Krypton X said:
Yes my bad, I keep forgetting that Iraq has now become an Anglo-American colony. Shame on those Iraqi kids for hassling the new natives. Next time my country's army invades your home remind me to knock your lights out and render you unconcious if you as much as throw a rock at us.
I love the logic some people here come up with: "oh I've never supported the occupation but those people have no business attacking our troops, that's resistance"
So there is one road or the other, eh? Leave them to be brutalized by some demented mad man, or invade and wipe the slate clean and use them as slave labor for our new colony. The coalition, right or wrong removed a brutal dictator. They should be gone, but the hatred stoked by jihadis and anti western forces has made any post-saddam political solution infinately more complicated. I dont want to see western troops, soldeirs from the nation of which I am a citizen, dying and killing in a foreign nation where I believe they have nothing left to do, but those are the cards that have been dealt. Leaving now would mean 100k+ Iraqis and 3-4k coalition troops died to put a fundimentalist regime with, perhaps, an even more brutal monster as its leader, in power. Personally, I would rather not see that
Why is it impossible to withold support for an invasion/occupation but once it has happened (sometimes, in a democratic system, we become party do decisions we conciously opposed) support the troops that are there? You sound like a Bush booster circa late 2004.
Of course who am I to critisise, I don't know what all those soldiers over there have to go through and who gives a sh1t about what the Iraqis have to go through, it must take a lot of balls to bash a bunch of kids senseless and then wave to the militia thug gangs when they drive past.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they actually tried cracking down on those armed gangs, druglords and oil smugglers that run that town before they wonder why most of the locals hate their guts.
If it was the Americans doing this there would've been yet another outcry against the 'drug-crazed trigger-happy Yanks'. But God forbid anyone bad mouth her Majesty's Royal Armed Forces, they're the good guys here. What harm have they ever done except colonise half the planet just last century.
Thats a gross oversimplification, and youre far too intellegent not to realize it. Firstly, do you think Iraqi towns are run like a crime syndicate? That insurgents wear colors to make things more clear? These people hide among the civilian populous because thats the only recourse they have. These scum kill their own civilians without discrimination or compunction in order to drive an infidel they, right or wrong, percieve to be a new colonial power out not because they are grand believers in any kind of noble self determination or evolved prinicples of democratic statehood, but because some spoiled Saudi mung in a cave is telling them America, Britain, chrisitians, jews, homosexuals, Europeans, nike, coca cola, disney, gary glitter and the entire western world is serepticiously undertaking a new crusade agaisnt the lands of Islam. Personally, that strikes me as an exagguration
If it were so easy to root them out, there would be no more reports of violence, because they'd have been crushed by the conventional might of the supposed "most powerful nation on earth". But there are, still, and they havent been. Unless of course thats just a massive put on. My angle on respect comes not from some tape out a disreputable british press outlet, but from the real words that I have heard spoken in person by friends and veterans who have returned from Iraq. They are over there partly because they believe they are doing the right thing, not because they want to beat Iraqi kids with clubs and laugh about it. If they were all a bunch of sadists, youd hear about far more civilian deaths because in an enviroment where foe and civilian are divided by a razors edge, it takes some very quick wits and alot of will to make that distinction on which lives depend, while losing those you serve with on a regular basis to cowardly weapons IEDs and carbombs. But hey, maybe ive talked to the only sane-half dozen people left in the US Army and the rest of them are all murderous nutjobs
To some thats not crazy, especially given the tendencies of American leadership which, to me, are suspect. But I hardly think the deaths of a hundred thousand Iraqis or more is some kind of worthy sacrifice to evict a nation that is attempting to rebuild and revitalize Iraq. Tell me, how does detonating a car bomb in the middle of a crowded city centre count as "resistance"? That is butchery, murder, slaughter, plain and simple. Selfish bastards like these should be wiped from the face of the earth, along with their higher-ups hiding while 16-20 year old kids are giving their lives in a pursuit they have been convinced as noble, along with the greedy western power brokers of oil, supplies et al whose very actions are keeping the former in business.
People who are younger, have more prospects and have more to live for than myself are dying every day, and personally, I find it hard to believe that they would willingly give up their lives in the pursuit of a war where the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is smacking some little rock throwing brat with a baton. Then again, I guess opinions like that are the reason News of the World are still in business, because if everyone thought rationally about all they were told by "newspapers" that feature topless models 3 pages in, Rupert Murdoch would be giving head for pocket change
Seán Denny said:
glad im not the only one who sees it like that
