Peace returns to Fallujah?

Memnoch

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3684635.stm

so now it would seem that the fighting has finally died down. The full scale US offensive or rather the full scale US retaliation in "self-defence" has ended, for now.

The army "restoring" order is Saddam's ex army, even wearing their old uniforms.

I thought there was no compromising with "terrorists" dubya? why the sudden change of heart?

The Americans have had to turn to the former Iraqi army - even wearing their old Saddam-era uniforms - and is trusting them to restore order here. .......

We got a rare glimpse of the effect of American air strikes in a residential area. We saw many houses that had been flattened..........

But it was always an uneven battle, and there is fury in Falluja at what people here say was an indiscriminate use of American force.

The US military says it is careful to avoid civilian casualties and that it was acting in self-defence.

But there has been strong international criticism of what is widely seen as a disproportionate response.

Ali Hassan took us to his neighbour's house.

He told us it was hit by two rockets - bringing the roof down on the families of three brothers and killing, he says, 36 people.

The bodies of five children are still said to be under the rubble.

"Were they terrorists?" he asks.

"What did they do wrong? Women and children [died]. Is this the democracy and freedom the Americans brought us?"

how long will this tentative peace last? one hopes for the citizens of fallujah that it lasts a while. I wonder if there will be an investigation into the rather indiscriminate use of force in the town?

How long is the US happy to leave "terrorists" in charge?

had Saddam done this in Kuwait, i'm sure it would have been denounced as a war crime and great evil

oh wait, similar stuff did happen right?

edit: fixed typo

vorbis

I think this is a good move by the Americans. This iraqi army will probably be more familiar with the layout and inhabitants of Falujah. Hopefully it will restore order. Aldo Memnoch, the US had to restore order in that city. As far as I'm concerned that mob that burned those four contractors brought this mess on their own city.

Peace

You can't prove i was there in the first place...

sorry, couldn't resist

Memnoch

Originally posted by vorbis
I think this is a good move by the Americans. This iraqi army will probably be more familiar with the layout and inhabitants of Falujah. Hopefully it will restore order. Aldo Memnoch, the US had to restore order in that city. As far as I'm concerned that mob that burned those four contractors brought this mess on their own city.

i can't believe your still repeating this ignorant rhethoric...

again lets see.. what happened to the US's position that saddam's army were terrorists? why are they now putting terrorists in charge?

The US had to conquer the city? why? what right did they have?

so according to you because some ppl did that to those mercenaries, the whole city deserved to be destroyed and countless civilians murdered,
therefore following your logic,
because some american soldiers tortured iraqi prisoners,
their home cities should be also burnt to the ground in a similar fashion?

maybe you forget the fact that the american's have no place being in iraq in the first place....

edit: not to mention those mercenaries had no right or position to be in iraq in the first place... if your illegally invading a country, you deserve to die, they died.

Originally posted by Memnoch
if your illegally invading a country, you deserve to die, they died.

And I can't believe you are still stating this opinion as fact...

Memnoch

its a fact largely recognised by most of the international community

edit: also please don't hijack this thread and turn it into a "legality of invasion to begin with thread" there have been pleanty of those around, and you are welcome to start another one and i'll happily discuss the topic in that with you.

I've already had a thread closed because of it going off-topic, and i don't want the same thing to happen to this one, mkay

also - to Earthman - you never replied to my PM, did that little documentary open your eyes somewhat and help educate you?

Frank Grimes

Originally posted by vorbis
I think this is a good move by the Americans. This iraqi army will probably be more familiar with the layout and inhabitants of Falujah. Hopefully it will restore order. Aldo Memnoch, the US had to restore order in that city. As far as I'm concerned that mob that burned those four contractors brought this mess on their own city.

The Iraqis there mightn't kill the locals too.
Hardly a resounding victory for the Americans was it? It looks like they're retreating in defeat more than anything else.
How would you spin the situation vorbis?

Originally posted by Memnoch

also - to Earthman - you never replied to my PM, did that little documentary open your eyes somewhat and help educate you?

If you check your message tracking, you will discover that I did not open said pm, it has been deleted.
I don't agree with carrying on discussions from the politics board in such an un solicited manner via pm.
You titled the pm "Womens rights in Afghanistan" and not hello or something like that which set off an alarm straight away that it was a response by you in private to a reply I made to one of your posts on this forum.
And given that you have been insulting to me in the past on this forum, I doubly had no desire to entertain private communications with you.

And as regards going off topic, it was you who mentioned legality.
You can't expect to continue to present opinion as fact without getting checked on it.
Besides as far as I'm aware, the forum charter also disallows expressing opinion as fact which is something you are continously doing.

If no respect is shown in posts for the charter of this forum, then the same posts interpreting the charter of the united nations in this forum are a tad shaky in their worth in my humble opinion.

Memnoch

Originally posted by Earthman
If you check your message tracking, you will discover that I did not open said pm, it has been deleted.
I don't agree with carrying on discussions from the politics board in such an un solicited manner via pm.
You titled the pm "Womens rights in Afghanistan" and not hello or something like that which set off an alarm straight away that it was a response by you in private to a reply I made to one of your posts on this forum.

okay i'll post the documentary here for you....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pilger_breaking_the_silence_35mb.htm

the documentary is by award winning journalist john pilger. For not wanting to drag this thread off topic, I will be more than happy to discuss the situation of women's rights in afghanathan in a new thread, so please feel free to start one if you want to discuss this issue.

And given that you have been insulting to me in the past on this forum, I doubly had no desire to entertain private communications with you.

i'm about as intersted in starting a private communication with you as you are with me. But I didn't think it was necessary to start a new thread just to send you a link for a documentary.

And as regards going off topic, it was you who mentioned legality.
You can't expect to continue to present opinion as fact without getting checked on it.

sorry its not opinion... the bit of "opinion" is where the US and US supporters CLAIM they had a right to invade. This is the opinion bit and certainly not established, nor backed up by any evidence. The FACT is that their invasion is illegal and an act of agression unless they can prove otherwise. They are the agressor, the onus is on them to prove to us that their invasion is/was justified, and so far that hasn't happened.
again, I really don't want to get into a semantical arguement about the definition of the word "illegal".

again i'll gladly discuss this issue with you in another topic so FEEL FREE to start one. I'm not going to entertain any more attempts by you to drag this thread off topic since i don't want it to be closed.

memnoch,
I saw that programme when it was aired,it doesn't change the nature of my opinion on George Bush or his agenda or his pathetic lack of attempts at re-construction in Afghanistan.
And more to the point it certainly doesn't change my opinion on what the Taliban thought of women( no rights at all )which was where my comment came in.
You brought up the topic, not me.
The fact that War-lords have the same attitude is a reflection on them.
And as regards the legality of an invasion, theres been no ruling on it, so its not a proven fact either way.
You participated in a thread about that already and didn't prove illegality there either because it can't be given the set up we have to work with.

halkar

Biggest fear of coalition has been to involve in street battles since the invade of Iraq started and looks like US is doing its best to avoid and taken their actions by appointing ex generals to calm the situation. I'd be more worried about what Shias thinks about Saddam's ex-generals gaining power again also this can back fire on US in the long term too if not control right.
True that they have act over the 4 contractors brutal that but does that mean should Iraqis attack the prison of torture and abuse over what is going on there?
Another thing is that the generals and military went in with their old uniforms and flag while others burning the new Israeli look alike flag. Actually new flag is horrible

Who exactly is responsible for the actions of these troops, Iraq or the Coalition? Cause it seems to me that these troops will be less likely to be knowledgeable about the geneva Convention than the US troops that presumably tortured prisoners. Should these "Ex-Saddam" troops performs acts that are illegal under international/Iraqi laws, will the Coalition be held accountable for giving them weapons, and authority in Iraq?

Memnoch

Originally posted by Earthman
memnoch,
I saw that programme when it was aired,it doesn't change the nature of my opinion on George Bush or his agenda or his pathetic lack of attempts at re-construction in Afghanistan.
And more to the point it certainly doesn't change my opinion on what the Taliban thought of women( no rights at all )which was where my comment came in.
You brought up the topic, not me.

yes you brought up about the rights of women in afghanasthan in defence of the invasion... my point is, what difference has the american invasion made to the rights of women in afghanasthan, the answer is 0 none nothing....

you say that it was important to remove the taliban because of the way they treated women, but the fact is removing them has changed nothing. The people still have the same mentality but now instead of being called the taliban they are called the northern alliance. So why bomb xxxxx people, remove the taliban only to replace them with people who have the same mentality, the same islamic fundamentalist concepts, how is this going to reduce terrorism?

Memnoch

Originally posted by klaz
Who exactly is responsible for the actions of these troops, Iraq or the Coalition? Cause it seems to me that these troops will be less likely to be knowledgeable about the geneva Convention than the US troops that presumably tortured prisoners. Should these "Ex-Saddam" troops performs acts that are illegal under international/Iraqi laws, will the Coalition be held accountable for giving them weapons, and authority in Iraq?

thats a very interesting point you bring up Klaz, i haden't thought of it from that angle...

Personally, I don't see the coalition agreeing to be held accountable for their actions, even though they have put them back in power...

so they are restoring freedom and democracy and removing the "terrorists" from power.. this is their last remaining "explanation" of the invasion and occupation..

yet now these "terrorists" are back at power, why has there been no explanation by the administration on this dramatic turnabout of policy?

halkar

I thought they were to be under US control and observed closely by US so I assume US would be responsible for their actions. After all they are the ones giving them authority.
Why at it why not bring Saddam too?

Memnoch

i wouldn't be surprised...

but i think the people of fallujah might be happy having these guys incharge, because fallujah is a Sunni region right?

that said, its an interesting point on the political reprucussions. If the Sunni's are granted "self-rule" then I'm sure the Shia's will demand the same.

anothering intersting thing I just realised is that there is more power being handed over right now in fallujah than is proposed on june 30th. how laughable is that

I thought they were to be under US control and observed closely by US so I assume US would be responsible for their actions. After all they are the ones giving them authority

I dunno. I daresay they'll place them under the Iraqi's provisional government's control. That way if anything goes wrong they'll have a pretext to being innocent of blame. And I certainly hope that Coalition forces are aware of the possibility of Ex-Saddam troops, using their new authority, as a way of getting back at those Iraqi's that helped Coalition Forces during and after the invasion. Personally I think the Coalition has opened a brand new can of worms, that is sure to cause even more trouble..... Can you imagine "Terrorists" being equipped with Coalition heavy tanks, Artillery, and their Air Support Codes?

halkar

To me it looks like it is getting very difficult for coalition to keep the country without dividing sunni, shia, kurdish. North is already under Kurdish rule and while rest of the world condemns the torture and abuse in jails, their leader also member of provisional government Talabani goes and says not to make big things out of these and states that these things can happen and coalition forming government from these people :rolleyes: (can't find an English link to this, watched his speech on TV).

vorbis

The kurds are grand halkar. Its the lot below them that are casuing the problems. I'd imagine that the kurdish leader doesn't feel much sympathy towards sunni people. Probably explains his blase reaction.

bonkey

Originally posted by Memnoch
its a fact largely recognised by most of the international community

edit: also please don't hijack this thread and turn it into a "legality of invasion to begin with thread" there have been pleanty of those around, and you are welcome to start another one and i'll happily discuss the topic in that with you.

Sorry Memnoch, but it doesn't work like that.

If you don't want such things taking the thread off-topic then stop trying to get the last word in at the same time.

You made a claim which someone disagreed with. No problem there. Perfectly reasonable.

Then what did you do....

You basically said "yeah but....oh, and please don't discuss this cause its off topic".

If replying to it is off-topic, then what on earth was the "yeah, but" comment if not equally off-topic???

If you are going to make a comment, accept that someone has the right to respond to it. If you wish to add a second comment, then accept that whoever you are replying to has an equal right to make a second comment.

But please stop this trend of making comments that you know have already been argued to death with no-one coming to any sort of concensus, and then attempt to pass your view of said event as uncontested fact. If they didn't agree with you then, they won't agree with you now....and if you think its ok for you to drop these comments into threads, then how can a reply be any less ok???

How hard would it be to simply reword things to say "which I consider illegal" rather then "which is illegal"????? I mean really....its what....8 characters and one shift-key in the difference.

If you don't want people to go off-topic, then don't go making contentious comments that you know people won't accept and which you won't accept them replying to without you having to get in the last word.

jc

halkar

Originally posted by vorbis
The kurds are grand halkar. Its the lot below them that are casuing the problems. I'd imagine that the kurdish leader doesn't feel much sympathy towards sunni people. Probably explains his blase reaction.

I don't think kurds are grand at all, sure they are the only true alies of coalition at the moment but if coalition looses control in Iraq they can be first to be targetted by sunni and shiite Iraqis whom can form alliance to keep the country together and undivided. While we don't hear much but I am sure Israel has some plans for kurdish controlled areas since she is already making plans of sending exile jews to Iraq after the provincial government pass the laws to allow the exiles to return Iraq but I don't think they are going there to do farming. If you sum all these up you might get the picture. Kurds+US+Israeli Jews in a place where they will probably be most hated.
Maybe I am thinking the worst scenario but after what US did for oil, I beleive Israel have some stakes in this too.

pork99

I don't see what you are all whinging about. Bush has got a plan:

http://www.thespeciousreport.com/2004/04040419transition.html