Death Squads in Iraq

Originally posted by rich23


It also has nothing to do with anything I've posted. There are plenty of people killed by US soldiers in Iraq. Most of them have nothing to do with investigating US-backed death squads. Please try and focus on relevancy in your postings.

It is relevant, I used your source to explain why that reporter was killed. You believed that he needed to be neutralized because he was reporting on death squads. Which I can quote you if you don't remember. There is no conspiracy

If it isn't a conspiracy, then it's just another war crime committed by participants in an illegal war for oil. Your choice.

Another warcrime? Insurgents using civilian cars and blending with the population makes it a warcrime. This put soldiers in a bind where they cannot tell who is the enemy. I can post videos of American troops being killed by civilian cars packed with explosives. Why you think they are so jittery?

It's a war crime because they shouldn't be there in the first place. An unprovoked invasion makes everything that happens as a result a war crime, according to the Nuremburg conventions. Obviously I know about IEDs and US soldiers getting killed, the press covers that rather more adequately than it does Iraqi deaths. I understand about soldiers getting jittery... but there are a LOT of innocent deaths. However, what distinguished the death of that reporter was that there were no signs or checkpoints. He just got shot. It's mighty convenient that he was prevented from continuing his investigation into the US links to the death squads... but if it was just another collateral death, it's still arising from an illegal and immoral war. It's not justifiable.

Originally posted by rich23
It's a war crime because they shouldn't be there in the first place. An unprovoked invasion makes everything that happens as a result a war crime, according to the Nuremburg conventions.

An unprovoked war is an unprovoked war. War crimes are individual violations of Geneva laws. But "thank" you very much for subtly comparing US soldiers to Nazi forces; this is a low that until now I hadn't expected you to take.

Obviously I know about IEDs and US soldiers getting killed, the press covers that rather more adequately than it does Iraqi deaths. I understand about soldiers getting jittery... but there are a LOT of innocent deaths. However, what distinguished the death of that reporter was that there were no signs or checkpoints. He just got shot. It's mighty convenient that he was prevented from continuing his investigation into the US links to the death squads... but if it was just another collateral death, it's still arising from an illegal and immoral war. It's not justifiable.

Yeah you know all about it. It's like you were there, right?

I try real hard not to flaunt my own experiences, but you understand nothing of what a soldier in wartime has been through.

There is no excuse for the administration's lies; this is impeachment and hopefully prosecution waiting to happen. There is no excuse for wrongdoing from the few soldiers that do it; this is a crime. There is no excuse for Iraqis killing each other; this is brutality. And you have no excuse for expressing your "understanding" of what soldiers see and what they should do, when you've never so much as been a military janitor; this is ignorance.

EDIT: Language

[edit on 5-10-2006 by Astygia]

Originally posted by deltaboy
Now you say its irrevelant, previously you say that if the United State was to deploy Delta as its "deathsquad" when targeting any particular group for example Al Qaeda. You call it state terrorism. Thats your stereotype.

You asked me about Delta force. I gave my opinion. It's not really relevant, you brought it up and now you won't let it go. Please show me where I posted anything about it before you brought it up... look at the title of the thread. What's it about?

Excuse me... was Vietnam in the list above? Mind you, the US did use death squads in Vietnam, now that you mention it. It was called Operation Phoenix IIRC.

Yes I mentioned it.

Well I didn't. You're trying to confuse the issue by bringing in a conflict that I didn't mention, that doesn't especially follow the pattern that I've been describing and therefore doesn't have that much to do with the thread, although as I say death squads were employed there.

What kind of conflict do you call it in Vietnam? Vietnam war or something else? We use our own special forces as well as the local population to be used as counterinsurgency. Think it as the equivalent to VC.

That's precisely why I didn't bring it into the original list. Though, again, it was an unprovoked invasion of a smaller, weaker, country. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, as is now widely known, was a manufactured event that was used as an excuse for invading. And as ever, the US failed so completely to win hearts and minds that one of the most famous quotes from that conflict, which has an eerie resonance in this day and age, is "we had to destroy the village in order to save it".

Counter insurgency or killing the populace at large? It's a matter of terminology. If you can find an example of counterinsurgency that doesn't involve terrorising the populace, I'd really love to see it. I could do with a good laugh.

No, its true that the U.S. backed counterinsurgency groups by training them and sending them back in to fight Marxist Communist guerrilla forces. We don't call it deathsquads. People tend to call it something else. Remember that people use the phrase one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

Well, when the country's been invaded to asset-strip it and install a puppet government, the freedom fighters might have a point.

There are several things going on in Iraq. There's a brutal occupation army killing people. There are various factional militias, whose factionalism has been encouraged by the US since 2003, when Sunni and Shia united briefly to oppose the illegal occupation. A few well-placed bombs and false flag ops got the factions at each others' throats, as did the formation of some Shia death squads. There are various militias and the Sunni resistance, plus local resistance to US occupation, such as happened twice, if not three times now, at Fallujah. It's a mess. And the US is not helping, and is not interested in helping. Those at the top want instability because it makes the chances of the US being kicked out that much less - if the factions are fighting each other, that keeps them busy.

So... if Negroponte wasn't there to set up the death squads (which occurred in the time that he was there) what else was he there for? What other areas of expertise does he have?

Just another depressing update: according to Reuters.

BAGHDAD - A total of 60 bodies were found across Baghdad in the past 24 hours, an Interior Ministry source said. All of the bodies had gunshot wounds with some showing signs of torture.

The source is, as usual, here.

Death squads are getting busy again - link

BAGHDAD, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi police patrols found 56 unidentified bodies scattered in different parts of Baghdad on Friday, a police source said.

"Up to 56 unidentified bodies have been found by our patrols in the past 24 hours, with 34 of them found in western Baghdad," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Most of the bullet-riddled bodies were bound, blindfolded and showing signs of torture, the source said.

Separately, a police patrol found a severed head on the side of a road in the Sab'a al-Bur area in northern Baghdad, the source added.

...

Blackwater's Raven group. They do more than R&D, and that's where they are.

Yeah, this is a short post. Nothing much else to say, except that I'm disgusted.

[edit on 5-11-2006 by Astygia]