[quote]lixy wrote:
theOUTLAW wrote:
Not trying to start something here, (disregarding the issue of whether or not we should be in Iraq)
Do you think it’s wise to disregard that much a central issue?
but how can we respect the lives of the radical Iraqis when their own “military/jihadists” run around in plain clothes?
At this point, you have to distinguish between the Islamists – mostly foreigners – looking to kill themselves and anyone they could take out with them (bonus points for the Yanks), and Iraqis trying to get the foreign invaders out of their lands.
I mean, you have little kids and women over there strapping bombs to themselves.
I can’t recall such an event involving “little kids”, so please substantiate your claim.
As for women, they are as able as men to carry these sort of attacks. I personally find your phrase sexist.
And this is a good a time as any other to mention that Iraq had ZERO suicide bombings prior to the US invasion. Now, it beats every other country by a large margin on that particularly morbid world record.
Our military isn’t given the time to interrogate every possible threat over there. I’m sure they try to do the best they can to avoid killing innocent civilians, but it’s like playing roulette.
I give your soldiers the benefit of the doubt too. But the figures of death of innocent civilians that can be directly attributed to your military is far far higher than those of your military.
Which suggests that it’s got nothing to do with roulette and more to do with shoot first and ask questions later.
If the Iraqi extremists really cared about their people,
“Iraqi extremist” in your lingo can mean a variety of things which you should have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge:
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Islamists whose enemies are all those that don’t ascribe to their twisted views of religion,
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Shi’ites followers of Al-Sadr who primarily want foreigners out of their land unconditionally (they cooled it down lately, but conserve their political weight and might mobilize anytime their leader tells them to),
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Ba’athists, secular, socialists and Arab supremacists, they’re after avenging their leader and restoring Baghdad as the strongest capital of the Ba’ath (which Damascus and the Alaouites inherited after the fall of Saddam),
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Sunnis caught in the cycle of violence with the Shi’ites (who, from oppressed became unshackled and oppressors). These refuse to take American bribes and weapons to do as they’re told by Washington.
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Kurds seeking an independent state for themselves. This is delicate seeing how Turkey is intransigent on the matter.
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Mercenaries whose only purpose is to amass money.
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Tribal and other ethnic conflicts…
So, who again are you referring to?
they would distinguish themselves from these innocent civilians.
I say they should stand in an middle of a giant target drawn on the ground, and hold signs that say “we are not innocent civilians”.
Would that suit you?
Granted, there have been some Iraqis in uniform, but for the most part, they’re in their robes hiding grenade launchers in their rectums. We’re not dealing with ordinary people here, their whole lives revolve around jihad.
Okay…so you had Islamists in mind.
The good news is that their movement has lost momentum in Iraq. The bad news is that they don’t give a damn about borders, nationalist causes and other feuds. They have mostly relocated to Afghanistan/Pakistan and the Maghreb.
The other bad news is that they’re a decentralized network of people from all walks of life and nationalities and there’s no way in Hell you can ever eradicate them.
The genie is out of the bottle, and as the common populace keeps getting more access to tech, they will only grow stronger. I suggest you stop getting your panties in a bunch and thinking with your brains for once.
Military power and indiscriminate violence is the very thing they feed upon. This here is a job for the police and has been from day one.[/quote]
Yes… I understand that they do not want to identify themselves as targets, and my argument was that it’s hard not to shoot and ask questions later since there are so many possible threats (women, children, and men all possibly carrying weapons with the intent to kill).
My remarks weren’t intended to be sexist…Would you expect a child or woman in non-military garb to all of a sudden pull out a weapon and start firing upon you if you were a soldier invading the U.S., or anywhere for that matter?
The soldiers going over there already know men are going to be their primary targets (of course, with some exceptions).
Since there are many interpretations to your word extremist, I meant anyone that is acting against U.S. soldiers along with a skewed view of their Islamic faith.
As for your last couple of paragraphs, I agree that they are all over the place from all walks of life (and they are crazy). Without the Iraq War, they (anti-U.S. jihadist muslims) would still find reason to justify attacks on the U.S, as they always will. The rest of the world(even our own cowardly people) shits on America no matter what we do.
