If someone invaded America and we fought back would that make us thugs?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL0439231320080515?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Seven die in clashes in Baghdad's Sadr City

Thu May 15, 2008 9:01am EDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Clashes between Shi'ite militiamen and security forces in Baghdad's Sadr City slum killed seven people and wounded 19 overnight, Iraqi police and hospitals said on Thursday.

The dead were all men and the wounded included three women and three children, they said.

The U.S. military, which has been engaged in nearly two months of urban warfare with militants in Sadr City and other strongholds of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, said it knew of two deaths in fighting overnight.

"We killed two thugs," Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad, said. "Baghdad is relatively quiet."

[NightWatcher]

1. I imagine the British called us thugs

"those punks dumped tea into Boston Harbor", d'oh

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Yes, as well as murderers and terrorists, insurgents, and radicals.

[stray cat]

3. Yes if you started killing civilians and bombing children

[bryant69]

4. How many of our own people are we willing to kill along with the invaders?

Are we using the tactics of suicide bombings?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[sinkingfeeling]

21. See, I think if China occupied the USA, we would see sectarian fighting amongst Americans as well.

The racists against the Blacks. The 'christians' against the gays. Maybe even opposing religious groups against each other. When a country is occupied and has no say in what transpires there, the people will kill each other for any glimmer of power or money.

[The Stranger]

27. Probably those who collaborate with the invaders, like Vichy France.

[rucky]

5. WOLVERINES!

[cynatnite]

8. ...

:spray:

[Marrah_G]

6. If we started slaughtering each other, including women and children- YES

[hlthe2b]

9. seems we already have a term for that...

"collateral damage" ring a bell?

[Marrah_G]

15. That's not what collateral damage is.

Collateral damage is the innocent people we kill through our actions. Most Iraqi's are being killed by other Iraqi's over religion, power and oil. If we left they would continue killing each other until one side drove the other out. This is a war that goes back to the time of Mohammed. Add in greed and power and it because a god awful mess.

If you mean collateral damage because we ousted Saddam, then I can only partially agree. The Iraqi's themselves are choosing to slaughter each other rather then banding together to try and push us out. They bear the responsibilities of their actions as well.

[The Stranger]

31. Think more in terms of a prison. Then think about the gangs that form in a prison.

Since they cannot attack the guards, they attack each other.

Trying to argue that it is only Iraqis that do this is very problematic.

[Marrah_G]

35. On the outside, without the guards, those gangs are still trying to wipe each other out

So it is a good analogy. Who said only Iraqis do this sort of thing? There is much blame to go around.

[hlthe2b]

32. It is a term that many in this country have used to excuse

our own atrocities. It seems for some, that if we beat the drum of "best intentions" (despite the overhwelming evidence that our underlying motives were anything but), then our actions need not be examined or criticized, yet we are free to denounce the actions of others. I can not do so. I just will not be the "good German."

I call out the Iraqi factions on their crimes against humanity, but I do so after likewise denouncing those in our government whose actions parallel.

[Marrah_G]

36. Yes- there is enough blame to go around.

Many people and groups have blood on their hands, including our own Administration.

[otherlander]

12. Are the people in the death squads

the same people as the ones who are fighting us? I know there are Sunni death squads killing Shi'ites and Shi'ite death squads killing Sunnis, but aren't there people from both sects fighting us?

[Marrah_G]

13. Actually they are mostly figting each other- far more then us.

What happened is this (short version):

We invaded Iraq and took out their leadership.

Saddam had kept the country from civil war for a long time through fear and thuggish behavior, but he also kept religion out of government, made sure his people were educated.

When there was no longer a leader the two biggest sides both wanted power.

They do not want to share power.

They want to have complete power. Power over the oil and power over the people.

They have been in a vicious fight for hundreds of years over who would rule after Mohamed. Shite wanted it to stay in the bloodline (like royalty) and the Sunni's wanted who was most qualified (that a really general explanation) .

So what you have now is a few groups using an age old war over religion to try and gain control over the oil and over the regions cultural practices.

The people caught in the crossfire between these warlords are the ones being slaughtered. They are being raped, killed and forced out of their homes by their own countrymen while they try to bully their way into power.

Our men are stuck in the middle of this mess because we have a President who knows nothing about this region or it's people.

[otherlander]

14. I know why they're fighting each other

And the people in both sects are shamelessly killing civillians
But what about the people fighting Americans? Are they mostly from one sect or from both?

[Marrah_G]

16. Both

[otherlander]

39. Well then...

the people attacking our soldiers aren't neccesarilly the same people who are attacking civillians. I think that a lot of ordinary people in Iraq still don't have anything against the other sect; it's not their fault that there's a civil war going on. But there are also a lot of unemployed, angry, and easilly brainwashed young men with dead familly members to whom joining a sectarian army must seem like the only option left. It's so easy to sell lies to young men. There's overlap, of course, but not all the guys who are attacking us are sectarian. They're just anti-imperialist. Then there are the anti-imperialists who aren't using violence against us, like the oil workers' unions, but at this point we've just turned the whole country into such a clusterfuck that there's no real chance left for non-violent people to be heard.

[Tesha]

7. No, we would of course be "Brave Freedom Fighters"(tm) (NT)

[OwnedByFerrets]

10. No Insurgents....

I have made a similar argument for years. If the Chinese invaded us, we would be doing the same thing the people of Iraq are doing to try and drive them out. And any americans who were helping the chinese occupy our country would be on the enemies list.

[Marrah_G]

19. That's not what is happening though

Instead they are slaughtering their own innocent civilians in a quest for greed and power. They have not banded together in come glorious fight to rid their homeland of invaders. What they are doing is blowing up THEIR OWN women, children, teachers, doctors.... forcing people out of their homes, all in a fight over who gets to control the people and the oil.

[magellan]

22. The slaughtering of innocent civilians happened during the Revolutionary War too

Both the Patriots and the Loyalists made use of "marauding parties" that burned homes, pillaged grains and livestock, and yes, even murdered families to chase the other side out. When the Loyalists felt the British troops could no longer adequately protect them they fled to Canada or back to England.

History records that it was only Loyalists and British who were charged with murder...but then "we" won so the history was written from the Patriots' perspective.

[Marrah_G]

23. And those who did that were thugs as well.

There is a difference though. We actually fought the British. Our entire war was not one waged against innocent women and children through guerrilla warfare.

We share the blame in Iraq. However, I will not give the warlords a pass or treat them as if they are heros.

If they truly wanted peace they could have it. But they aren't interested in peace, they are interested in power and do not care who dies for them to obtain it.

[magellan]

24. I don't think you can say the entire war

...being waged by the "thugs" is against civilians. They're also fighting the US and Iraqi gov't forces.

[Marrah_G]

25. Of course not- but a good majority are and the line is very blurred

Often they are doing both.

Whenever we leave it will be a blood bath until one sides puts down the other. There really isn't any way around it.

The only reason it wasn't like this before is because of Saddam.

These groups do not want to live peacefully together, sharing power.

We added fuel to the embers, reignited the fire and all that we can do is watch as it burns itself out.

[magellan]

26. I agree with everything you say

What we've done to Iraq is many hundred-fold worse for its civilians than what happened under Saddam. I'm in no way praising the man; he was exactly what we wanted in power there as long as we could use him, a brutal dictator.

I guess after reading your impassioned posts I just felt the desire to inject a little perspective. Not to suggest the killing of civilians is ever justified (I HATE the "collateral damage" meme the right uses to try to justify civilian deaths), but simply to point out that there's nary a conflict on this scale where it doesn't happen, and that there's rarely a case where one can point to one side or the other in war and say "They didn't indulge in atrocities against civilians".

Especially when religion is involved.

Now there are -- or at least there were -- Sunni factions in Iraq who refused to harm anyone but coalition forces and foreign militants. I don't know if these groups still exist, but I remember reading about them a few years ago. So there are some who will try to remain noble in their fight for freedom. That's why I oppose the simplistic labels the US applies like "terrorist" and "thug"...It only makes it easier to hate and kill great swaths of people who are of the same religion, culture, race, etc. regardless of their own personal involvement in atrocities.

That's where war gets out of hand and devolves into fractured in-fighting so easily. And Bush** has made it positively inevitable that such would happen.

[Marrah_G]

34. I agree- thank you for adding that.

[The Stranger]

29. The corporate MSM is covering the internecine conflict to deflect attention from the resistance and

to continue the implicit support for the war (crime) effort.

[NashVegas]

28. We'd Be Freedom Fighters!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. There have been persistent stories about the "sectarian violence"

being deliberately fomented through false flag operations, including remotely detonated car bombs and British Special Forces dressed in Iraqi garb and driving a vehicle full of explosives.

In the revenge culture of the Middle East, all it would take to set off "sectarian violence" would be a couple of carefully placed and timed incidents.

[Jack Rabbit]

17. Perhaps in the eyes of the invaders.

Would the Emperor who commands the invading forces be a dithering idiot by any chance?

Would he be the sort to give up golf until he conquers the world? Or merely say he has?

[T Monk]

18. they did and were not

[reprehensor]

20. "Terrorists"

Most likely. If covered by CNN or FOX.

[OmahaBlueDog]

30. Well, we portrayed Native Americans as "savages" in motion pictures and books

[DU GrovelBot]

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[truth2power]

37. Iraqi citizens trying to take back their country from the invaders..

I've been saying that for about 5 years, now. :evilfrown:

[bdamomma]

38. somebody did invade our country and sitting illegally in the WH.

[yardwork]

40. Freedom Fighters.

Only those we attack and occupy are thugs.