move, international words of caution have come streaming toward the United States.

10,000 Marines and a token 425 untrained Iraqis. No word of a coalition of the "willing"

Cautions Issued to U.S., Iraqi Leaders Civilian casualties are very much on the mind of Amnesty International. The human rights group issued a public statement on Thursday insisting that US and Iraqi troops make every effort to limit harm to noncombatants. Since the US estimates that only about 1,200 armed rebels are operating inside the city of Fallujah, more than 95 percent of the people presently estimated to be inside the city limits are presumed to be noncombatants. The Amnesty statement chastised the US for recent civilian deaths and the destruction of homes and other property around Fallujah. The group also repeatedly reminded US and Iraqi officials of their obligations under the Geneva Conventions, to which both Iraq and the United States are signatories. The group emphasized the rules of warfare and the treatment of captives. Amnesty also addressed commanders of the resistance, calling on them to avoid placing civilians in harm's way and to treat wounded and captured invaders with care.

95% of Fallujah is unarmed Non-Combatants

[Scribbler1]

Originally posted by bishop,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (bishop,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-gr8fuldaniel, Spoken like a true terrorist. At what point do you suppose we became what we hate?

i think it's the voice of denial. unfortunately, a majority of the country is in denial.. heh, of course that depends on the accuracy of those electronic voting machines.

there is nothing noble in what we're doing..[/b][/quote]

I'm not sure it's entirely denial. In any war, your side must demonize the enemy to assure the support of your people. Allow a human face to be painted on the "enemy" and you've lost the war at home.
Some people are just a wee bit more suggestable than others, and that is what we see here.

It's more than a little disconcerting to see a fellow human being swallow propaganda so completely as to not only condone genocide, but to actually SUGGEST it.

If you were looking for your swing vote, folks, there it is.