Us Soldier guilty of killing Afghan Civilians

[Alceste]

The shia /sunni /kurdish violence is well documented and not only in Iraq its not a racist view to accept it, its a fact.

I believe the explosion of sectarian violence was due to the vacuum left by the loss of Saddam and the US had to work within that environment.

Well, you're wrong. You haven't been following the wikileaks stuff at all, have you? The incitement of sectarian violence was a deliberate strategic decision by the US military.

Of course there had to be some existing tension in order for the implementation of Petraeus' divisive "De Ba'athification" strategy to be effective at inciting brutal, widespread sectarian violence. Nevertheless, before the "liberation" of Iraq it is a fact that the Sunni and the Shia were living side by side in mixed neighbourhoods, marrying one another, letting their kids play together, etc. Now, thanks to the US and the UK, those days are done. Nice job. :clap

 

[dogsgod]

There were plenty of perfectly peaceful mixed neighbourhoods living in harmony during Saddam's supposed "reign of terror." Like all ruthless dictators, he went after his critics, opponents and dissenters regardless of their ethnicity or religion.

It's not "either / or". You can acknowledge that the explosion of sectarian bloodshed was a deliberate strategy of the US military in Iraq (as it has been in so many other of the US's manufactured civil wars) without giving the propped up sectarian regime doing most of the killing and torturing (with the explicit endorsement of the US) or the sectarian guerrillas fighting against them a free pass.

The attitude "THOSE people will ALWAYS be slaughtering each other no matter what we do" is, dare I say it, incredibly racist and does not align with the facts. If the West had left them alone, Saddam wouldn't have been in power to begin with. (Nor would Ayatollah Khomenei have eventually emerged to overthrow the Western-supported coup-installed Shah for that matter.)

Seeing as violence in the region has been simmering for as long as we've been meddling in the region to subvert the local people's interests for the exclusive benefit of Western financiers and industrialists, how about we butt out for a change? That's something we've never tried.

I'm sick of paying for this crap.

Well said.

 

[kai]

Well, you're wrong. You haven't been following the wikileaks stuff at all, have you? The incitement of sectarian violence was a deliberate strategic decision by the US military.

Of course there had to be some existing tension in order for the implementation of Petraeus' divisive "De Ba'athification" strategy to be effective at inciting brutal, widespread sectarian violence. Nevertheless, before the "liberation" of Iraq it is a fact that the Sunni and the Shia were living side by side in mixed neighbourhoods, marrying one another, letting their kids play together, etc. Now, thanks to the US and the UK, those days are done. Nice job. :clap

let me get this straight you are saying that the sunni/ shia divide was created by the US and UK and before that all was sweetnes and harmony ?

I suppose the US and UK sponsored Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, urging followers to kill the Shia of Iraq back in the 18th century?




The Shia suffered indirect and direct persecution under post-colonial Iraqi governments since 1932, especially that of Saddam Hussein. Under Saddam public Shia festivals such as Ashoura were banned. It is said that every Shia clerical family of note in Iraq had tales of torture and murder to recount.[60] In 1969 the son of Iraq's highest Shia Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim was arrested and allegedly tortured. From 1979-1983 Saddam's regime executed 48 major Shia clerics in Iraq.[61] They included Shia leader Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister. Tens of thousands of Iranians and Arabs of Iranian origin were expelled in 1979 and 1980 and a further 75,000 in 1989.[62] Shia opposition to the government following the first Gulf War was reportedly suppressed.


Shi'a


you are also blaming the US for Alquedas call for war against the shia? and the Us is responsible for Wahabi suicide bombers?


the Shia have been moving fast to establish themselves as a political force in the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein. This is their time of chance. For decades they have been abused, murdered, tortured, raped, and discriminated against at many levels.

Who Are the Shia?

This position of the Shia remained firm in spite of their oppression and discrimination at the hands of successive governments. The expulsion of Sheikh Mahdi al-Khalisi to Iran by the government of Muhsin as-Saadoun, in blithe disregard of the role that he played in securing popular approval for the demand for national sovereignty and independence, was one of the first manifestations of the policy of official anti-Shiism in action. But the constant harassments and threats that the Shia leadership were subjected to in the early days of independence did not deflect them from their commitment to the Iraqi state.
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/iraq/shia02a.htm#8

The Iraqi Shia problem is now a globally recognised fault line and is no longer restricted to the confines of Iraq’s territory. It has ceased to be a local issue, for the international community and its organisations (such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Iraq) have now acknowledged openly the existence of a serious sectarian problem in Iraq, and have expressed their sympathy and solidarity with the plight of the Shia of Iraq and the sectarian biases that they daily encounter from the authorities.

http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/iraq/shia02a.htm#1


I think thats a little more than "existing tension" and i think you will find sunni /shia marriage were forbidden under Saddam.In order to touch the tip of the iceberg with the Sunni/Shia divide you have to back to around 656 and the crisis over the succession to the prophet.

But why bother when its easier to blame the US

 

[Mr Spinkles]

The incitement of sectarian violence was a deliberate strategic decision by the US military.

The material you quoted does not say the US military made a decision to incite sectarian violence. It says sectarian violence was already occurring and the US military decided not to continue relying on unreliable Sunni units, and the US military decided not to investigate Iraqi abuse of Iraqi detainees. Specifically, during 2004 the Sunni Civil Defense units "disappeared" during a Sunni insurgent offensive.

 

[Alceste]

Kai, as you started and ended with a giant straw man in complete disregard for everything I've said so far, I didn't bother reading the stuff in the middle too closely. It's not likely to be relevant to my point at all since you started off in the wrong direction.

Here's some reading material for you:
Marriages Between Sects Come Under Siege in Iraq - washingtonpost.com

It doesn't seem any "law" against mixed marriages under Saddam could have been very well enforced if about a third of marriages were mixed before the war.

 

[dogsgod]

Divide and conquer. Who benefited the most by this bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra which in turn caused division?

 

[Alceste]

The material you quoted does not say the US military made a decision to incite sectarian violence. It says sectarian violence was already occurring and the US military decided not to continue relying on unreliable Sunni units, and the US military decided not to investigate Iraqi abuse of Iraqi detainees. Specifically, during 2004 the Sunni Civil Defense units "disappeared" during a Sunni insurgent offensive.

It says the US government intentionally used exclusively Shia and Kurdish death squads to suppress guerrilla activity in Sunni neighbourhoods and had an explicit policy of disregarding widespread complaints of torture and disappearance. The "leap" to understanding that Petraeus believed the inevitable sectarian mistrust and violence this policy would engender would benefit his aims in Iraq may require the engagement of your gray matter, and perhaps the recollection of the identical "death squad" strategy used to prop up unpopular US-installed governments in past conflicts in South and Central America, such as that of Pinochet.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

It says the US government intentionally used exclusively Shia and Kurdish death squads to suppress guerrilla activity in Sunni neighbourhoods and had an explicit policy of disregarding widespread complaints of torture and disappearance.

(1) The decision to generally look the other way on torture was a decision applied to coalition and Iraqi forces. This is a horrible crime. But, it's different from inciting sectarian violence. Equating the two is pure confusion.

(2) The decision to use what your sources called "police commandos" to fight insurgents also has nothing to do with inciting sectarian violence. This is a standard way to fight insurgents, period.

That leaves us with ... (3) They encouraged using Kurdish and Shi'a police commandos to fight insurgents in Sunni areas. What reason could one have for doing that, other than deliberately trying to incite sectarian violence among the peacefully coexisting sects of Iraq?

Maybe, it was because the entire Sunni Civil Defense Corps, according to your sources, "disappeared overnight" while Sunni groups massacred people at Shi'a festivals and mosques and Shi'a and Kurdish party gatherings, and assassinated Iraqi interim government officials, in 2003-2005.

2003 in Iraq
2004 in Iraq
2005 in Iraq

More on Iraq's death squads: US patrols to weed out militias posing as Iraqi police | World news | The Guardian
Iraq's Death Squads - washingtonpost.com
CNN.com - U.S. cracks down on Iraq death squads - Jul 24, 2006

 

[Alceste]

Spinkles, please point to where it says the Defence Squads that disappeared were Sunni.

 

[kai]

Kai, as you started and ended with a giant straw man in complete disregard for everything I've said so far, I didn't bother reading the stuff in the middle too closely. It's not likely to be relevant to my point at all since you started off in the wrong direction.

Here's some reading material for you:
Marriages Between Sects Come Under Siege in Iraq - washingtonpost.com

It doesn't seem any "law" against mixed marriages under Saddam could have been very well enforced if about a third of marriages were mixed before the war.

All i was doing was showing that shia have been abused discriminated against and victimised for decades in Iraq,Like i said its easier to blame the US than actually look into the shia/sunni history in Iraq.


i think the sociologists which claim unofficially that 30% of marriages were mixed might be a little optimistic.

 

[kai]

Spinkles, please point to where it says the Defence Squads that disappeared were Sunni.

If i may

the strategy of using primarily Shi'a and Kurdish military and police commando units to suppress Sunni insurgents was adopted after a key turning point in the war in April 2004, when Civil Defence Corps units throughout the Sunni region essentially disappeared overnight during an insurgent offensive.


i would take it for granted that civil defence corps in the said sunni region were sunni.

Infiltration of government forces by insurgents was big problem in Iraq sunni militia as well as shia militia joined the police army and defence corps for their own purposes.

 

[kai]

Divide and conquer. Who benefited the most by this bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra which in turn caused division?

you tell me? do you think the Americans did it so they could keep their troops there longer? or the British maybe they didnt want to leave either?


i will tell you who i think benefits most from it countries like Saudi Arabia and other Muslim states who support sunni political aspirations in Iraq.

 

[Sajdah]

Im not supposed to be happy, but I am. Why?? Because for many many years we were shouting out loud about American soldiers crimes in every country they enter, but no one believed us everyone was like:" No, our soldiers respect the ethics of their job, they dont kill civilians they just pursue terrorists" and stuffs like this.

I don't think that the defenders of occupation are not well-aware of the crimes their troops are committing...Rather, they tend to ignore them and move on in justifying occupation of other country!!

 

[kai]

I don't think that the defenders of occupation are not well-aware of the crimes their troops are committing...Rather, they tend to ignore them and move on in justifying occupation of other country!!

Everyone's aware of them Sajdah it gets published in the media. What i dont think many people realise who tend to blame the US for everything wrong with that country, is that if Iraq didnt have any sectarian violence the US and others would have left Iraq years ago.

 

[Sajdah]

Everyone's aware of them Sajdah it gets published in the media.

Has that awareness caused a slight change of the defenders views about occupation? I don't think so, they just keep making up an excuse after another, and crimes goes on!

What i dont think many people realise who tend to blame the US for everything wrong with that country, is that if Iraq didnt have any sectarian violence the US and others would have left Iraq years ago.

Since when occupation exists to solve sectarian problems, Kai?

 

[Bismillah]

Everyone's aware of them Sajdah it gets published in the media. What i dont think many people realise who tend to blame the US for everything wrong with that country, is that if Iraq didnt have any sectarian violence the US and others would have left Iraq years ago.

Kai, you realize half the sectarian violence you now see is a direct result of the invasion of Iraq?

 

[Kathryn]

I generally have great respect for our military and for our police forces. However, as in ANY large organization, there are going to be idiots and psychopaths, and the more stressful the duty required, the more bad behavior comes out.

Combat and war situations bring out both the best and worst of human nature.

As the mother of three active duty military members, and having spent the vast majority of my life around active duty military as a daughter, wife, and mother of those who serve their country, I can truthfully say that the VAST majority of airmen, soldiers, sailors, and marines I know are exemplary people. However, I've also known a few really awful men and women who have been in the military.

I can say the same about civilian life -in fact, I'd say that I've met and known more cruel, weird people OUTSIDE the military community than I have inside the military community.

That being said, there is simply no excuse for the sort of behavior in this article, and I sincerely hope that all involved are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

 

[kai]

Has that awareness caused a slight change of the defenders views about occupation? I don't think so, they just keep making up an excuse after another, and crimes goes on!


Since when occupation exists to solve sectarian problems, Kai?

They couldnt leave until Iraqi forces could handle security. thats a fact. dont you have anything to say about the vast amount of deaths caused by non coalition forces in Iraq?

 

[kai]

Kai, you realize half the sectarian violence you now see is a direct result of the invasion of Iraq?

in as much as the invasion toppled Saddam and let the previously dissenchanted enemies fight each other yes i do realise that

 

[Starsoul]

Everyone's aware of them Sajdah it gets published in the media. What i dont think many people realise who tend to blame the US for everything wrong with that country, is that if Iraq didnt have any sectarian violence the US and others would have left Iraq years ago.

Us didnt and does not give two hoots for the sectarian violence, If there was no oil there, Us wouldn't have even interfered.