Botellines

The Iraqui olimpic team told me that they wouldn´t have changed some of their family lives so they could play in the olimpics. Must be a western thing.

I mostly agree with you. Freedom fighters and terrorists are not the same thing, and i don´t hold any simpathy for terrorists or terrorism. Maybe some freedom fighters are now terrorist, however i am sure that some if not many will still refuse to kill their kind while killing americans. The fact is that not everybody who tries to kill americans are terrorists. Anyone who tries to kill americans and Iraquis or just anybody for that matter is a terrorist. For all we know about that marine, he was shooting americans from a mosque, so he doesn´t necesarily have to be a terrorist. There is too many people in this forum who calls anyone terrorists to attempt to legitimate a murder.

The iraqui government is far from being freely elected. The U.S has a say about who is ellegible to run Iraq or not. As long as a foreign country is actively involved in the elections, they are not free, let alone if that country is the invasion force. Those assholes are known to them as freedom fighters and are held in much consideration. As much consideration to them as the american who defends the U.S against an hipotethical attack from Mexico or Canada. The inhability of some american to put themselves in someone else´s shoes is legendary. And those who were ended up being tortured and/or killed in guantanamo bay and abu grahib. thugs regarding to what law?, you mean the U.S law, the one that sais that if you are not american or an allie you have no rights? Or the Iraqui law, the law that has the U.S stamp in every single page? The most importat thing for a democracy is the mindset of the population, and you will not change that blowing them to bits.

Come on Rhino, it is getting old that "Support the troops" crap. I am sure that you are aware that troops are made of men and women, and each individual will behave diferent as they are persons and not machines. By all means do support those that are brave and honest, like the one in this thread trying to save the girl. But none of the imature morons that have murdered, tortured and looted deserve any support, marines or not. Signing the dotted line alone, doesn´t make a hero, or even a good person. Why do you support so much even the bad apples? Or do you think that there is not bad apples among the U.S military. Most people would think that it is in the best interest of the honest marines to get rid of those who may give them a bad name. Regarding to the more general "support the troops", what better way to support the troops that doing as much as possible to bring them back ASAP and in the same state they went to Iraq.

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!! That made me laugh...

The U.S has a history of sending the prisoners to third countries to get tortured in order to gather information. (Abu, grahib in Irak, Guantanamo bay in Cuba, morocco, Saudi Arab, etc). It seems to me that surrendering to the U.S is not the safest choice. I don´t blame them for playing dead. They don´t have much choices, do they?

Exactly, had your country signed that agreement, war crimes would not have gone unpunished. I am talking about war crimes such as abu grahib, guantanamo bay, Civilian bombings (aka collateral damage), execution of unarmed cambatants, etc, etc. Moreover, had your country signed that treaty, the whole concept of pre-emptive strike would not have existed for it is a war crime. But then you would not have gotten a foothold in the middle east, right?

The search feature is nice, but not too powerful, or maybe you just didn´t care to look hard enough. It has been said in this forum that, in some aspects, germans should not be trusted due to their pasts. Surely someone remembers that thread, I think it was gun related

As i have said before, you don´t need to be in the military to tell right from wrong. Get over it, Spain did never support the U.S oil adventure in Irak, it was just a clown with a big moustache who happened to be the president of Spain who got us into this so he could pose in the pictures with clown cowboy and the british clown, thank you. By the way, have you forgotten how AQ spanked the U.S? they drove you to loose all international support, get into a huge deficit, loose a lot of lives in warsw, and increase terrorist recruitments all over the world. I don´t remember how the saying goes, it goes along the lines of the straw in someone else´s eye... Do you think America is only Bush or the Iraq war?

Yes, i know that, but considering the embargo they had before this war, they have to resort to those dirty tactics. You would do the same thing if Mexico and Canada ganged up against the U.S and killed your family. Give them proper weapons and you will see how they do not resort anymore to booby trap themselves. Maybe he was wounded enough that he could not sit himself and raise his hands. He was considered as a hero by many posters here. and regarding to the legal system, unfortunately it takes into account other things than just those regarding to the issue at hand, like troop morale, public relations, etc. One way and the other, so those trials could often be biased. i don´t know what i would have done in either situation, but i can tell right from wrong no matter which of those i would do. I would like to think that i wouldn´t have killed neither the mercenay nor the insurgent.

See, i knew we could find some common ground. So I take you agree with me that it was the U.S who started and took the war (on terrorism or whatever) to Iraq. It is very important to have this clear because you cannot hold to the same moral standards the guys who attack than to the guys who defend. Some example Kennedy will love. To kill someone with a gun is bad, to kill someone with a gun in self defense, it is not so bad. Same action, diferent circumstances. I am sure you are right about that, but i don´t understand why you bring the geneva convention up if the U.S. has gotten around it with the definition of unlawful combatants. Anyway, you will concede that contractors do provide logistics and other services to the U.S military, and that not all military engage in combat (doctors, nurses, etc) so the diference beetwen a contractor and a soldier is, to say the least, very blurry. I am not surprise that Iraquis don´t get into semantic games and make no effort to get the distinction. That is a good question, and it doesn´t have an easy answer. That little Iraqi guy probably the only thing he wants is to get out of this war alive and be able to feed his family, so i understand him perfectly, but i can understand as well how some insurgents see him as a traitor. If my family was killed by an invading force and i saw later on my neighbour working with them i would be royally pissed. Wouldnt you kill any fellow american that helped Canada to invade the U.S, no matter how little help that was? And as i said in another post on this thread I am as well disgusted by that. So you can count me on in hat majority. See, I don´t think they are so unrelated. Each army defends with wathever ways they have available. After 10 years of embargo, Iraq doesn´t have the means to defend properly against the U.S so they have to resort to those dirty tactics. Now, i understand that soldiers, marines are scared to death to aproach a body, but the fact is that the insurgent was wounded and unarmed just like the guy in the chopper. I am not the only one, many people see them, i will give you some examples. when they kill a civilian, it is bad, but the civilians the U.S killed are regarded as collateral damage and therefore necesary. If they use dirty tactics is bad, but the U.S can attack with almost any weapons even if they are very poorly armed. When Irak invaded Kuwait, it was bad, now the U.S invade Iraq and is all good.

we don´t know that, do we? Not suddenly, they became legitimate targets since they decided to go to a foreign country where they are not welcomed to provide support to an invading and ocupaying force.

Wow.. All I have to say is WOW! I need to go back to college so I can get a better GRIP on things.. Yeah, not only you will get a better grip on things, but also you will learn more vocabulary that just "Wow"

100% of catholic terrorists would agree with me had the guy been wearing a turban.

The military protocols change day by day to suit the U.S goals, while the geneva convention is being disregarded altogether by the U.S. Unlike you, may personal feelings towards this or that country does not stop me from distinguising right from wrong.

Irq is no tourist resort at the moment. It is a war zone, I am sure you remember because it was the U.S who turned it into a war zone. So anybody who is in Iraq at the present time belong to the U.S side, the insurgents side, or a charitable organization like the red cross(and Blackwater is not one of them). So in what side do you thing those guys from blackwater fall? They are defending the same targets that the U.S is defending, they are ultimately being paid by the DoD, what do you want the insurgents to do, help them find the way back home, so they come back with reinforcements? I see a huge double standard here

I have an idea to stop the illegal inmigration flow. Make the employers pay a fine if they give jobs to illegal inmigrants so inmensely huge that they will not want to risk his business hiring illegaly. Naaah, forget it, that would decrease benefits for bussiness and shareholders. Let´s stick with project that we know don´t work like minuteman project.

You would be nuking fucking mecca, just because you can. Then some idelogist would write about how it saved thousands of lives and you will have a dozen more heroes to add to the collection of heroes who didn´t do anything heroic. The problem is when the terrorists get hold of a nuke and decide to nuke fucking New York or fucking Vatican just because they can. Then maybe while you and your family roast at over 1000 degrees whatever unit you like you will be thinking that it would have been better to leave the nukes alone and stop feeding Al-Qaueda with new recruits.

I believe there are no civilian helicopters in Iraq at the moment. Among the dead were six American employees of the security firm Blackwater USA, three Bulgarian crew members and two Fijian security guards. Blackwater USA is a cmpany that recruits mercenaries and hire them to the U.S. so i don´t know where you get that civilian BS. "the commercial helicopter" was "owned and operated by Heli-Air Services, a Bulgarian subcontractor to SkyLink Air and Logistic Support under contract to Blackwater in support of a Department of Defense contract." Yep, no chance of being civilian. Which make it in my opinion a legitimate target. Although executing the lone survivor was hideous IMO.

Jeiber, there is differences, for not two situations are exactly alike, but there is more similarities than differences. First of all in the first situation there was a U.S military member and an insurgent, in the second there was an insurgent and a contractor, who basicaly is the same as a soldier but making three times as much. In the first situation we have a soldier executing an unarmed, injured person from a previous attack, and in the second situation we have exactly the same. In the first situation it was argued about its necesity, its conveniency, etc, etc. in the second situation the same thing can be argued. In the fist situation the American soldier was a hero, in the second situation the iraqui insurgent (freedom fighter) is a criminal. Seems a bit unfair, doesn´t it? Fair enough, and i fully agree with you that it was a despicable act, as despicable as what that U.S marine did to the wounded insurgent. However, and many will disagree with me, i would think the U.S should be held to a higher standard even if it is only because they are the ones invading and because they have the logistics to hold the prisoners. I have my doubts the other way around is true. I only wanted to point out the double standard. What did you think about that U.S marine that killed the wounded insurgent, do you think he is a hero?

My bad, I didnt see any smily, so i thought you were being serious...

Do you remember that marine that murder an "insurgent" because he thought he was playing dead? He was labeled as a hero by some posters here. I bet the guys who downed the helicopter and executed the survivors are seen as heroes by some people in Iraq. You know, one man´s freedom fighter is another man´s terrorist.

if you say so I have heard than to the east, where the world is suppose to end in a huge waterfall there is a place call Europe. And to the west a tiny island where they eat fresh uncoked fish, go figure...

Do you see the irony of being scared of some WMD that you sold to them not too long ago? Selling something and then asking for it back will not get you far in the sales bussiness.

No one likes those programs until they are needed. Some people though think it is good to have them before they actually need them. Just wait till your health insurance realize that your are not profitable anymore and compare it with the health care in a system where money is not the issue.