US target civillians now

Memnoch

======
According to an article in yesterday's Irish times.. a machine-gunner on top of a US tank opened fire on an ambulance 100m from a hospital. The ambulence was bringing a wounded pregnant woman named Sabiha Lofta to Shouhada hospital. This incident occured at about 9:30pm on Sunday. The ambulence driver was injured and is awaiting a second operation to repair damage to his internal organs. Mrs. Lofta and her unborn infant died. The ambulence siren was turned on and the red light was flashing.
Ra'ad Daayer the driver said in disbelief "No one ever fired on ambulances in Iraq before."

Also in the ariticle. a report of a US Apache helicopter firing rockets into a mud-brick house where 17 innocent civillians were sleeping. Four of them were killed. "We were not resisting the Americans. We were just living in our house."

The injured could not be taken to hospital, "We treated them at home," says Hassan one of the people in the house. "Because the Americans shoot everyone in the streets."

=====

don't have a subcription to the Irish times, but for those that do the article can be found on their website the title is
"Death stalks Shia muslims the Americans came to save from Saddam."

=====

How much longer will the US continue to commit henious war crimes in Iraq while the world stands silently by?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

MeatProduct

Well that's alarming but, unfortunately, I'm not surprised. If that is getting to the media you can be certain there are plenty more events like that happening where the media are not present.

Once again the US military show how inexperienced they are, buch of cowboys.

Nick

MeatProduct

Originally posted by daveirl
Lets say hypothetically they are committing henious war crimes, what do you suggest the world do?

Hypothetically?

You don't need the media to know that the US administration are not interested in human life. Do you think the US has not committed any henious war crimes?

Nick

mr_angry

Originally posted by daveirl
Lets say hypothetically they are committing henious war crimes, what do you suggest the world do?

Investigate and arrest those responsible, perhaps?

Memnoch

Originally posted by daveirl
Lets say hypothetically they are committing henious war crimes, what do you suggest the world do?

they should be brought before the ICC and face charges. Unforunately, the occupiers tend to destroy all evidence of incidents like this, its hard to convict them... but still it would be a start

MeatProduct

Originally posted by Memnoch
they should be brought before the ICC and face charges. Unforunately, the occupiers tend to destroy all evidence of incidents like this, its hard to convict them... but still it would be a start

Agreed, but there is absolutely no chance of that happening. They have the power/money so they get what they want. It's very much like a school yard situation with some extra testosterone added in there.

Nick

Memnoch

still waiting for the Bush crusaders to tell me how this ambulance driver was a terrorist, and the wounded pregnant woman and her child were really planing to use WMD against the US ... liberation indeed.....

halkar

Originally posted by daveirl
Lets say hypothetically they are committing henious war crimes, what do you suggest the world do?

We'll see Bush and his puppets in Iraqi court in 10 years time and they will be sentenced to death by stoning Oooops time to wake up :P

After 1 year gone since Bushi declared war over in Iraq, it is only starting. US is totally loosing some towns and their quoted 3000 of so called terrorists (you can decide what they are) are far more than this number. They have totally lost control of some towns and there are armed people in every corner of Falluja and more going in to town from surrounding towns to support the Sunnis. american selected Iraqi security forces covering their faces so they can't be recognised. I think its total chaos and US appears to be following Israel route to eliminate the leaders of groups by calling them terrorist. It is not only US now, all foreigners targetted so no one safe. It even stretched to northern towns where majority are Kurdish and American supporters.

You kill one person and create 5 hates you and go after you, sooner US understands this the better me thinks.

Thing is though, is there a mechanism to disipline the army officers responsible?
I'd assume, with proof, there would have to be.
There is at least a distinction between, army officers that can be disciplined and say,suicide bombers who cannot, or the cowardly madrid bombers.
It's no consolation and may be far from perfect but at least it is there.
There is in the UK army anyhow.

For example this guy who got an OBE yesterday went through the process and afterwards received compensation from newspapers for unfounded allegations of war crimes.

By the way who are the Bush crusaders?

pork99

Did the Americans deliberately target an ambulance or did it get caught in the crossfire?

Most people without any military experience believe that a tank gunner or machine gunner will be firing at an individual target from about 20 yards away. Because thats what people see in war films.

Even in a built up area like a city troops could be engaging targets half a kilometer or more away. Mortar and artillery crews fire at map references. A weapon like a .50 calibre machine gun can be used to simply spray an area with fire. Especially when all hell is breaking loose.

Hobbes

*shrug*

They will say the person in question didn't have orders to do it. Even though some soliders have gone on record (in Afganistan at least) to shoot women and children.

pork99

Well we are brought up with certain moral scruples and we have concepts of legal and illegal behaviour in war.

For example the lads from the US and the USSR who went to Vietnam and Afghanistan respectively went there with this mindset. However they found themselves in countries were wars are fought mercilessly and without quater. They quickly learned to be as savage as their enemies.

Moriarty

Originally posted by Hobbes
*shrug*

They will say the person in question didn't have orders to do it. Even though some soliders have gone on record (in Afganistan at least) to shoot women and children.

It's no more inherently wrong to shoot a woman or child than to shoot a man if they're shooting at you in the first place - as is not unheard of in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Sure it's regretable to shoot a child, but troops on the ground aren't left with another option if they're being attacked by one.. rifles kill just as well if a child pulls the trigger.

pork99

I did a search on Google news for this story and I only found 1 reference.

However I found many more links to this;

Insurgents use ambulance as cover

Lieut Col Byrne ordered the strike against the mosque, he said, after his men came under fire from 30 to 40 insurgents inside the building and armed men came out of the compound in an ambulance and opened fire on US troops.

Capt'n Midnight

Anyone seen the C4 documentry on Jessica Smith ?
Acording to the Iraqi staff in the hospital the only reason they needed to "rescue" her was that an earlier attempt by the Iraqis to return her ended when the US troops at the checkpoint oppened file on the Ambulance she was in.

In war there will always be collateral damage. Back in 1939 a lot of British bomber crews died on missions where they dropped leaflets and did not drop bombs in case they landed on the civil population. Really the question is how they value lives America , vs Iraqi civilivan vs combatant.

Another indication of the level of violence (overkill vs accident) is the ratio of wounded to killed

There is a web site that lists all the incidents in Iraq (not just the headline ones)

Memnoch

Originally posted by pork99
I did a search on Google news for this story and I only found 1 reference.

However I found many more links to this;

Insurgents use ambulance as cover

and you're surprised by the fact that anything stated by the US army gets reported a lot more than anything stated by the Iraqi people in the western media? Whatever said and done, the fact remains that the US is firing on civillians. The US is committing war crimes, has committed them...

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Memnoch

Originally posted by daveirl
To be honest no. I'm anti the war but I think to claim heinious war crimes in my opinion alludes to genocide or something of that magnitude.

hmm... over 10000 Iraqi civillians dead, not enough? I mean the death of a couple of thousand people in the world trade centre is enough justification to invade and destroy two countries as far as the US is concerned, so what does the killing of 5 times that many civillians justify?

Just take a step back and realise how absurd that actually is. Like it or not you can't exactly march up to the White House door and say "Hello George, I'm here to arrest you". So come on, a realistic action please.

oh i'm sorry, you didn't say "practical". Off course nothing will ever be done, why would someone want to challenge the US over innocent iraqi deaths, I mean when the world was willing to idly stand by during the Rwanda massacre where 1 million people were thoughtlessly slaughtered, and even then they wouldn't have had to contend with a major power.... In the reality of today's politics the only thing I can think of is severe sanctions unless the US gives its criminals ala BUSH and co up for trial in the ICC.

Surely it's only a war crime, if you deliberately target civilians, which I don't believe for one second the US is doing.

And you believe that because the US tell you that is what they are doing? Oh gosh, golly geeeee, I wonder if the US would lie about that. I guess all the iraqi civillians whose relatives have been murdered are lying because the western media for the most part isn't interested in their side of the story, gee gosh, i wonder why? From the point of view of the person dead in an ambulance, I don't think it matters to them if the US had thought, that the person inside had the potential to be fighting back. And I think the entire fact that the US shouldn't be in Iraq in the first place means that ANY civillian they kill weather intentionally or not constitutes a war crime since their war is wrong and illegal.

MeatProduct

Originally posted by daveirl
To be honest no. I'm anti the war but I think to claim heinious war crimes in my opinion alludes to genocide or something of that magnitude.

Well I suppose it's what you think is heinious. For me life is sacred, to take someones life, who is innocent, is a heinious crime. From where I stand the US military is guilty of a great many of these crimes.
For a start I would like to see the US soldiers, that kill innocent civilians, be made accountable and be brought to justice.
As for the US administration, well nothing short of a global uprising is going to change anything on that front. They have the big guns and the big money so they can kill anyone they like. It's sickening that they have the most WMDs and are one of the most irresponsible countries around.

Nick

Edit: We have become so familiar with death in far off countries here. We are desensitised. If we hear one person was kiled in Iran it's no big deal. It only starts to concern us if 20, 50, 100 are killed.

halkar

Originally posted by daveirl
... What the hell does that have to do with the question. I'm not disputing that at all. I'm asking what should the world do? .

It has nothing to do with your question, that is why it was paragraphed new. Read again.

What should world to do? Nothing. They can not do anything. It is the mess that US created and gone too deep now. It is no longer about Sunni, Shias as even Shias are uniting with Sunnis and a lot of help (being medical, food and probably arms) being sent to Falluja and surrounded towns by Shias. And they are calling to fight together against US. You can look for the links for these yourself if you want. We are seeing US finally united the Iraq but not the way they wanted. Why should world take any responsiblity for their actions while they used their bully tactics and went against the world and gone ahead with the invasion in such a hurry? Iraq has WMDs, Iraq is threat to US, Iraq is this and that bu11sh1t! Soviets was a threat to US for many years more than Iraq could ever be, why didn't they invade them? Naaaa US can't stand anyone their size, they just sanction little countries like Iraq and invade. Now they are facing almost all Iraqis and even the Iraqi security groups that they trained are moving to resistance. US can have their all singing and dancing state of the art weaponary in their disposal but these people have beleives and they will have support from outside to against US. Now we will start seeing more people going to Iraq from countries just to fight against US. Remember Afghanistan when Soviets tried to invade? Not all the fighters in Afghanistan were Afganis.

And top of all that we see Rumsfeld going on the tv and calling these people thugs, gangs and terrorists. He seem to forget, it is not that Iraqis fighting in US, it is US fighting Iraqis in Iraq.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

MeatProduct

I've heard 11,000 have been killed in Iraq. Regardless, 8000 is really a lot of "accidental" deaths. Why there needs to be any death in the first place is beyond me. I've seen 5 year old kids being more mature than the Bush administration.
Killing solves nothing. It creates hatred, fear and suffering. Does the US administration want that, yes, I think they do.

Nick

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by Moriarty
It's no more inherently wrong to shoot a woman or child than to shoot a man if they're shooting at you in the first place - as is not unheard of in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Sure it's regretable to shoot a child, but troops on the ground aren't left with another option if they're being attacked by one.. rifles kill just as well if a child pulls the trigger.

This is why the NATO round should be banned.
NATOP did some research that showed that most combat took place at short range - so they reckoned they could use lighter bullets and guns, so soilders could carry more ammunition (also cost savings) the downside is of course that children can now use front line weapons, whereas they would not have been able to use WWII era and older ones because they were so much heavier and had more recoil.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

MeatProduct

Originally posted by daveirl
Solved World War II, I would have thought

I am saddened by that comment. Many, many people died, how is that a positive outcome?

Nick

chill

Originally posted by MeatProduct
Well that's alarming but, unfortunately, I'm not surprised. If that is getting to the media you can be certain there are plenty more events like that happening where the media are not present.

Once again the US military show how inexperienced they are, buch of cowboys.

Nick

On the contrary the US army is doing a magnificent job in the face of this insurgent attack with no help from the European appeasers.

Those that are attacking the liberating army are not representative of the ordinary people and are supporters of fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship and of the slaughtering regime of Saddam. They are the same people that are spreading out aroudn the world and threatening to kiss millions of people in any western country they can get into. We and Europe and the rest of the world should be getting in there and helping the US army instead of cheering for the terrorists.

I hope the US army wipes them out and enables the ordinary Iraqi people to have the democracy they deserve.

MeatProduct

Originally posted by chill
I hope the US army wipes them out and enables the ordinary Iraqi people to have the democracy they deserve.

Inspiring.

Nick

dathi1

I hope the US army wipes them out and enables the ordinary Iraqi people to have the democracy they deserve.

So u wont be on the Bush out march then?
Real Fighters

Moriarty

Real fighters
Copyright 2004 dathi1. All rights reserved.

Frank Grimes

Originally posted by chill
Those that are attacking the liberating army are not representative of the ordinary people and are supporters of fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship and of the slaughtering regime of Saddam.

How do you know this?
Why do you call them liberating? Do you think the people of Falluja feel liberated right now? Surrounded and attacked by an invading army, hardly liberation is it?
(Latest reports here)

We and Europe and the rest of the world should be getting in there and helping the US army instead of cheering for the terrorists.

Not supporting the actions of the Americans does not translate into the support of terrorism.
Do you actually believe that all that's going on in Iraq at the moment is the work of a handful of terrorists?

I hope the US army wipes them out and enables the ordinary Iraqi people to have the democracy they deserve.

What the Iraqis deserve is the right to self determination, not to be force fed democracy by Bremer and Co.
They also deserve not to be slaughtered like animals by an occupying army.