Iraq war documents leak shows US is ****ing awful.

[Vendetta21]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...military-leaks

The new logs detail how:

• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.

• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

[ledwix]

Every war is ****ing awful. It needs to be stopped altogether, not just US conflicts. It's not like some wars are nice and civil while others are brutal. They all have to do with killing our fellow beings because some leader on the other side of the world doesn't like what some other leader said about something.

[ananana]

Yes, the US is ****ing awful. The US has been responsible for the most awful things that have happened over there. The US military are the only ones doing anything awful over there. The US has done nothing useful there.

You have no ****ing clue.

[krunkykai22]

First off, I will say that Bush did the right thing in retaliating against Al Quaeda. I don't believe that the war had to push so much on Saddam Hussein instead of Osama Bin Laden though. This war was a ****ing mess. We could have captured Laden long before Saddam if we had only thought correctly. Instead, yes we hung a top named terrorist in his own country THAT WAS ****ING TELEVISED NON THE LESS. Complete and utter bull**** that we went after the 2nd most wanted. This terroism on the US started with Osama, why not get him first? Its not like we couldn't have gotten Hussein seeing as him and his sons were completely stupid :/

But to read about these reports, just reminds me of the World Wars. It's brutal, distasteful and just down right wrong. But, what can WE do about it? it's the military. >.>

[fido123]

Originally Posted by ananana

Yes, the US is ****ing awful. The US has been responsible for the most awful things that have happened over there. The US military are the only ones doing anything awful over there. The US has done nothing useful there.

You have no ****ing clue.

And terrorists making IEDs killing people isn't awful? I think I can safely say, when there's conflict both sides tend to do awful things. It's what war is and what it's always been. What about the Iraqi government actually doing all the torturing? Yeah the US was pulling a dick move by not stopping them but the Iraqi government is actually doing it.

Originally Posted by krunkykai22

First off, I will say that Bush did the right thing in retaliating against Al Quaeda. I don't believe that the war had to push so much on Saddam Hussein instead of Osama Bin Laden though. This war was a ****ing mess. We could have captured Laden long before Saddam if we had only thought correctly. Instead, yes we hung a top named terrorist in his own country THAT WAS ****ING TELEVISED NON THE LESS. Complete and utter bull**** that we went after the 2nd most wanted. This terroism on the US started with Osama, why not get him first? Its not like we couldn't have gotten Hussein seeing as him and his sons were completely stupid :/

But to read about these reports, just reminds me of the World Wars. It's brutal, distasteful and just down right wrong. But, what can WE do about it? it's the military. >.>

The war in Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11, and believe me Saddam really wasn't an American enemy. IMO it's just Bush trying to finish what his dad started for also Cheney's PERSONAL gain (his construction companies are rebuilding Iraq), and I think somehow it's suppose to help out with oil somehow but I don't really get how the hell ****ing up Iraq helped. You can't really "beat" Al'Quaida because it's not really a group organized in a way where you're fighting some kind of army. It's just a bunch of individuals who feel the same way about certain things and react by trying to preform acts of terror and resisting against the American military, mostly as individuals.

IMO the American government should have stayed out of all this **** completely.

[Vendetta21]

Originally Posted by ananana

Yes, the US is ****ing awful. The US has been responsible for the most awful things that have happened over there. The US military are the only ones doing anything awful over there. The US has done nothing useful there.

You have no ****ing clue.

I get that you're being sarcastic, even if Fido doesn't.

Stop for a second and turn on your empathy switch before you blindly defend your country. Note that 66,000 non-combatants died at the hands of the US in a unilateral war that is not internationally supported where the only lasting change and objective we fulfilled was building bases near their oil drilling sites.

Put yourself in the shoes of an Iraqi for a second: the White Man has come to your land and has killed more innocent people than not in a war that you don't understand and has only caused problems and in general made your life worse.

Now while you're sitting in the position of empathy and pondering this war from the inside the question you really have to ask is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=603EdqmOYzw

[rushyrulz]

Reason 1 why I don't believe in God: religion = war ; war = death ; death = bad, therefore religion = bad. (amongst other reasons, but I realize this is a topic to be discussed at a later time.) 2 cents.

[Vendetta21]

Originally Posted by rushyrulz

Reason 1 why I don't believe in God: religion = war ; war = death ; death = bad, therefore religion = bad. (amongst other reasons, but I realize this is a topic to be discussed at a later time.) 2 cents.

You're aiming really well but the problem is you're not even aiming at the target. Religion is usually war-neutral. If you take away religion wars will still exist because there's a human drive to aggregate power and have more stuff. Religion is just one of a hundred ways to get people worked up enough to feel like going to war.

But don't confuse the parlor tricks for creating morale with the fascist dominoes that actually tip us into wars.

Anyways being a Dawkins athiest is trite and boring and a waste of your time and thoughts.

[AsphyxZero]

If it makes you feel better, I joined the military to go to college.

On topic: Geneva Conventions. I've heard from numerous peers of mine that, when downrange, there are quite a few soldiers that don't follow Geneva Conventions. Which is sad. But I don't think people should blame the entire military on breaches of the Conventions. I was at MEPS (the processing station for the military), and I was sitting with a bunch of kids out of high school. I was talking to them, and the majority of them had the 11B MOS, which in laymen's terms, is an infantryman. Now, I would never take that as my job because I scored too high on ASVAB. But when I asked them why they took infantry as their job, about 95% said that they wanted to either "blow **** up" or "kill terrorists."
And that's exactly what they (think they) are doing.

[FPRain]

I'm not an American and I admit I don't follow up on much of what's going on in that country. Call me ignorant but I'm just wondering, why is the war still going on?
Common sense has to agree with Fido here. Its obvious 9 years later that this isn't about 911, it isn't about nuclear weapons, or about oil, so why has the Obama administration fail to end this like he said he would?
The only thing that this war has done for america is spend billions of tax dollars on a cause that's unclear.
It's completely distasteful to read an article like this and know that the people who should be presecuted won't be held accountable.

[Vendetta21]

In your experience would you say that Generation Kill miniseries pretty accurately creates the image of the modern day solider?

[Vendetta21]

Originally Posted by FPRain

I'm not an American and I admit I don't follow up on much of what's going on in that country. Call me ignorant but I'm just wondering, why is the war still going on?
Common sense has to agree with Fido here. Its obvious 9 years later that this isn't about 911, it isn't about nuclear weapons, or about oil, so why has the Obama administration fail to end this like he said he would?
The only thing that this war has done for america is spend billions of tax dollars on a cause that's unclear.
It's completely distasteful to read an article like this and know that the people who should be presecuted won't be held accountable.

There are Machiavellian reasons and there are on-paper reasons. The Machiavellian reason is oil. It's always oil. Oil is the unspoken dark heart of ideological conflict in this world. But that's not what the talking heads in the white buildings say the war is about.

The war was about "spreading democracy" in the Middle East. Except what we we're trying to do was we we're trying to create a pro-Western government in Iraq that had some sort of weak coalition government because we feared that a majority Shia controlled parliament would end up creating a like-minded political bloc with Iran (hint: this is what happened in the end.) So we're pulling out because we really can't do ****, and they essentially have a "democracy" it's just not the one we preferred for our interests and also not one that will stay a true "democracy" for too long.

But we still have people occupying the bases that are strategically located near oil fields. We are still busting up Oil Workers unions, and we are still flooding corporate investment in that seems to be poised to take advantage of the resources and the workers.

The more you read about the Middle East the more you see how oil seeps from the pores of conflict.

[Coolgamer]

Oh hey. I'm just gonna leave this here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXUssG6_Ecc

Watch it and perhaps you will learn a few things about the military.

Oh, and if you have time, view this as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0

[Emo_Saur_]

Does it matter? Complaining about our screw-ups overseas will not get us anywhere. They're the government, they have power that you can not believe. No civilian will stop any of this from happening.

[Coolgamer]

Originally Posted by Emo_Saur_

Does it matter? Complaining about our screw-ups overseas will not get us anywhere. They're the government, they have power that you can not believe. No civilian will stop any of this from happening.

Unless we all actually teamed together, but pfft.

[NFD]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt0xxAMTp8M

[xealix]

Originally Posted by Emo_Saur_

Does it matter? Complaining about our screw-ups overseas will not get us anywhere. They're the government, they have power that you can not believe. No civilian will stop any of this from happening.

I absolutely agree with this. No one here is saying that war is not a bad thing, but the chances of billions of people actually banning together to stop this thing is absolutely impossible. The truth is this was started years ago, and now there is no turning back. We will have to continue this war and use our military forces even if this mean there will be more horrible things happening. War cannot be stopped and will always be around. Religion does not = bad. People = bad.

Edit: and again this -V

[Emo_Saur_]

Stopping war is impossible, you can't create a utopia. If we tried to create one massive world utopia, we'd have to go back to the beginning on mankind which is not humanly possible. Opinion is what keeps this world spinning, if we didn't have people disagreeing then what would there be to do? Sit there, do nothing for hours on end..

[Vendetta21]

Originally Posted by Emo_Saur_

Does it matter? Complaining about our screw-ups overseas will not get us anywhere. They're the government, they have power that you can not believe. No civilian will stop any of this from happening.

I can't really pose a counter-argument to isolating yourself from reality because you can't create a great deal of impact. The point really is just trying to increase awareness of your place in existence for it's own sake so you aren't pretending that you're living in a world you are not. All intellectual endeavors are mostly hubris by themselves.

[Emo_Saur_]

I live in a world of war, I do realize this. I also live in a world of love, peace, unity, racism. It's not a matter of I am pretending to live in a world I don't it's that I don't really care because I know one person isn't able to change the world completely.