Could the attacks on our soldiers be retaliation for Iraqi's we killed?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0310/31/nfcnn.04.html

<snip>And Don, we have a question from Dale in Florida on the telephone.

Dale, go ahead.

CALLER: Yes. I read that our military has killed about 6,000 Iraqis since the war began. Could some of the attacks on our soldiers be retaliation from the families and friends of those Iraqis killed?

SHEPPERD(MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Dale, I suppose that that could be the case. And it's true that numerous Iraqi civilians have been killed. I don't know if the number 6,000 is accurate or if it's more or less than that. And it's a terrible tragedy; it happens in every war. And none of it, I can assure you, was intentional.

We believe that most of the attacks coming against our troops are what we call FRLs, former regime loyalists. The Ba'athists, the bad guys, the Fedayeen Saddam, the Special Republican Guard remnants and the Republican Guard remnants that were left over from the war and not killed during the war, that's who we think is responsible for most of the attacks.

And we're also watching for jihadists, Ansar Al-Islam, al Qaeda, others coming into the country. And they now appear to be numbering in the hundreds, not the thousands. But we're watching that very carefully, Dale.

more

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. No, Dale. the Iraqis are proud to be killed by Americans

You know, before they were liberated, many Iraqis had to endure torture, beatings, yes, even being killed at the hands of Saddam's brutal thugs. You can bet they're grateful now that they can be tortured, beaten and killed by our brave American soldiers.

[Solomon]

2. And don't forget. They hate our freedom.

Freedom to murder, pillage, and plunder the planet to preserve "our" way of life.

I don't think Saddam had as many roadblocks, detentions and house searches as we are having over there.

[DocSavage]

4. Got Proof?

That is a pretty bold statement. As a former member of the Armed Forces of the US, I take offense that you would say somthing like that. What private is out there cutting tounges out of heads, or killing kids? Out of all of the Iraqis killed, how many were combatants? How many have been killed recently as a result of car bombs (not a weapon of choice of the US Army)? How many were killed when they were used as a human shield against US and British forces?

Were there civilians killed, yes, unfortunate but it happened. Is the US on a wholesale civilian killing spree? Get real. I bet that you can volunteer with the UN or Red Cross to go over and see for your self, but that would be too dangerous I am sure. And before you suggest I re-up, I did 22 years as a Corpsman in the Navy, a lot of that time with the Marines, I have seen a little combat in that time, Grenada, Panama, Gulf War, and numerous little pease keeping operations as needed. We took care of more enemy combantants than I can remember.

[NNN0LHI]

6. "Were there civilians killed, yes, unfortunate but it happened."?

"Unfortunate but it happened" is what I say when I spill my fucking coffee.

Don

[matcom]

8. As A Former Member of the US Army (tanker)

i take no offense. just yesterday, the story (posted in LBN) surfaced that a farmer was standing in his field watering what was left of his crops when the US opened fire on him, unprovoked.

let me tell you that incidents like those (and there have been MANY more) disgust me and proves my point months ago that the vast majority of enlisted men didn't sign up for this, don't know how to handle the situation, and have been undertrained for combat.

i know i was never "prepared" to occupy a country as a service member nor would i have ever fathomed being asked to do so.

suck it up partner. as a former servicemember it is your obligation to think back to your training and provide a "realistic" analysis. put yourself in your fellow servicemembers shoes and admit that they are undertrained and are being mislead (by their Commanders AND their Commander in Chief). these aren't "mistakes", these are murders.

[beanball]

9. Doc you are full of

crap,I too spent over twenty years in the military(Korea,Viet Nam)and our troops commited numerous savage acts that should have been condemed,but people like you looked the other way,so cut out the lies,the truth will set you free,I bet my last peso you don't want to be set free.You are living in a world that has passed you by,you proberly voted for the killer bush.

[DuctapeFatwa]

12. I imagine the mothers of the maimed and murdered children take offense

at the atrocities committed by militant bush regime gunmen.

[RapidCreek]

14. tell you what chief

You kill my family by accident....and your days are fuckin numbered. I don't give a rats ass if you are some all American Blue eyed boy with pie in the sky ideas about liberating my ass. You murder my family....my liberty ain't worth much is it?

RC
USN VET

[Upfront]

16. What You Say Is True.

However we should not be in this mess to start with. None off this needed to happen.

[not_in_my_name]

3. I'd be retaliating too if

some empire invaded my country and my loved ones were killed "unintentionally". What I also can't fathom is how families of our military personnel who've been killed are coping. If my son was killed for oil, I'd be marching my ass to Crawford or Camp David (because the son-of-a-bitch is never "working") and demand a face-to-face. I hope he and his little friends are impeached and then, once out of office, a class-action law suit is started against them for murder (because they can't effectively be touched by the international courts).

[Corgigal]

5. Could be because they are angry

about not getting HBO yet. They SO wanted to see the final season of Sex In The City. I say we hop to it.

[prolesunited]

25. No, as someone pointed out to me the other day

They want WalMart, credit cards and McDonalds. Also, if the could only buy Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake CDs, they would be so preoccupied that they would forget about killing us. :eyes:

[KharmaTrain]

7. The Patriot Game

Recently I encountered a Gun-totting "acquaintance"...Mr. NRA/POW/MIA/EIEIO. Even his staple gun has a scope.

These types are the biggest hypocrites and cowards...especially when it comes to things military, and in this person's case in specific. He's younger than I am, thus never served in the military, but he sure knows how to wrap himself up in a flag whenever his position is challenged on an issue. In the run-up to the invasion I avoided this guy since his jingoistic macho (especially when he knew I was in earshot) was downright obscene.

That was then...

The other day he broke a month-long silence on talking about the "war" (we at least agreed on that term) for him to ape the party line that we're only getting the bad, not the good news. I had to turn the worm.

I asked him what he would do if Saddam had invaded this country? (Forget how impossible this could have ever been, this guy's so out of it he's still convinced 9/11 and Saddam and Anthrax are one and the same) How would he re-act? His knee-jerk bravado couldn't hold back. He chimed he'd be out there with his M-16 and blah, blah, blah. I stopped him in mid-Rambo to ask him if he'd do it alone or would he join a resistance? He looked dumbfounded. I asked painted a clearer picture for him: Let's say this country was invaded and occupied by a far larger nation...say the Soviet Union (that still works). Despite what the media says, would he still take up arms? The macho couldn't be held back...of course he'd join the partisans, live on pine cones, eat nails...blah, blah, blah.

Time now to twist the knife. I once again disrupted John Wayne and asked that if he were in Iraq and a "regular Iraqi" (those who can afford good laxitives, I guess), would he take the same stance? At first he aped how we got rid of Saddam and the usual crap. I pulled the "Clinton-hate" card...and asked this if there was a government you didn't like and felt threatened to the point of taking up arms, would you want another country coming in and doing it for you? Mr. America said "Hell, No, it's my country"...I then asked if this isn't how an Iraqi should feel.

All of a sudden he had to go...but he'll be back.

:evilgrin:

[KharmaTrain]

10. Sheppard Lives In A Parallel Universe

What is this guy's credentials? He's the most hawkish of the non-Faux "military anal-ists". His guy's as subtle as a sledgehammer and always scares the hell out of me.

One reason is this goon, like Frank Gaffney and other hacks, are quick to put labels on any attack...especially all-things Baathist. He also thinks all the Shiites love us (despite the growing feuds that are catching our troops in the crossfire) as well as the Kurds (despite continual ambushes in the north).

This poor excuse for a human being exhibits zero compassion for human life...both theirs (always "the enemy") and ours...in his "tough love" approach to any questioning of this regime's never-ending war mantra.

It was an outrage when he came out loudly against the troops promised to be relieved several months ago.

[HFishbine]

11. None of it was intentional?

A seriously doubt if any army goes to war hoping they'll win by accidentally killing the opposing force.

[RapidCreek]

13. I've been saying this for 5 months.

Think about your average American. If he came home to discover his house and family destroyed by some clowns who claimed to be doing him a favor by removing George Bush, I don't think it'd make allot of difference whether he like George Bush or not.....he'd be looking to kill himself some clowns. I know I would.....It'd be my life's mission to kill as many as I could.

Here's an idea. How about we have a federal poll and ask every American whether or not they support the war in Iraq.....if you support the war in Iraq your name will be entered into a pool. From that pool shall be randomly selected the same number of people who we "unfortunately killed" in Iraq. Those selected will be killed as a show of good faith. I suspect if such a policy were implemented we'd hear a whole lot less folks screaming for war.

I actually had some asshole tell me that the families of dead Iraqi civilians should be thankful that thier loved ones were saved from being tortured by Hussein. In otherwords they should be thankful we put them out of their potential misery. I shit you not, some fucker actually said this..with a straight face.

RC

[Upfront]

17. Rapid Creek

your on the money and that is who we are now fighting. We will not win and should leave now.

[RapidCreek]

26. Thanks

yep....we made us some "terists". We got us our never ending war. We have allowed an AWOL lying coward to define our reality.

RC

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NNN0LHI]

18. You are joking. Right?

How many Iraqis were on those planes?

Don

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NNN0LHI]

22. Are you on the wrong thread or something?

This thread is about "at least" 6000 civilian Iraqis that our military killed when they invaded.

Don

[alcuno]

23. Welcome to DU, Osier.

It's pretty much a ME versus US conflict. It looks like we've managed to unite the Baathist secularists of Iraq with Jihadists and others who just hate Americans.

I have just never believed that an American-forced government in the Middle East had much hope. It's possible to hate two things at the same time; the government of Saddam Hussein and the government of America.

[Cooley Hurd]

19. Ha Ha! "Terrorists don't need a reason to kill..."

Yep, they just kill for the fun of it, because they hate our freedoms... And, FYI - Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11. You must be watching Faux too much...

[markses]

21. Here's the major flaw in his argument

Using his own words

Statement 1: "And it's a terrible tragedy; it happens in every war."
Statement 2: "And none of it, I can assure you, was intentional."

If numerous civilian casualties happen in EVERY war, then the act of going to war itself - which was intentional - is the intentional killing of civilians. If killing civilians is a necessary predicate of going to war ("happens in every war"), then intentionally going to war necessarily involves that predicate. Therefore, the killing of civilians IS, in fact, intentional, by his own argument.

By analogy:
1) When you cut down a tree, the leaves necessarily die.
2) We decided to cut down the tree.
3) We did not decide to kill all the leaves.

That's the structural equivalent of his statement. The trick is a simple confusion of the universal and the particular. No particular individual civilian death was intentional, the story goes. But that's like saying that no particular dead leaf was intentional when you cut down the tree. It doesn't matter if you intentionally killed any one leaf! You intentionally committed an act for which dead leaves are a NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE. Once we resituate the problem this way, we can see how the Don Sheppard's absurdism works: He behaves as if the problem of killing civilians is an individual problem of the troops, rather than a systemic problem of the policy. In this way, he exonerates the troops at the same time that he obfuscates the culpability of the policy makers. But it is a leap in logic and a rank fallacy. All this lanbguage of "minimizing" civilian deaths admits to the policy culpability time and again: If you seek to "minimize" it is because you understand the necessary consequences of your decision.

This is why we seek to reflect so carefully before we embark on such operations: Going to war necessarily involves civilian deaths as a predicate. If murder is the intentional destruction of innocent human life, going to war ALWAYS involves murder, by the "good" Major General's own set of definitions.

[alcuno]

24. The US responded to the murder of 3000 of its citizens by

attacking and toppling the government of the country of Afghanistan. Why did we do it? Because our nation was attacked and our citizens were killed. Sounds familiar.