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OT and contentious: Torture photos from Iraq
Larry Cable wrote:
Wilko wrote: If there were U.S. advisors at the scene of the slaughter, then you definately should take responsibility. Just standing around doing nothing when people are being tortured or murdered means that you're involved as well. It's not as if these so called advisors aren't a party in a war, even if their designation seems to point in another direction.. Then NATO and the European community is responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian Population from Croatia and the atrocities committed by the Croatians? The European community didn't do anything to stop that action, which is directly responsible for the debacle that followed in the Balkans. The EU had European advisors standing around who were supporting the parties doing the ethnic cleansing? Personally I think the EU and NATO were at least partially responsible for the situation in the Balkans for waiting so long before acting, but that's not nearly the same as getting directly involved in the conflict with so called advisors supporting one of the parties carrying out atrocities... Often these so called advisors are in effect leading these groups of foreign troops and if these troops don't work on the U.S. orders (direct or indirect), and the group will lose all (material, financial and direct military) support from the U.S I don't see that in Afganistan. The local Militias had a command structure already in place and were by all non secret accounts pretty independent. Support does not mean control. While the US has leverage with these groups, that does not mean day to day control of the complete infrastructure. Several documentaries prove the opposite: small groups of U.S. special forces and CIA leading big groups of Afgan militia. The militia obviously followed the U.S. orders in each case. One is the documentary about the slaughter inside the fortress, that doubled as prison for hundreds of Taliban troops, the other that I can remember seeing is about a group of afghan militia lead by U.S. special forces raiding suspected opium dealers, suspected Taliban members and looking for weapon caches (sp?). Often in War you are forced to choose Allies that you would have perferred not to deal with in Peace. Stalin in WWII (or the French :^)) for example. And that is what the current situation is, whether you want to recognize that or not, a War. Even the best of the local Middle Eastern governments are despotic and oppressive, so what real choices are available? Although I agree that sometimes there is a need to ally with rather unlikely parties, one should try to look at the future consequences. The U.S. support of the Mudjahedeen in Afghanistan has direct negative effects on the U.S. troops there now. Allying yourself with nations that are having shaky governments doing all kinds of despicable things, for the sole reason of invading another sovereign nation where despicable acts are being carried out, but where you don't have any business, is plain wrong twice. In reality, the Terrorist have little protection under either international law or the Geneva Convention. While the Taliban would fall under the protection of the Convention, there is nothing in it that would prevent you from executing members of Al Quada whenever you captured one. So what are all of those Taliban *and* civilian prisoners in Guantanamo doing there, being tortured, not being allowed legal aid, not being given a reason for being held there? If the U.S. handles prisoners like that, then what reason does the U.S. have to point a finger at others who abuse prisoners? What makes the U.S. occupation forces any better than Saddam? How do you know that these people are innocent? I think that is an assumption that is a stretch in a combat zone. So far the proof of guilt has to be proven by the people holding them. As has been said time and again now, most of the people that were held in that Iraqi prison so far have been allowed to go free because they didn't have any reason to keep them there. That means that those people were innocent, but they were tortured anyway... If you've seen the methods that are being used by U.S. troops to extract people for interrogation, it should come as no surprise that many if not most of the people that are being put in prison are innocent. The U.S. government has been using double standards and strong arm tactics for quite some time now, but I'm surprised that it takes so long for the limited international support for this behaviour to fall apa Yet you didn't seem to mind when NATO intervened in the Balkans without UN support and the oppositions of most of Slavic Europe. If you remember my stance with regard to Kosovo, I wasn't for that action at all. I also think that NATO and the UN shouldn't have intervened as haphazardly as it did in the other countries in the balkans. Personally, my opinion of it is that Continental Europe would like to sit back and let the US and the Brits do all the dirty work and except the benefits of that effort, while point at how aweful our behavior is while do it. I would prefer to see the U.S. be completely disarmed, because most of the wars that were started by those that country in the last couple of decades have had little or no positive effects. In the other scnerio's where advisors, money and/or weapons have been sent, it usually only helped to further escalate a situation or cause serious backlashes to the U.S. and the rest of the world as a result. The U.S. is not the world's police force, no matter how much it seem to like to think that it has that role sometimes. It's maybe the world's vigilante, with a very skewed look at who does something wrong and who doesn't. The double standards by which the U.S. operates and the gross neglect of international law and conventions makes the U.S. one of the biggest hindrances to world peace. If there was a real world's police force, it should round up the U.S. administration and put them before the international court for war crimes, crimes against humanity and ignoring international law and conventions. Alas, we don't have such an organization. The U.N. was ignored and abused by the U.S. and other countries, and I don't see another organization with enough power come to life anytime soon. -- Wilko van den Bergh Wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations. http://wilko.webzone.ru/ |
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