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Alex213
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: wilshire]
#5815933 - 07/03/06 01:08 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
wilshire said: I'm not convinced "lesser degree of law and order" and "mild state of war" really explain such atrocities.
what does then?
That the situation is one of such chaos and lawlessness that they think they've got a good chance of getting away with it?
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wilshire
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Alex213]
#5816182 - 07/03/06 02:13 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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That the situation is one of such chaos and lawlessness that they think they've got a good chance of getting away with
or as i said, "a lesser degree of law and order". this event doesn't quantify the degree. you're doing that.
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Economist
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Alex213]
#5816406 - 07/03/06 03:31 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Alex213 said: You need to compare the crime rates of serving soldiers in the US with serving soldiers in Iraq to find a suitable comparison. And remember we're not talking "crime" in the sense of smoking a doobie here. We're talking rape followed by mass murder. I think we can safely say Iraq will show a larger percentage of such crimes among soldiers than the US.
I'm sorry but this just isn't true. The crime rate for soldiers serving in the US army in places other than Iraq should not reflect the crime rate among US soldiers in Iraq because of the number of reservists present in the Iraq force.
Instead you would have to look at the rate of murder and sexual assault among reservists, not just those on standing duty. For a report on that, I would suggest: http://www.usmedicine.com/article.cfm?articleID=1205&issueID=81
I'm having trouble finding an equivalent report on murder, perhaps I might be able to find one later.
The point is, even in America this is a high incidence of sexual assault and rape among the army reserve. Given this information the fact that there has only been one recorded high-profile rape is somewhat of a blessing, don't you think?
After all, according to the department of Veterans Affairs, 60% of women in the reserve can expect to be sexually harassed or assaulted by their colleagues. Can the women of Iraq make the same claim? Have US military troops sexually harassed or assaulted 60% of the women in Iraq? Has they even harassed or assaulted 12,000 Iraqi women?
If the force in Iraq is 150,000 soldiers, and 1 out of every 7 soldiers in Iraq is a woman (both fairly credible statistics), then there would be slightly more than 21,400 women serving in Iraq.
If 60% of women in the reserve can expect some form of sexual harassment or assault (including rape) then there would have to be a minimum of over 12,000 incidents, just to bring the rate of sexual harassment or assault in Iraq up to the level it is state-side.
Given that I haven't seen anything even approaching a number like 12,000 I believe that the current headlines about rape and murder are just the result of 150,000 Americans being stationed anywhere, and actually have nothing to do with the conflict itself.
When you think about it, 150,000 is the population of Springfield, Missouri or Tallahassee Florida. Those are most certainly locations with much higher incidences of rape and murder commission than exist among the soldiers in Iraq, and I'm also willing to bet that less than 60% of the women living in those cities have been sexually harassed or assaulted.
So, really, there's nothing going on in Iraq except that there are 150,000 Americans there, and when you put that many people together, there will be crimes.
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David_vs_Goliath
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Economist]
#5817885 - 07/03/06 09:56 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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you can argue all you want but sometimes you have to look outside the box. Imagine the United States switched situations with Iraq and they came into our country and raped a woman and killed her family. That would be unheard of and I would assume all of us would loose support immediatly for the Iraqis
-------------------- "People living deeply have no fear of death." "Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love." "Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."
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Economist
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Quote:
David_vs_Goliath said: you can argue all you want but sometimes you have to look outside the box. Imagine the United States switched situations with Iraq and they came into our country and raped a woman and killed her family. That would be unheard of and I would assume all of us would loose support immediatly for the Iraqis
That depends.
I'd be willing to overlook the rape and murder as the criminal act of one individual provided the Iraqis had come into my country and freed me from tyranny and the threat of further acts of genocide. Really, especially if I was a Kurd, one rape is a small price to pay in exchange for living free from fear of future genocide.
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SirTripAlot
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Economist]
#5818328 - 07/03/06 11:59 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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If this is indeed true, they should be killed
-------------------- “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
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Trepiodos
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Economist]
#5818351 - 07/04/06 12:04 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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But you ARE NOT a Kurd, you aren't even a whey, (but you are away, very far away, comfortable with carefully controlled sanitized and filtered visions of a destruction that you will probably never experience) nor are you a Christian experiencing the shift from religious tolerance to religious intolerance (they're having a much harder time of it now). Say you were a little kid who didn't care about religion or ethnicity and then your block was destroyed as 'collateral damage' leaving you as an orphan... and then you heard about this incident, after the stories of Abu Ghraib and Haditha and dozens of other stories about the tribulations of the innocent victims of 'Bushian' crusaders. It is obvious from the polls of Iraqis themselves, that your opinion is not shared by the majority of those who are subject to the beneficent ass kicking, torture, rape and murder at the hands of the 'liberators.'
--------------------
And as things fell apart, Nobody paid much attention... - David Byrne, '(Nothing But) Flowers' from the Talking Heads' album, 'Naked'
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SirTripAlot
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Trepiodos]
#5818386 - 07/04/06 12:11 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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If that comment was a response to me I have no clue were you are going.......
-------------------- “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
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Trepiodos
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: SirTripAlot]
#5818391 - 07/04/06 12:12 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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It wasn't a response to you.
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And as things fell apart, Nobody paid much attention... - David Byrne, '(Nothing But) Flowers' from the Talking Heads' album, 'Naked'
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Alex213
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Economist]
#5818503 - 07/04/06 12:42 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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That depends.
On whether it was your family getting raped and slaughtered?
I'd be willing to overlook the rape and murder as the criminal act of one individual
It isn't the act of one individual. The 2 paragraphs at the start of the thread contain at least 3 different examples of mass murder. And remember these cases are only the tip of the iceberg. Not every case is going to be reported to superior officers, get taken up by the press and make world news.
one rape is a small price to pay in exchange for living free from fear of future genocide
What "future genocide" are you referring to?
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Alex213]
#5818541 - 07/04/06 12:57 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Alex213 said: That depends.
On whether it was your family getting raped and slaughtered?
I'd be willing to overlook the rape and murder as the criminal act of one individual
It isn't the act of one individual. The 2 paragraphs at the start of the thread contain at least 3 different examples of mass murder. And remember these cases are only the tip of the iceberg. Not every case is going to be reported to superior officers, get taken up by the press and make world news.
one rape is a small price to pay in exchange for living free from fear of future genocide
What "future genocide" are you referring to?
Alex, clearly you are not aware of the plight of the Kurds prior to the US invasion. Indeed, I would appreciate it if you stopped refering to what US soldiers did as "mass murder". "Mass Murder" was when Sadam unleashed chemical weapons indiscriminantly on entire towns in northern Iraq whose only crime was that their majority population was of the Kurdish ethinicity. The Kurds had good reason to believe that this could and would happen again at the hands of Sadam's regime. This is the future genocide I am refering to. All of this is readily available information.
As for the "what ifs," what if you were born to a mother who sold her sexual services for crack? What if your mother was shot by the police in self defense? Could you concievably grow up believing the murder of your mother was racially motivated and had nothing to do with her crack habit? Definitely.
Similarly, children, innocents, bystanders, whoever could easily draw any conclusion from the acts purpetrated by US soldiers in Iraq. That does not mean, however, that the mission in Iraq has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with what crimes the soldiers may have committed.
Alex213 began this discussion by asking what was going on in Iraq that caused American soldiers to commit brutal acts like rape and murder. I believe that question has been answered: that being that whenever you get together 150,000 people, some of them WILL be criminals, and dangerous criminals at that.
I'd also like to revise my above numbers, because I failed to take into account the fact that soldiers have been rotated into and out of Iraq. If you look at the total number of US soldiers that have served time in Iraq, the number is greater than 100,000, it's even greater than 500,000.
Were you to take a sample of 500,000 human beings, from any larger group, the reality is that some of them will be murderers, and some of them will be rapists. This is fairly obvious. Rapes and murders have occured in Iraq at the hands of American soldiers because of the sheer number of American soldiers that have served in Iraq.
To argue that these actions might color the way Iraqis view Americans in meaningless. The same exact thing happens in America, only when it happens here we refer to it as the "LA Riots" or "race relations" instead of "insurgency". It is not a function of the Iraq war, it is a function of the human condition.
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Alex213
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Economist]
#5818579 - 07/04/06 01:20 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Sadam unleashed chemical weapons indiscriminantly on entire towns in northern Iraq whose only crime was that their majority population was of the Kurdish ethinicity
You mean in 1988?
All of this is readily available information.
What isn't so readily available is that Turkey has leveled, burned and forcibly evacuated over 3000 Kurdish villages. Who will save the Kurds from this US ally?
I believe that question has been answered: that being that whenever you get together 150,000 people, some of them WILL be criminals, and dangerous criminals at that.
This point has already been demolished several times. If this was true you would get american soldiers commiting rapes and then slaughtering families back home in America. It doesn't happen. It's specific to Iraq. Why?
Were you to take a sample of 500,000 human beings, from any larger group, the reality is that some of them will be murderers, and some of them will be rapists. This is fairly obvious. Rapes and murders have occured in Iraq at the hands of American soldiers because of the sheer number of American soldiers that have served in Iraq.
Nonsense. If large numbers of american soldiers were such a terrible threat then every family near Fort Bragg would be living in fear.
To argue that these actions might color the way Iraqis view Americans in meaningless
Meaningless? Raping and mass murders are meaningless?
The same exact thing happens in America
Then you'll be able to find me examples of groups of soldiers in America massacreing groups of american civilians. Good luck.
It is not a function of the Iraq war, it is a function of the human condition.
No, it's a function of the Iraq war. Otherwise groups of american soldiers would be slaughtering american families back home.
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RosettaStoned
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Alex213]
#5818664 - 07/04/06 02:05 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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It is probably a combination of alot of factors. The most important factor being the perpetrators of these acts are pieces of shit. Now while being a piece of shit doesn't make you a rapist or a murderer. But being a piece of shit in a dirty stinking bombed out country, where you are tired of being and tired of patrols and tired of seeing friends die and just plain tired of the whole damn situation. With all these things combined they behave in a manner how they wouldn't normally in a place where they aren't so miserable.
Maybe that type of stress on a certain type of person is enough to make them snap, while other people under that stress can still realize basic right and wrong.
-------------------- "Government big enough to provide you with all you need is also big enough to take everything you have." ~ Thomas Jefferson "Without stupid, faggy potheads we wouldn't have wars." - Zappa
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David_vs_Goliath
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I'm not argueing that this is worse that what was going on during the previous regeim, I'm just saying that the Iraqi people must be loosing trust and any hope they had in the United States after all of these incidents.
-------------------- "People living deeply have no fear of death." "Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love." "Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."
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Economist
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Alex213]
#5820946 - 07/04/06 06:12 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Alex213 said:
You mean in 1988?
So we're just supposed to ignore it, because it happened in the 1980s? If the collective global memory actually emptied out every two decades, no one in Latin America would be angry at the US anymore.
Quote:
Alex213 said: What isn't so readily available is that Turkey has leveled, burned and forcibly evacuated over 3000 Kurdish villages. Who will save the Kurds from this US ally?
And exactly what has the US allowed Turkey to do post-invasion? It seems like a big old nothing. Meanwhile, perhaps the only thing the US has done correctly, a democratically elected Iraqi government with Kurdish participation has been set up.
But, as I said above, none of this really matters, it has nothing to do with the question of why the US Soldiers in Iraq may have committed the crimes of which they have been accused.
Quote:
Alex213 said: I believe that question has been answered: that being that whenever you get together 150,000 people, some of them WILL be criminals, and dangerous criminals at that.
This point has already been demolished several times. If this was true you would get american soldiers commiting rapes and then slaughtering families back home in America. It doesn't happen. It's specific to Iraq. Why?
Were you to take a sample of 500,000 human beings, from any larger group, the reality is that some of them will be murderers, and some of them will be rapists. This is fairly obvious. Rapes and murders have occured in Iraq at the hands of American soldiers because of the sheer number of American soldiers that have served in Iraq.
Nonsense. If large numbers of american soldiers were such a terrible threat then every family near Fort Bragg would be living in fear.
To begin with, Fort Bragg is a bad example, as it has a population of less than 30,000 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Bragg,_North_Carolina ) which makes it roughly 1/5 the size of the military force in Iraq at any given time, and 1/16 the size of the total military force rotated through Iraq.
Second, the point about the statistical occurence of murder and rape has NEVER been disproven in this thread. I have already posted a report on incidences of sexual harrassment and assault as proof that the American military commits these sorts of crimes all the time, regardless of where they're stationed.
I would also suggest reading this: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/vpj.pr This was a DOJ study of how often US military veterans commit crimes and how often. I will quote the pertinent bits here:
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About 35 percent of the veterans in state prisons had been convicted of homicide or sexual assault, compared to 20 percent of the non-veterans.
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Veterans were more likely to be in a state prison for a violent offense (55 percent) but were less likely to be serving a sentence for a drug law violation (14 percent) than the non-veteran inmate population (46 percent and 22 percent respectively).
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The report defines a veteran as any person who has served in the United States armed forces
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In a new study BJS found that there were 937 incarcerated adult male veterans per 100,000 U.S. veteran residents in 1998, compared to 1,971 per 100,000 among adult male non-veterans.
So, armed with the above data, let's do some math: There have been 500,000 military personnel rotated through Iraq, of these 1/7 were women, but we only have data for men, so we'll adjust the total number down to 428,000.
Now, the report found that those who served in the army committed crimes at a rate that was 937/1971 times the general population, slightly more than 47.5% the rate of the general population in the United States.
But, we also know that when they do commit crimes, those crimes are more likely to be homicide or sexual assault at a ratio of 35:20 when compared with the general population.
So, now we look at the rates for murder and rape in the general population as reported by the FBI Uniform crimes database ( http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm ). The national rate for the United States is 5.5 per 100,000. We'll multiply this by .475 to account for how many fewer crimes soldiers commit, yielding a result of 2.615. This will then be multiplied by 1.75 (this comes from the ratio above) to account for the fact that soldiers commit homicide more often when they do commit crimes , this gives a result of 4.57.
Now, multiply this by 4.2 to account for the total number of soldiers rotated through Iraq, and you get 19.19.
So, all things considered, you should expect slightly more than 19 murders from the soldiers in Iraq based simply upon the rate at which soldiers commit crimes and the number of soldiers rotated through Iraq.
Doing the same calculation for rape, based upon the national rape rate of 32 per 100,000 and you should expect more than 111 rapes since the start of the invasion.
So, statistics say there should be 19 murders (which is well within the ballpark of the ongoing investigation) and 111 rapes (which is obviously far greater than the number that have actually occured).
As I said before, the Iraq war has NOTHING to do with the murders, it's just the number of soldiers being rotated through Iraq.
If you can produce a report stating that US Soldiers actually commit crimes at a much lower rate than the one I have cited here, I will happily stand corrected. But from the available data, nothing more appears to be going on in Iraq than human nature.
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Alex213
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Economist]
#5822279 - 07/05/06 01:15 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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So we're just supposed to ignore it, because it happened in the 1980s?
So what "genocide" against the Kurds had Saddam done in the last decade for example? Didn't he have time to fit it in for the last decade?
The Turks were burning Kurdish villages in 1995. Why have we ignored this?
And exactly what has the US allowed Turkey to do post-invasion?
Turkey is still persecuting the kurds.
Second, the point about the statistical occurence of murder and rape has NEVER been disproven in this thread. I have already posted a report on incidences of sexual harrassment and assault as proof that the American military commits these sorts of crimes all the time, regardless of where they're stationed.
As I've pointed out, this crime wasn't sexual harrasment. It was raping a woman and then slaughtering her and her entire family including a child. Find me a single similar act commited by serving american soldiers in America.
If you can produce a report stating that US Soldiers actually commit crimes at a much lower rate than the one I have cited here
You seem to be ignoring the point. As I've just said, we arn't talking rape or murder. We're talking rape followed by mass murder of an entire family including a child. Your statistics don't refer to cases like this. These cases are only happening in Iraq.
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Economist
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Alex213]
#5822753 - 07/05/06 07:59 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Alex213 said: So what "genocide" against the Kurds had Saddam done in the last decade for example? Didn't he have time to fit it in for the last decade?
Well, given that the initial Gulf War happened in 1991, no, he probably couldn't find time to fit in additional massacres while having his skies patrolled by an international force (remember the "no fly zone"?)
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Alex213 said: The Turks were burning Kurdish villages in 1995. Why have we ignored this?
For the same reason we ignored the massacre in Rwanda and the present situation in Darfur, we simply cannot be everywhere protecting anyone, nor do we want to be.
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Alex213 said: Turkey is still persecuting the kurds.
Not the ones in Iraq, and neither is Sadam anymore, which is the point.
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Alex213 said: As I've pointed out, this crime wasn't sexual harrasment. It was raping a woman and then slaughtering her and her entire family including a child. Find me a single similar act commited by serving american soldiers in America.
Fort Bragg, North Carolina 1970. The wife and children of Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald are killed by Greg Mitchell, a 19 year old soldier stationed at the base. Unfortunately MacDonald was railroaded and convicted wrongly of murder, but the truth has since come out and he's going to get a new trial. You can read all about that here: http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/jmacdonald/20.html
So, there you go, a US Soldier, serving in the US murder a man's wife and two children in their home in Fort Bragg.
Beyond this I would point to the well-publicized gang rape in Okinawa as proof that this sort of thing has happened before.
Both statistically, and historically, US soldiers have carried out this sort of crime beforehand. So, again, the answer to the question "What is going on in Iraq?" is simply "human nature".
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Alex213
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Economist]
#5822894 - 07/05/06 09:30 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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So, there you go, a US Soldier, serving in the US murder a man's wife and two children in their home in Fort Bragg.
Nope. That doesn't work. You need a group of soldiers doing it. You'll also need to come up with american soldiers massacreing at least 24 civilians in the US before we can start comparing the crimes in US and Iraq.
Both statistically, and historically, US soldiers have carried out this sort of crime beforehand
Not in America they havn't.
So, again, the answer to the question "What is going on in Iraq?" is simply "human nature".
When you can find me groups of american soldiers committing massacres on civilians in America then you'll have a point.
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Economist
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Re: WTF is going on in Iraq? [Re: Alex213]
#5823123 - 07/05/06 10:57 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'm sorry but there's no point in continuing this but I will try one last time. Alex213, you have already come to a conclusion and the actual facts are not going to get in your way.
You started out this thread claiming that American soldiers don't regularly commit crimes like murder and rape. I showed that was incorrect by citing statistics. You then said they didn't commit a triple murder on American soil, I also showed that was wrong. You now claim that soldiers need to work together. I would urge you to visit the link in my last post and you will find that Mitchell had 2 accomplices, at least one of which was another soldier.
You're not reading the links I post, and you're not facing the facts.
You're also now trying to make claims about a massacre of at least 24 civilians. The only trouble is there's no where near the level of proof that this actually happened when compared with the initial rape/murder story. The soldiers at Ishaqi were cleared, and no charges have been brought in the Haditha event. These two events together would have produced a number like 24, individually they were 15 and 11, but as I've stated, they can't be proven to be massacres and may have been legitimate firefights (the one at Ishaqi was at the very least).
Among the other investigations there are the 4 killed in the article you initially posted, there are soldiers accused of killing 3 detainees in Tikrit (and I can assure you detained prisoners have died in American army bases before), and there are soldiers accused of killing 1 man in Hamdaniya. You can read about all the open invesitgations here ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5105284.stm )
Hardly the 24 civilians massacred that you claim are necessary.
Furthermore, as commanding officers have already been punished (not criminally, but by losing their rank) over the incident at Haditha (assuming it even did happen, as I noted above no charges have been brought), I would claim that this exact event did happen in the US: Kent State. Soldiers, acting under orders, opened fire on unarmed students.
So, there you have it, a group of soldiers HAVE worked together to kill a family before IN AMERICA, soldiers acting under orders (as in Haditha) HAVE committed a massacre IN AMERICA.
A group of soldiers have not worked together to massacre 24 people before in America, but they haven't done so in Iraq either.
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