If it was possible to give a standing ovation to someone via Hacker News, I would. This is perhaps the most sincere, mature, well-thought out commentary I've ever read on anything to do with the Iraq war. Spoken like a true soldier.
edit: to clarify what I mean, I grew up shortly after there was a civil war in my country - and as such I really appreciate soldiers who, having fought on soil that was not their own, are able to recognize the tragedy that occurs on both sides, regardless of politics.
I think it came across quite clearly in the video that the guys on the ground were a lot more attached to the situation. You could here it in their voices. An important part of this story that sadly won't get much attention is how badly the soldiers are treated. The sergeant could potentially have saved this guy a lot of trouble by letting him see a "mental health person".
The commentary of this soldier, and possibly others, would have provided some context to this incident. He supports the initial engagement, but criticizes the secondary attack on the van and a later firing of a Hellfire missile into a building.
A context the Wikileaks' "Collateral Murder" campaign was sorely lacking.
Yes; I lost a lot of respect for Wikileaks after that. It seemed as if they'd branched out into the propaganda business. I wonder what made them change direction after so long.
This was brought up on The Colbert Report's interview of Julian Assange [1]. His response was that they where provided the video under the condition that they'd try to maximize its political impact to the best of their ability. I don't think their strategy was the best way to fullfil that goal (precisely because of the blatant political slant), but that's their stated motivation.
The thing is that it worked. I never seen any Wikileaks story get so much attention in the news or "virally" on the Internet. Here in Sweden it was a top story on all the major newspapers websites and on the evening news, but put into context. The second part with the hellfire missile, where they didn't provide much commentary, in comparison got a lot less attention. More people than usual do seem to have watched the full material and read the related reports etc. to get the full story.
I never really got upset about Wikileaks providing commentary, because I never had the illusion that they were going to be impartial. Don't be lazy, apply some critical thinking, listen to different sources. Leaks are in their nature untrustworthy. Even intelligence agencies with all their highly educated analysts get things wrong.
Finally if you stop supporting Wikileaks because you don't like that they provide commentary, editorialize, make propaganda or whatever your view are of it. I don't really think you get what their doing or what's at stake.
It's unfortunate/scary that propagandizing is more effective than the "truth".
I guess the truly unfortunate part is that people don't think critically by default. Encouraging critical thought seems like a far better/realistic goal than expecting content producers to act in a way that maximizes total "societal good", but that's [depressingly] still a completely far-fetched idea.
> Don't be lazy, apply some critical thinking, listen to different sources.
That's not a problem, I think, for the demographic here on HN (and other places). But increased coverage reaches more people; how many have been mislead because they didn't do the above?
That's what tastes bads to me.
> don't really think you get what their doing or what's at stake.
I'm even more cynical of them now. Indeed I think it's becoming clear what their intentions really are - it's to hold a firm political stance in how they present data.
Were I a whistle blower I am afraid I wouldn't consider that a legitimate or trustworthy avenue any more.
they where provided the video under the condition that they'd try to maximize its political impact to the best of their ability
With this policy in mind, is it any wonder that Army counterintelligence once wondered: "Will the Wikileaks.org Web site be used by FISS, foreign military services, or foreign terrorist groups to spread propaganda, misinformation, or disinformation or to conduct perception or influence operations to discredit the US Army?" -- http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf
From various profiles of Assange scattered around the web, it seems clear that he intended Wikileaks to be a propaganda (he uses the word "activist") organization from the beginning. I suppose that implies they were simply biding their time waiting for a leak that would make a big enough propaganda splash (he uses the phrase "maximum political impact") before showing their hand.
It seems we all just projected the role of neutral broker onto them. If nothing else, that shows what a crying need there is for a genuine neutral broker.
Edit: If Assange really cared about his stated goal -- maximal political impact -- he would have done better to let the video speak for itself. By spinning it so aggressively, Wikileaks made it easy for people to dismiss the video, and Wikileaks, as products of an ideological agenda. What it did quite effectively, though, is make Assange a celebrity du moment: he got on Colbert for pete's sake. Between the TV appearances and his juvenile cloak-and-dagger act, I think there's a case to be made that this isn't even about propaganda, it's about ego.
I don't get the difference? The important thing is that this kind of video is made publically available. Who cares what commentary the publisher chooses to make alongside of it and how is that different from what you get from any of the mainstream news sources (tv, newspapers), except that those actually feign neutrality (contrary to wikileaks).
Propaganda vs. propaganda is a recipe for disaster, that's not the sort of future of journalism that anyone should want. Reporting news from a given perspective or from a certain bias is fine, indeed normal, provided that you make people aware of it. Presenting propaganda as straight, unbiased news should be discouraged everywhere it is evident, history has proven that slope to be far too slippery. If wikileaks wishes to transform itself into some sort of rumor mill or propaganda site like druge report then it's free to do so provided that they make it abundantly clear that's what they're doing.
Wow...totally agree here. To me their mission is a lot less compelling as an activist organization. I liked them a lot better when they were just publishing information.
>Now, as far as rules of engagement, [Iraqis] are not supposed to pick up the wounded. But they could have been easily deterred from doing what they were doing by just firing simply a few warning shots in the direction. Instead, the Apaches decided to completely obliterate everybody in the van.
It is by no means irresponsible to call what happened "collateral murder".
> Now, as far as rules of engagement, [Iraqis] are not supposed to pick up the wounded.
It's what any right thinking person would do, care for the wounded, the 'rules of engagement' were probably not set up by the Iraqis if they are not allowed to care for their wounded.
update: i mean: maybe they had to protect their sources? maybe they have the (naive?) idea that they only have to bring up "the truth" and "the truth" speaks for itself? for sure, there is a gap between them and the traditional media. and: who can you believe when in war?
They're clearly incapable of doing real investigative journalism, so they should stick to what they're good at. Just release all the facts and the media and let the world do the rest.
Without the hype no one would have seen the video. Have you seen all the other documents at Wikileaks or the stuff at criptome? It's hard to penetrate the 24 hour news cycle, they did an admirable job. Even if you didn't like their editing, you have to admit they got you to watch and think about all the people we've killed in Iraq, very few people have managed to do that in the 7 years of this bloody war.
this is my update from above, as i realized that was paul graham....
i mean: maybe they had to protect their sources? maybe they have the (naive?) idea that they only have to bring up "the truth" and "the truth" speaks for itself? for sure, there is a gap between them and the traditional media. and: who can you believe when in war?
It makes me a little angry really. There are so many liars and people who spin things, political blogs, "opinion shows" on television. It's just outright lies. People are not telling the truth and I find it to be one of the most disgusting realizations I've had as an adult. It really takes a brain and critical thinking to understand the world because of the sheer number of liars broadcasting their lies through every means possible. This soldier came face to face with children hurt in war, and it's the most authentic and reasoned response I've read yet with regard to this incident. Wikileaks on the other hand just became another one of the liars. It's just despicable. I hope they're proud of their new status in life.
We wouldn't ever have heard of this soldier if it weren't for the WikiLeaks video - and if they hadn't sensationalized it, nobody would ever have seen the video.
They did exactly what they were supposed to do: get the raw info out there, so that we can now all go through digesting it and picking it apart. This was the whole point in the first place.
Registering a domain name called collateralmurder.com with the lede "WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people" is not releasing "raw info".
They released the video, didn't they? That's the raw info (assuming they haven't doctored it).
It is true, however, that they stamped it with their own interpretation, which is that the slaying of a dozen people was indiscriminate.
This is contradicted by the soldier in the OP who feels that some of the slaying was discriminate.
However, WikiLeaks and the soldier both agree that the man in the van was collaterally murdered - and while the children survived, it wasn't for want of murderous intent. So, the domain name is certainly justified.
The video itself is not even raw - opens with a George Orwell quote, spliced in commentary, a slideshow of the children of the victims, edited, arrows pointing at "cameras", etc.
It's painfully obvious that Wikileaks "leaked" a video with a carefully constructed point of view.
The released TWO videos simultaenously. One was a unedited 50 minute long RAW video. The other one with the introduction was edited and shorter. The "biased" edited version does not include the additional missile strike against a building that killed a family of 4.
I have mixed feelings about this viewpoint. It's like taking VC money before you're ready. The world may benefit from your "idea", but your lousy execution is hurting your cause.
agree, I support their release of the video, but as the Solider discusses, exposing the average human to the terribleness of War is all you need to do, not overblow with commentary.
They surely had the right to release the video; however, the manner in which they did it will lead many to question the credibility Wikileaks once enjoyed.
Until watching The Pacific mini-series (currently on HBO), I did not fully appreciate the saying "war is hell". Having never experienced war, I can't fully vouch for the show's authenticity, but if it's even close, you've gotta feel for any human being put in these circumstances.
The people that are most gung-ho about war are usually the ones that have not experienced it or any fall out from one in any way.
Figure the US reaction on 9/11, 3500 civilians killed (unjustly, no mistake) vs the US reaction on tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed. It's just too far away from home, and this video did one service, it rammed home just how ugly that war really is.
My wife and I had a baby girl 5 weeks ago; I never imagined I could feel as much love for someone or something as I feel for her. I easily would give my life for her.
Having just experience my daughter’s birth, the soldier’s description in this article of the young girl in the shot up van and the sound of her cry cut me to the core. I can’t imagine what he is going through and the torment he must feel when that memory flashes through his mind.
The journalists will write, the commentators will comment, and the analysts will analyze. There are so many angles to consider, this point and that point. I realize that. But in the end, all I can think to do is to simply grieve for this situation and for the many others just like it that I am sure exist. I am also profoundly thankful that I was born where I was, and live where I do. Peace is truly priceless.
Were you born in America? Because America did this. They went to Iraq and did this.
all I can think to do is to simply grieve for this situation
No, you can ask that America leaves Iraq. If it was your daughter, you wouldn't just say, "I guess all I can do is grieve". Right? Look at her. I have a daughter too. You can do a fuck lot more than that.
I was in Iraq when this happened. It is a fairly representative incident -- the only remarkable thing is that Reuters people were involved. There have been plenty of within-rules shootings which led to the deaths of civilians, but there were also plenty of situations where the rules hindered successful operations or even self-defense. It's a balancing act, and it's war, so it's choosing among least-bad options, with imperfect information.
It's fair to criticize the Rules of Engagement as being overly hostile to civilians, and counter to the goal of winning and leaving. In Afghanistan, GEN McChrystal actually stopped a lot of effective tactics (night raids, airstikes, etc.) because they were counter to the strategy of winning the war by winning the populace. In Iraq, there were periods of intense kinetic violence (such as going into Baquba, Sadr city, Fallujah) combined with periods of reconstruction and trying to win the populace.
I actually knew Julian Assange from running a remailer long before wikileaks, and he seemed like a pretty decent guy. I'm not sure what happened. I'm betting he/they felt marginalized and were trying to use this to raise their own profile. I support the general idea of transparency through third parties publishing information, but I can't support wikileaks.
Here is a solid collection of reactions to the video from military blogs. They were a bit after the actual WikiLeaks video hit HN so I never posted the link here, but it might be interesting to those looking for the insightful view of people with relevant knowledge and experience.
The innocent people who were killed will never get to talk to the media or their family and friends. Imagine if a foreign military had been flying around your city with high powered weapons looking for insurgents among civilians and were making deadly assumptions and saying things like they did in that video
If this video had not come to light, we'd keep thinking that war was cut and dry. Why are people attacking Wikileaks when the guilty had months to put together a calm, cooling anti-story for the media in hindsight?
Things like this video probably happened dozens if not hundreds of times over there, so you want to find an excuse for this one? What about all the others?
There seems to be no shortage of people rationalizing this behavior and relieved to have an explanation, implying it could be condoned.
Just like the all too common abuse of power by police, the end never justifies the means and can never be condoned. Those with power have a much higher responsibility, not less with justifications like "that's just how war is".
I don't think anyone is condoning this behavior (certainly not the soldier in the interview). However, I should mention that police abusing power is a little different, since they aren't in a WAR ZONE, having been shot at minutes before. Whether or not the soldiers erred (and they did) is not the question here. The question is, why did WikiLeaks present it in the way they did?
People are attacking WikiLeaks because they feel betrayed by the organization. I know I do. What was supposed to be an impartial mediator of classified data turned out to be a sensationalist mediator of classified data presented with a spin that would make Fox News proud.
In closing: Wikileaks exposed us to civilian murder. This would normally by fine. However, they also distorted the facts and the context of the event to support a sensationalist publicity routine. That is the problem here.
"There’s no easy way to kill somebody. You don’t just take somebody’s life and then go on about your business for the rest of the day. That stays with you. And cracking jokes is a way of pushing that stuff down. That’s why so many soldiers come back home and they’re no longer in the situations where they have other things to think about or other people to joke about what happened … and they explode."
I think a lot of people who jumped to conclusions about this video should take these words to heart.
If you are an American taxpayer, you also pay for their psychiatry and medication for the rest of their lives too when they come back, even if they don't "explode".
I have a friend who was drafted into Vietnam, whose airport was overrun and he had to defend himself with a handgun. To this day he still has serious mental issues from being put in a position to have to kill people face-to-face.
Many soldiers in Iraq were just ignorant kids who rushed to sign up after 9/11 with their misguided thinking they'd go to war against those who did that. Instead they were sent to a manufactured war in Iraq. Doesn't justify this behavior in the least but it does give some insight.
That issue is addressed at the end of the article, and I can vouch for it - soldiers have to find a way to take the situation lightly at the time. It's the only way they can deal with what's going on at the time.
Well, I won't argue with you that the more honorable response to accidentally killing children would probably be to break down in tears, go home and commit ritual seppukku.
However, these guys are paid to carry out the nasty state business of killing. It's their job. The immediate question is whether they did their job properly here. Did they carry out their orders properly? A bigger question is whether those orders were correct in the first place.
The question is NOT whether they responded to a killing with appropriate remorse. That part is pretty much irrelevant as soon as you volunteer to kill for the state.
I'm afraid you've got it the wrong way round. The detached non-emotional tone adopted in the recording doesn't contradict the assertion that fighters may adopt a detached attitude during conflict as a way of pushing down emotions.
I guess we project our prejudices into how we interpret the vid. Their job is to kill enemy combatants. Do you expect them to say "oh dear, we hit the people we were aiming at, how terrible". Of course not. To me the judgements on who and what to hit were verging on the 'trigger happy', but sorry, I didn't see or hear evil bloodthirsty yanqui imperialists.
"I doubt that they were a part of that firefight. However, when I did come up on the scene, there was an RPG as well as AK-47s there. … You just don’t walk around with an RPG in Iraq, especially three blocks away from a firefight. …"
"And where the soldier said [in the video], “Well, you shouldn’t take your kids to battle.” Well in all actuality, we brought the battle to your kids. There’s no front lines here. This is urban combat and we’re taking the war to children and women and innocents."
and "I don’t think that [the] big picture is whether or not [the Iraqis who were killed] had weapons. I think that the bigger picture is what are we doing there? We’ve been there for so long now and it seems like nothing is being accomplished whatsoever, except for we’re making more people hate us."
I admire this guy. He seems to take responsibility vs ducking it or explaining it away.
This is about the specifics of what happened here. It's about whether or not Americans in Iraq are living up to a high enough standard of ethical warfare in their day-to-day.
These conversations decay into "big picture" when people get tired. It's not the point though. The point of rules of war, engagement or otherwise is 'while there is war..'
You know what I find most depressing? That Gizmodo got 20 Million page views in a day for their iPhone 4G scoop. I somehow doubt this will get as much coverage.
Psychologically, it's very difficult to question a war you're fighting. Believing it's worthwhile is a coping mechanism. If this fellow can be strong enough to question it, what excuse do the rest of us have?
Quote: I think that the bigger picture is what are we doing there? We’ve been there for so long now and it seems like nothing is being accomplished whatsoever, except for we’re making more people hate us.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for the argument that the video was released without context that would justify the American military action. If the American military had wanted context, they should have released the video themselves with additional context. Instead, the American military suppressed the video. They should not complain that the video is now being released without context.
Americans are in Iraq as foreign occupiers. Americans invaded under false pretenses a country that had not attacked them first. The burden of proof is on the Americans, not Wikileaks, to justify American killing of Iraqi innocents.
Aside from the larger issue being debated here, I think you're guilty of operating under an outdated assumption. The US forces in Iraq have not been 'foreign occupiers' for quite some time. They are there at the will of the democratically elected Iraqi government in a deployment sanctioned by the UN Security Council. It should be possible to acknowledge this fact even while disagreeing with the presence of US forces in Iraq.
Nor do I believe the US military had an obligation to release the video, although they did have an obligation to conduct a serious and thorough investigation and make the results and key aspects of it public. I think it's clear this didn't happen, but it did not justify Wikileaks's heavily edited and flawed version of the video.
I just pointed out that calling them 'foreign occupiers' is not accurate. Although as a practical matter it's difficult for the Iraqis to boot the US out because of the power vacuum that would result, that does not change the fact that under the current legal situation the US forces are there at the behest of the Iraqi government and that they would have to leave if requested to do so.
For what it's worth I did not claim that the locals invited them in. That one's a straw man.
Weapons of Mass Destruction were never found. That was the causus belli. That was the reason for the invasion, and they don't exist.
Someone, anyone, tell me why the U.S. is still there and under what legal basis. Anyone. I dare you.
The problem is that you can't. And so now we're talking about kids with glass in their eyes and bullets in their bodies, and soldiers with psychological scars that won't heal. Yet not a single person can give a valid, legal reason for it all. Yet no one will take two minutes to email their representative and say, "Stop it."
Technically, WMDs was only one of a number of casus belli stated officially by the US prior to the war, which included Iraq's non-compliance with the terms of the 1991 ceasefire, its continued hampering of UNMOVIC weapons inspection teams, its repression of its civilian population, its attempted assassination of a former US president, its continued firing on US aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone and its harbouring of international terrorists. I don't believe the US and UK should have launched that war in the first place and I personally thought the rationale was a little shaky, but the historical record does show that it wasn't only about WMDs.
The legal basis for the continued US presence is well-established and widely known, so I'm surprised you feel confident enough to dare anybody to explain it to you. Subsequent to the invasion, the presence of US and other coalition forces in Iraq was legitimised by, in turn, UNSC Resolution 1483 (2003), 1546 (2004), 1637 (2005) and 1723 (2006), IIRC. The last action taken by the UNSC with regards to multinational forces in Iraq was to extend the mandate authorising their presence till December 2008. Thereafter, the continued presence of US forces in Iraq has been legally authorised by the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, which calls for US forces to leave the country by December 31, 2011. Whatever the moral case for a continued US presence in Iraq may be, the legal basis is sound.
Something else that's worth noting is that the Wikileaks video dates from 2007, during the height of combat operations surrounding the surge. At the time those sorts of engagements were a daily occurrence. This is no longer the case; these days the remaining US forces in Iraq are involved in relatively few direct combat operations and the overall level of violence in the country has dropped to a level where a slow US withdrawal is now possible without causing a security vacuum. From a US perspective Iraq is now a solved problem and the war is just about over. I must give credit to General Petraeus and his sane and unorthodox counter-insurgency strategy for that, for what it's worth.
So the stuff shown in the Wikileaks footage seldom happens in Iraq anymore. I would suggest that your time is better spent not impotently demanding that US forces leave now based on your reaction to a three year old video, but rather applying pressure on your representatives to ensure the planned withdrawal from Iraq happens on time and that US combat operations in that country end as scheduled on 31 August. I see no reason why it won't though, and in my opinion Afghanistan is a far more pressing concern on which to focus at the moment.
It was the allegations of WMDs gave the impetus for action. Most wars can't be started by frustrating fly-over issues.
The legal basis for the continued US presence is well-established and widely known, so I'm surprised you feel confident enough to dare anybody to explain it to you.
You're confused. None of these authorized the occupation of Iraq. Each of these was adopoted after the invasion took place as safeguards on the occupation. None of these makes the occupation in any way a legal act. It has never been sanctioned by the Security Council; there are no, and have never been, UN troops in Iraq.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself directly called the invasion "illegal". His word.
The illegal basis for the US invasion is well-established and widely known, so I'm surprised you feel confident enough to talk as if you know otherwise.
>Someone, anyone, tell me why the U.S. is still there and under what legal basis. Anyone. I dare you.
I quite clearly explained 'why the US is still there and under what legal basis'. Despite what you think, those resolutions did in fact make first the occupation and then the continued non-sovereign presence legal and represented the UNSC's explicit sanction for the coalition's presence in Iraq. Between 2003 and 2008 US and other coalition forces in Iraq operated under a UNSC mandate (read up on MNF I), so it's irrelevant that there were no blue hats in the country.
Whether the original invasion was illegal or not, Kofi Annan's word does not make it officially so. Like all UN Secretary-Generals, Annan was just an administrator whose opinion carried no legal weight. All binding declarations in terms of international law can only be made within the UN's participatory bodies, like the Security Council, or by the International Court of Justice.
I'm not willing to get into an argument about the legality of the initial invasion because that's not the point you raised in your original post and it's not relevant to the discussion being had about the legal status of US forces in the country right now. The current presence, as I pointed out, is without any shadow of a doubt entirely legal and has been since UNSC 1483. Times have changed, the issues are different and rehashing the arguments of 2003 won't get us anywhere.
I have never heard it parsed that way, Maktab. Interesting.
So you're admitting that the invasion was illegal under international law, but that the continued occupation is legal. How does that work, exactly? You can illegally break into a house, but legally not have to leave?
It's my impression that while UNSCR 1483 legitimized the governing aspect of US/UK forces, it was essentially a "you broke it, now fix it" resolution that didn't offer any specific language that makes the occupation legal.
rehashing the arguments of 2003
The people of Iraq are rehashing those arguments every day their country is occupied illegally. Iraq, at current oil prices, would be one of the richest countries in the world. They'll never see any of that. Those people in the van (in the Wikileaks video) who were killed and mangled, including the kids, are rehashing 2003. There's no statute of limitations on the suffering there; there's no reason we should forget about it if they can't.
The legality of the initial invasion is an open question, without any clearly-defined and universally-accepted answer. Without an unambiguous resolution by the UNSC or ruling by the ICJ, a debate on that topic would fill many pages and might still be no closer to a definitive answer. I definitely don't think it's possible to state outright that it was either legal or illegal.
In any case it's not relevant to the question of whether the current status of US forces in Iraq is legal. That was determined by UNSCR 1483 in conjunction with UNSCR 1511 (sorry, I forgot to mention 1511 and 1790, chalk it up to imperfect memory and a lack of time to research all this again), with the latter resolution explicitly authorising the presence of the Multi-National Force in Iraq as a mandate under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. This mandate was renewed annually until 31 December 2008, when it was replaced by the US-Iraqi SOFA, a treaty between the two countries which established a new baseline legal framework under which US forces are legally permitted to remain in the country.
So there is no occupation in Iraq, let alone an illegal one. If you continue to believe that US forces are occupying Iraq illegally your conclusions and understanding of the situation are going to be flawed and useless. It goes without saying though that accepting the legal basis for the US presence there is not the same thing as condoning it. Though I feel I should point out that I'm not trying to create a justification for the war here, I'm just trying to clarify some of the facts around the conflict. That US troops are in Iraq legally is a fact, it has no morality of its own. It should be enough to disagree with the US's presence without having to wrongly claim that it's illegal.
But for what it's worth, it actually is possible to illegally break into a house and have the legal right to resist eviction, with a number of countries having so-called 'squatters' rights' legislation that protects the rights of people to remain on a property, though usually only for a defined period of time and under certain conditions, even if they occupied it unlawfully in the first place.
As for your last bit, it's an emotional argument which still has no bearing on the specific point you raised earlier. I happen to think Iraq is better off right now than it was either under Saddam's regime or at the height of the war, with their economy improving at an impressive rate, but I'm not sure the bloodshed they went through to get here was worth it.
One last time: while the UN Security Council resolutions from UNSCR 1483 on, that you list, do not ipso facto make the occupation legal. There is not specific language declaring it to be legal, and absent that language, you cannot imply it to exist.
(By the way, as I understand it, squatters rights only are possible when you don't break the law to enter.)
I also think that Iraq is better off now, but that's an obtuse point. From the mid-1980s to September 2003, the inflation adjusted price of a barrel of crude oil on NYMEX was generally under $25/barrel. Now oil hovers over $80 and will certainly only go up. Iraq is floating on the last ocean -- the last untapped large reserves. And how many people died for the US to take control of that? Iraq's infrastructure is better now, but does that even make sense to point out?
This is my last post. It was interesting talking to you, Maktab, and I wish you all the best.
While very persuasive (and an interesting read btw) that report still does not have the definitive weight of a UNSC resolution or UCJ ruling. And as I've said all along, the question of the legality of the original invasion is separate and irrelevant to the legality of the continued US presence in Iraq. I've been trying to avoid getting sucked into a discussion about the initial invasion only because I don't believe it's relevant to this specific discussion. That's all.
One last time: while the UN Security Council resolutions from UNSCR 1483 on, that you list, do not ipso facto make the occupation legal. There is not specific language declaring it to be legal, and absent that language, you cannot imply it to exist.
This is just it though, those resolutions (especially UNSCR 1511) are unambiguous and specific in making the presence of US-led coalition forces in Iraq legal. Your incorrect analysis of their content suggests that you don't have much experience in reading and interpreting UNSC resolutions and other instruments of international law. That's ok, but it might be worth scheduling a chat with an international law professor at a university near you if you want a deeper understanding.
(By the way, as I understand it, squatters rights only are possible when you don't break the law to enter.)
Not true, I mentioned that bit specifically because some countries have laws which enforce squatters' rights even when the initial occupation was unlawful. It makes sense though, as just because an initial action may be illegal it does not automatically render every subsequent action illegal.
I also think that Iraq is better off now, but that's an obtuse point.
I agree that it's pretty obtuse. I only mentioned it because you said that the people of Iraq will never see any of Iraq's wealth. I found that a curious statement. Perhaps I misinterpreted what you were trying to say.
In summary, I responded to your original post only because of one claim you made, which is that US forces are in Iraq illegally right now. The fact remains that even if you reject my assertion that the UNSC resolutions explicitly legalised the presence of US forces in Iraq under a Chapter VII mandate it still does not justify your claim that US forces are illegally occupying Iraq, because the US-Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement created an entirely new and separate legal framework under which US troops remain in the country. As a treaty between two sovereign governments, the SOFA supersedes anything that came before it and is unaffected by remaining questions about the legality of the initial invasion. It just makes no sense to refer to the current presence of US forces in Iraq as an 'illegal occupation' in 2010.
They are still there because, very simply, it has gone too far now.
Pulling out would be carnage - and I suspect, sadly, it has got to the stage where the US will have to see it through to conclusion (probably years away).
There is carnage in the video, agreed. And, yes, Iraq isn't the most hospitable of places.
The problem is that as it stands I don't think the Iraqi army could cope with the insurgents alone - and it seems naive to assume that if the US leaves the insurgency will stop...
That's what the US government says. The problem is, how many of these "insurgents" are fighting against the US because they feel the invasion to be illegal? The US can leave. In fact, for legal reasons, it has to. It was never authorized to invade; staying, under any premise, is unacceptable. If there's "more carnage", that's unfortunate.
But the US will never leave. Not because of carnage, but because of the fortune in oil under these poor people's feet:
> how many of these "insurgents" are fighting against the US because they feel the invasion to be illegal?
I'm sorry but right there is the naivety. Yes there is fighting because the US is in control - but the current government is also seen, by the insurgents, as US stooges. They would fight to depose them even if the US left. Then there are many different factions - all of whom would want control.
I appreciate this is the line the US government are selling too; and it is good not to just lap it up hook line and sinker (clearly they are staying for other reasons too). But there is a truth to what they say.
Whatever reason the US went (I am sure the oil played a large part) getting out is going to be incredibly difficult. Whatever move they make will be frowned on by someone.
(Really? The current government is seen as US stooges? Really? Those crazy insurgents. :-)
There's no naivety: I understand very well that there are Shiia, Sunni and Bathist factions. And I'm sure that the civil war would continue. But Jesus, the US has been there seven long years at exorbitant expense.
Remember, though, that this is the line that apartheid South Africa used to avoid letting the blacks vote: "if they do it, there will be chaos -- why just look at how much chaos and violence exists now -- just think about if that was set free! They frown now on apartheid but they would frown on that too."
No. The US leaving will be "frowned on" by no one. It will be applauded by all. It's been seven years. It needs to end.
I'm amused that you think that it is a morally right choice to allow a full civil war to break out - would that not result in many more deaths on both sides?
Why is that the right choice to make?
How long before a UN peace keeping force is asked to intervene? (actually, that might be a good result... but lots of unnecessary death to get there).
The US shouldn't be there, really. They should leave. But I think it has to be done right.
I'm amused that you don't think it's already full civil war.
You simply cannot definitively say that the US leaving would result in more deaths. The US isn't there as peacekeeper. It's there as invader. Many of these "insurgents" are fighting directly against the US, and many are dying in that battle. We don't know what would happen on a US exit, but to say that there would more violence int he long term is simply disingenuous. You can't know that.
If the US was to say, "We'll leave and we need one year to do so," no one would be mad. But they don't. They instead increase troop levels and give every indication that they're not going anywhere.
Let's dispense with the blue-eyed "America is there to make Iraq a better place" bullshit. They didn't spend hundreds of billions of dollars because they so desperately care about the beautiful Iraqi people.
They care that the big oil fields like al Ghawar and Cantarell are making gurgling, slurping noises because they're finished. They care that, unlike other countries, they have virtually no public transportation or other means to handle a spike in oil prices. They care that the last big untapped oil reserves are under the Iraqis' feet. And they're willing to whatever it takes to make sure that they have control of it.
> I'm amused that you don't think it's already full civil war.
It's currently an insurgent war - there is a big big difference.
> You can't know that.
Precedence - look at other historical examples.
> You simply cannot definitively say that the US leaving would result in more deaths.
It's a reasonable and logical assumption; the US has vastly superior weaponry and organisation to the insurgents. They abide by much stricter rules of war/engagement. It's an engagement weighted on the side of the US. If a more even balance was in effect the casualties would, logically, be much higher.
How can you reasonably assert that the US leaving would result in less deaths?
> Let's dispense with the blue-eyed "America is there to make Iraq a better place" bullshit
Be serious; who suggested that (I certainly didn't)?
But your posting smacks of a massive anti-US bias so, I guess, it's pointless to continue arguing :)
In 2006, it was already declared to have devovled into civil war along sectarian lines. The insurgent activity is focused on the US forces being seen (rightly) as illegal occupiers.
So we're in agreement that the US is really there for the oil, which makes all these other arguments kind of moot, right?
I'm not anti-US. I'm anti-"1) illegally invading countries because they have what you want." And I'm anti-"2) scores of dead and mangled innocent men, women and children because of 1)." And I'm anti-"3) soldiers coming home fucked up physically and mentally from 1) and 2).
We can't continue arguing like this, but I respect you and wish you the best, Errant.
>We have been speaking to whoever will listen, telling them that what was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region.
>We acknowledge our part in the deaths and injuries of your loved ones as we tell Americans what we were trained to do and what we carried out in the name of "god and country". The soldier in the video said that your husband shouldn't have brought your children to battle, but we are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. We did unto you what we would not want done to us.
>More and more Americans are taking responsibility for what was done in our name. Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny.
>Our government may ignore you, concerned more with its public image. It has also ignored many veterans who have returned physically injured or mentally troubled by what they saw and did in your country. But the time is long overdue that we say that the values of our nation's leaders no longer represent us. Our secretary of defense may say the U.S. won't lose its reputation over this, but we stand and say that our reputation's importance pales in comparison to our common humanity.
You acknowledge that it's minor, then draw major conclusions from it (sloppy journalism).
It's worth keeping in mind that the hospital's record of her age may be a guess from whoever admitted her. But it doesn't change the point anyone is making, on either side.
[EDIT: The following comment is off-topic; therefore I wish I hadn't posted it. I didn't delete it, though, so that you could make sense of the comment responses to it. My apologies for being off-topic.]
I'm about to express an unpopular opinion, so I'm expecting lots of downvotes, but at least I believe that what I'm expressing is rational and from the heart.
Regarding this whole WikiLeaks incident, I felt bad for both the Iraqi casualties and the soldiers. If the soldiers had full knowledge that they were firing on a family that was simply trying to help the wounded, you know that they wouldn't have fired. They fired because they assumed there were insurgents in the van. They made a mistake.
What really bothers me is that so many people get outraged over the soldiers' mistake, but so many people gladly eat factory-farmed meat. Animals in factory farms are subject to a very painful existence before their lives are cut short. Yet most people don't care. It's hard for me to stomach the criticism that the soldiers get knowing that many of the people who criticize these soldiers will then go eat a burger, fully and willfully participating in a system that creates unnecessary suffering and carnage to innocent beings.
In other words, our priorities as a society are out of whack. If we really cared about violence, there is something that each of us can do right away: go vegetarian. It's easier to criticize the violence of soldiers than take action ourselves to live a less violent life.
I'm not trying to be a jerk about this, but you really cannot expect us to hold the lives of children in Iraq anywhere near that of Cattle. It's hardly hypocrisy to eat a burger after calling out the soldiers, as people and animals really are, according to almost every person as well as almost every religion/philosophy, on completely different planes of existence.
I support the troops who did this, but I don't think people who don't and who eat non-organic meats are hypocrites for it.
"...according to almost every person as well as almost every religion/philosophy, on completely different planes of existence..."
This whole thread is OT, but this statement is extremely dubious. You have no basis for evaluating another being's "plane of existence" — whatever that is. That's like saying that non-English-speakers' lives are worth less because you can't understand what they're saying.
I'm downvoting you because there's absolutely no reason to bring up your opinion on factory farming in this particular thread. In a discussion of factory farming, the harm done to animals, or even a basic food/vegitarianism thread, I would gladly upvote you for sharing from the heart, even as I disagreed with you. But really, this is not the place.
> Animals in factory farms are subject to a very painful existence before their lives are cut short
Well, as someone with family members in farming - AND a cynic who dislikes causing animals to suffer unnecessarily - for the most part this is utter bullshit. Slaughtering is highly regulated (at least here in the UK) and is designed to cause very little suffering to the animal.
I'm talking about the conditions that they are subject to while they are alive as well. As I understand it, many chickens are kept penned in a cage the size of a piece of notebook paper, male baby chicks are ground up alive, etc. I am interested in more accurate information about factory farms, so please share it if you have it.
Oh I see your point. Well conditions on facorty farms are.. Worse but not quite like the picture your painting. I don't really agree with the way factory farms operate but regualations are forcing them to improve.
I don't think Im qualified to comment on animals suffering in those conditions. I've never researched it fully.
This isn't really the sort of place for this discussion - in hindsight.
You raise an interesting point about the difference between intent and outcome. Making the factory farm analogy makes it appear that you are hijacking an issue to push your own agenda.
To paraphrase you:
The soldiers weren't out there with the express intent of killing civilians, but farms do have the express intent of killing animals. It's not that you equate human loss of life with animal loss of life. It's that you equate accidental loss of human life with intentional destruction of animal life.
In response I would say that we all draw that line somewhere. Humans don't tolerate unlimited cruelty to animals, even if it is beneficial to us.
Jeez dude... Do you really equate human and animal life? I have lots of sympathy with your position in general, and I don't have a good answer for why I don't go vegetarian, but this seems extreme to me.
Ya dude, that's taking it too far. You can't compare the loss of human life to ANYTHING else. I understand your position, but stating it detracts from what's really important - the unnecessary loss of human life.
"You can't compare the loss of human life to ANYTHING else."
I'm not equating animals and humans.
I would be happy if I could get at least one person to start questioning. We don't have enough philosophers nowadays. We have all "picked up" from society that we can treat animals as objects and that violence against animals isn't a big deal. I just wish I would live in a world where people would question deeply these values and assumptions instead of just "picking up" what people around us believe.
One of my ex girlfriends held views similar (a little more extreme) to the one your expressing.
Ultimately I came to the realisation there is a limit to how much we can care for the animal kingdom on a philosophical level.
Speaking purely as animals the need to hunt/rear/kill is perfectly natural ("if god wanted us to be veggies why does meat taste so damn good"). I realised that, yes, we have to counterbalance that with our increased level of intelligence (i.e. an advantage) and respect our co-inhabitants.
Edit. I'm commenting on the general philisophical views of the gp by the way rather than the specific comments about factory farming. It was not clear this was their emphasis :-)
But there is a limit :)
You have a good point, and I would add that factory farming is very far from natural.
It's "natural" for a certain, non-negligible percentage of humanity to starve to death, or to suffer from malnutrition. Factory farming is a very important reason why fewer people starve to death every year. Screw your idea of what's "natural."
Factory farming generally means pigs, cows and chickens crammed into small spaces. I think you're confusing that with Industrial Agriculture, aka. "The Green Revolution".
It's quite possible to have non-factory farming and not starve to death.
I think the issues with inhumane animal treatment and overcrowding are going to solve themselves eventually. Nobody wants agribusinesses out of the animal-husbandry business more than the agribusinesses do. Feeding, confining, and slaughtering animals is a messy and expensive annoyance.
Before long, I think we'll see engineered meat being grown on scaffolds in vats, without no need for anyone to deal with animal maintenance at all. As I understand it, the biotech advances needed to make this happen are incremental, not revolutionary.
This will obviously be considered revolting at first, but it won't be hard to change peoples' minds. There simply aren't any downsides -- everybody from ordinary consumers to PETA nutcases to cigar-chomping Con-Agra executives will get what they want.
Factory farming of livestock hardly contributes to solving malnutrition - it is much more efficient to eat plants directly rather than first feeding the stuff to animals and then eating the animals.
Note: not that I have any problems with eating animals, but you can hardly defend it on efficiency grounds.
edit: to clarify what I mean, I grew up shortly after there was a civil war in my country - and as such I really appreciate soldiers who, having fought on soil that was not their own, are able to recognize the tragedy that occurs on both sides, regardless of politics.