The Legacy of Black Hawk Down

[Wetzelbill]

This is a good little piece in remembrance of BHD.

The Legacy of Black Hawk Down
By KENNETH L. CAIN

Published: October 3, 2000

Oct. 3, 1993, Mogadishu, Somalia. — Sundays at my house in the United Nations residential compound in Mogadishu are almost normal. I crank up the air conditioning, sleep late and pretend it's a fall football weekend back home in Ann Arbor. I go up on the roof to read under the weakening sun and turn on Armed Forces Radio. They have a sexy-sounding female D.J. on Sundays: "99.9 FM Mogadishu, rockin' the Dish. Keep your head down and the volume up. And you thought the desert was hot." I plop down and try to do a few push-ups. But it's too hot and I'm too lazy. This is the first moment I've been able to relax since I was ambushed six days ago.

As a civilian officer in the United Nations' Justice Division, I've been working with Somali judges to re-establish the court system in south Mogadishu. When we tried to inaugurate the courts the previous Monday, we were attacked by militia loyal to Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid — the Somali warlord who is battling with United Nations and American forces, as well as other Somali factions, for control of Mogadishu. The Somalis sprayed heavy and inaccurate AK-47 fire at us for more than an hour; our blue-helmeted United Nations escorts returned deadly accurate fire from their huge mounted .50-caliber machine guns and we eventually escaped unhurt.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/03/opinion/03CAIN.html

[FuseONE]

1. cool

great article, thanks.

[realFedUp]

2. This might be more appropriate for the Foreign Affairs/Terrorism

forum...Let me know if you want it moved.
rfu, moderator

[Wetzelbill]

3. whatever you feel is best

[realFedUp]

4. Ok, I'm moving it to a nice spot

Foreign Affairs etc.

[DulceDecorum]

5. It would really be nice

to have a full discussion of ALL of the attrocities that were visited upon the Somalis before and on the Night of the Rangers.

We could always begin with a desecration of bodies.
Female Somali who were "raped with flares" or blown to bits with TOW missiles or used as human shields, is a good place to start.
Or we could discuss the manner in which car batteries were attached to the genitals of male Somalis.
Or perhaps a little chat about forcing Somali children to eat pork which they vomited up and then making them eat the vomit.
Or maybe try to justify "pranks" such as the roasting of a Somali child on a fire or putting one into a storage container to die.
Or we could simply try to explain why peacekeeping forces should be permitted to be more vicious towards the people they are claiming to protect than are regular soldiers conducting a war against that same population.
We could always bandy about the very effective slogan used by the Rangers and Delta Force:
The only good Somali is a DEAD Somali.

Ahh, what chivalry these Peacekeepers extend towards Somalis, and others in war zones....
Why even the British have gone on record as stating that mercenaries are more merciful than they.
And pity the poor soldier who loses his life while conducting a massacre of HUNDERES of civilians, for HE and HE alone is the hero in the saga of
Black Hawk Down.

[MikeS]

6. Hmmm...

Do you have an authoritative cite for any of these awful things, Dulce?

v/r, MikeS

[DulceDecorum]

7. Mike

I am tired today.
Patch into google.

Type in PEACKEEPERS and SOMALIA.
You will soon find out how Belgium, Canada and Italy disbanded units and prosecuted the people who went over there supposedly to keep the peace.
You will see what the Rangers did and you will learn that the Rangers and Delta Force engaged in battles during that night that resulted in the deaths of some of thier own from "friendly fire."
You will see John McCain explaining how it was that women and children were labelled as "combatants" and this label thus justified the wholsale slaughter of -by conservative estimates- over one thousand Somalis in just a few hours.
Recall that Somalia has no recognised government and therefore no army. Those were civilians.
Discover for yourself that the Night of the Rangers was the SIXTH time that they had raided buildings in Mogadishu and the local populace were thoroughly fed up with them. The Rangers had even assaulted UN offices and personnel and abducted a perosn being trained to head up the local police force. Read about how an American politican described them as "overtrained pit bull' who nobody would be able to control.
And please don't forget to find out just who it was who sent the military there and which oil companies stood to benefit.

I am not going to go out and do your legwork for you dearie.
You have fingers. You have internet access.
Do your own research, then return and tell us the true story behind the real-life hero of the movie Black Hawk Down.

[MikeS]

8. Dulce,

Well, I had already done that and found many unsubstantiated blogs, including one that referenced "CNN" but which resulted in a CNN page that mentioned nothing on the subject.

I admit to a prejudice in favor of American troops and can't speak for the troops of other countries. I've spent a lifetime in the military or as a civilian in support of them and, while I've seen terrible things in a lot of ugly places, I take pride in the fact that most often we were trying to clean up the mess, not create it.

'Course, any organization has its baddies. But I've found that our discipline usually weeds out most of them.

MikeS

[DulceDecorum]

9. A fish rots from the head

and rotten fish are pretty bad no matter where you find them in the world.
The US soldier is a killing machine.
When they turn up on your doorstep, expect to die.
Slowly, quickly, it matters not to them.
They will do their duty,
and you will die in the name of what they call freedom.

Weinberger Doctrine
A first attempt by the US to determine if, and if yes when, they should become involved in PKOs, was made during the Reagan-period in the early '80s. Several soldiers had lost their lives during US-incited fights in Lebanon and the Administration wanted clarity for future possible involvement in UN operations. This resulted in the so-called Weinberger Doctrine, listing six criteria:
US vital interests should be at stake
Overwhelming force should be used to ensure victory
Objectives, both political and military, must be clear
http://www.peace.ie/pastacts/discuspk.html

Officially, the Administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as "absurd" and "nonsense" allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part, by the U.S. corporate oil stake.
http://www.mafhoum.com/press2/86E14.htm


http://www.newsworld.cbc.ca/flashback/1996/
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9708/09/italy.somalia/
http://www.newsworld.cbc.ca/archive/html/1997/06/30/belgium.html
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9704/17/belgium.somalia/
http://www.paknews.com/main.php?id=4&date1=2001-12-10

RE: Weeding them out vs recruiting the next batch.
Controversy has swirled around the Ranger played by Ewan McGregor, a desk jockey who gets his chance to fight, since the character is based on John Stebbins - now serving a thirty-year prison term for rape and child molestation.
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/review.asp?mid=2043398
In a telling metaphor for the whole Black Hawk Down project, the inspiration behind Ewan McGregor’s war hero in the film is now serving a prison sentence for the rape of a 12-year-old girl.
http://www.spectrezine.org/reviews/denny2.htm
The producer also blamed political correctness for the uproar concerning the film, "A lot of people don't like our military operations around the world, and it so happens it was a black nation. And they went after us for it. We certainly find some of the backstabbing in Hollywood about this picture."
Hollywood backstabbing aside, Black Hawk Down has attracted criticism for its perceived whitewash of the 1993 military operation. In reality, the inspiration behind Ewan McGregor's war hero is now serving a prison sentence for the rape of a 12-year-old girl, while the true-life US troops were alleged to have shot women and children during their mission.
http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Exclusive/0,4029,634897,00.html
To justify the number of Africans killed in the film, Mr. Roth insisted that the film's central villain, Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, be unmistakably portrayed as a "Hitler-like figure" responsible for thousands of killings.—Wall Street Journal
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2060941
Shades of Saddam:
already seen in a theatre of events in the Middle East.

[MikeS]

11. Thanks for the cites, but...

I see an discussion about President Clinton's expansion our role in Somalia, several articles about Canadian, Belgium, and Italian troops and some movie reviews. I didn't see anything about atrocities committed by Americans in Somalia.

Most American soldiers felt good about feeding the Somalis. Having seen real mass starvation before, I did too.

If you think that the American military is inherently evil and all in it killers, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

v/r, MikeS

[DulceDecorum]

15. Children & soldiers

The United States blocked progress of a Working Group drafting an Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which would raise the age of recruitment, conscription, and participation in armed conflict to 18. The Optional Protocol's plan is known as the "Straight 18" position.
The United States recruits children under the age of 18 to participate in combat-ready forces. According to the US Defense Department, children under the age of 18 make up less than one-half of one percent of active US troops.
http://www.resistinc.org/newsletter/issues/2000/05/FactSheet.html
So they say.

An opportunity for leadership now presents itself, but it remains to be seen whether it will be taken. In May 2000, President Clinton signed a treaty that bans using children under 18 in armed conflicts. It was sent to the Senate, but made no progress toward ratification. The Foreign Relations Committee under the leadership of Sen. Jesse Helms (R) saw no particular reason to act on it. With Sen. Joseph Biden (D) now chairing the committee, the measure should get more-favorable consideration.
The opponents of the measure have two objections. First, it is a protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Despite widespread support in this country and abroad, conservatives oppose this convention because they see it as an attack on the rights of parents. Regardless of the merits of that argument, the measure banning child soldiers can be signed without taking any action on or incurring any obligations under the UN convention.
The second objection has to do with the fact that the Pentagon needs to be able to enlist 17-year-olds, with their parents' permission, straight out of high school, in order to maintain readiness levels in its all-volunteer forces. The protocol only precludes using these youths in combat, however. By the time they are trained and assigned to units, it is estimated that only about 2,000 17-year-old soldiers would be in outfits that might potentially see combat. The Pentagon, which for years has based its planning on being able to fight two regional wars at the same time, has said it can handle that or any other conflict without having to use those 2,000 troops. Opponents of the protocol nonetheless suspect that this is too much to ask of the generals.
http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/06/04/p9s2.htm

Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) introduced a Congressional resolution, calling on the U.S. to not block efforts to establish 18 as a minimum age for engaging in armed conflict. It was passed in 1998-OCT.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chil_war.htm
Senator Wellstone Killed In Plane Crash
http://bushspeaks.com/home.asp?did=103

Convention on the Rights of the Child
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~benjamin/316kfall/316ktexts/owendulce.html
http://cas.buffalo.edu/classes/eng/willbern/BestSellers/Things/Gassed.htm

[Dukejr]

13. Read all your links

I don't see how any of your links support your allegation that

"The US soldier is a killing machine.
When they turn up on your doorstep, expect to die.
Slowly, quickly, it matters not to them."

[DulceDecorum]

14. Substantiating the allegation

"The US soldier is a killing machine.
When they turn up on your doorstep, expect to die.
Slowly, quickly, it matters not to them."


THE US SOLDIER IS A KILLING MACHINE

The DARPA ‘war fighter enhancement’ programme – an acceleration of bi-partisan bio-tinkering that’s been going on for years – will involve injecting young men and women with hormonal, neurological and genetic concoctions; implanting microchips and electrodes in their bodies to control their internal organs and brain functions; and plying them with drugs that deaden some of their normal human tendencies – the need for sleep, the fear of death, the reluctance to kill their fellow human beings.
The research is ‘very aggressive and wide open’, says Admiral Stephen Baker of the Center for Defense Information. Indeed, the US Special Operations Command envisions the creation of ‘iron-bodied and iron-willed personnel’, who can ‘resist the mental and physiological effects of sleep deprivation’ while relying on ‘ergogenic substances’ to ‘manage’ the ‘environmental and mentally induced stress’ of the battlefield. Their bodies juiced, their brains swaddled in a Prozacian haze, the enhanced fighters can churn relentlessly, remorselessly towards dominion.
And the term ‘creation’ is not just fanciful rhetoric. Some of the research now underway involves actually altering the genetic code of soldiers, modifying bits of DNA to fashion A NEW TYPE OF HUMAN SPECIMEN – ONE THAT FUNCTIONS LIKE A MCHINE, KILLING TIRELESSLY FOR DAYS AND NIGHTE ON END. These mutations will ‘revolutionise the contemporary order of battle’ and guarantee ‘operational dominance across the whole range of potential US military employments’, the DARPA wizards enthuse.
http://www.theecologist.org/article.html?article=372
Earlier this month, Popular Science featured an article on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-funded quest to create "the world's first prosthetic brain part," a silicon microchip, which, when inserted in someone's brain, can either compensate for brain damage -- or CREATE THE PERFECT KILLING MACHINE. According to the chip's inventor, biomedical engineer Theodore Berger, this technology, (only a few months away from testing) will help Alzheimer's patients and stroke victims, and could "one day lead to cyborg soldiers and robotic servants."
http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/03/06/24.html


WHEN THEY TURN UP ON YOUR DOORSTEP, EXPECT TO DIE.

http://ww2.pstripes.osd.mil/01/aug01/ed081101k.html
Ms Bolkovac is not the only employee who claims to have been unfairly dismissed by DynCorp over the sex trade scandal. Hours after she won her case lawyers for the company made an undisclosed financial settlement in a lawsuit in Texas with a former employee, Ben Johnston, who also exposed the affair.
Mr Johnston's case included allegations of men having sex with girls as young as 12. His claims also concerned a nightclub in Bosnia frequented by DynCorp employees, where young women were sold "hourly, daily or permanently".
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,850139,00.html
During workouts at the gym, Butler tries to recruit young black soldiers for Special Forces.
"Consistently, I get the same answer," he said. ' Sir, Special Forces is full of rednecks and Klansmen.' "
Or, they tell Butler that no blacks are in Special Forces.
"Perception is a very strong thing," he added. "Perception is reality."
While many minority members of Special Forces said their units had been free of racial tension, they agreed some forms of racism still exist within the military.
White-supremacist and militia groups appear to have sympathizers and, likely, a foothold within special-operations forces, particularly Army Special Forces, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.
Former Green Berets have been tied to several militia and neo-Nazi groups.
Top special-operations officers discount the impact of white supremacists and militias.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/commandos/20000918-0010_mz1n18elite.html
FAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina (CNN) -- A former Army paratrooper was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison without parole for murdering two African-Americans, after one juror held out against the death penalty Thursday.
James Burmeister II, who prosecutors argued was a racist skinhead trying to earn a special tattoo, escaped a death sentence when jurors couldn't reach a unanimous decision during the sentencing phase of the trial, as required by state law.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9703/06/racial.killings/
http://civic.net/civic-values.archive/199603/msg00257.html
Q & A on Fayetteville Murders and Hate and the Military
http://www.adl.org/presrele/DiRaB_41/2627_41.asp
BBC reporter Mark Franchetti, embedded with the U.S. Marines during the battle of Nasiriyah, observed the "jittery aggressors who talked of wanting to 'nuke' the place."
"The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy," said Corporal Ryan Dupre, according to Franchetti's reports. "I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him."
http://www.join-snafu.org/rsh/gford.htm

In another room are the only riches that these people had, six dead cows lying higgledy-piggledy and distended by decay. And all this is very strange because, on Saturday morning – when American B-52s unloaded dozen of bombs that killed 115 men, women and children – nothing happened.
We know this because the US Department of Defence told us so. That evening, a Pentagon spokesman, questioned about reports of civilian casualties in eastern Afghanistan, explained that they were not true, because the US is meticulous in selecting only military targets associated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida network. Subsequent Pentagon utterances on the subject have wobbled somewhat, but there has been no retraction of that initial decisive statement: "It just didn't happen."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1204-05.htm
What do you say to a stranger who tells you he has just lost every member of his immediate family? All you can decently do is ask questions.
When did it happen? On Friday night or early Saturday morning. Where? In a suburb of Tarin Kot, capital of the Afghan province of Oruzgan. And why? But Mr Ullah, who is not familiar with the phrase "collateral damage" or "just war" does not have an answer.
In the 19 days of the bombing campaign, many terrible things have been reported but the scenes at the Al-Khidmat Al-Hajeri hospital, where Mr Ullah lay last night, are the most pathetic I have seen. In one ward lay a woman named Dery Gul, about 30 years old, with her 10-year-old daughter, Najimu, and a baby named Hameed Ullah. The little girls have bruised and cut faces; the cheek of the baby is cut neatly in a T shape, as if by a knife. But to understand how lucky they were you only have to look at their mother.
Her face is half-covered with bandages, her arm wrapped in plaster. "The bomb burned her eyes," says the doctor. "The whole right side of her body is burned." The reason Ms Gul is so battered and her daughters so lightly injured, they say, is because she cradled them.
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/10/26/19289.html

The wives of four Army soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C., have been slain in the past six weeks, allegedly by their husbands, in a rash of violence that has shocked the Special Operations Command and left Army commanders deeply concerned, officers at the base said yesterday.
Three of the servicemen involved were members of Special Operations units and had recently returned from Afghanistan. Two of those soldiers killed themselves, police said. The fourth slaying, which occurred earlier this month, was allegedly committed by a sergeant from a regular Army unit that was not involved in the Afghan war.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7848-2002Jul26?language=printer

The Economoist - London - 3/22/98] - As president Bill Clinton begins a six- country tour of Africa today, new evidence has emerged of how trapped United States troops indiscriminately fired on crowds of Somalis in Mogadishu in 1993, killing more than 1,000 - five times the 'official' number.
In a dramatic new account of the battle in central Mogadishu, collated from hours of interviews with American and Somali survivors, Mark Bowden of the Philadelphia Inquirer has revealed that US troops abandoned their rules of engagement - to fire only when threatened by fire - and shot down every Somali they saw, including women and children.
It happened 10 months after US marines landed as part of a humanitarian effort to feed starving Somalis cut off by the civil war. On the afternoon of 3 October 1993, a hot sleepy Sunday in Mogadishu, a group of 40 Delta Force, Special Forces and about 75 Rangers set off to try to capture Somali leaders supporting General Mohammed Farah Aideed, the Mogadishu warlord, who were meeting in a house near the centre of town.
According to Bowden's account, US troops took hostages and murdered wounded Somalis and a prisoner. They also used the bodies of Somalis as barricades. Bowden also reveals that, far from the official version of the mission (that it was not intended to kill anyone) helicopter gunships began the ill-fated raid by firing anti-tank missiles into houses.
http://www.refuseandresist.org/resist_this/041998somalia.html
Recently, I was contacted by a Navy Seal by e-mail who insisted that nobody should hold, form, or express an opinion on the USA military actions in Mogadishu without first consulting several members of the Delta Force for permission. In my response, I directed that he read the USA constitution which he swore to uphold and defend.
http://www.houstonspacesociety.org/icon/mr.html
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/dec06/default06.asp


SLOWLY, QUICKLY, IT MATTERS NOT TO THEM.

Article 54 of the Geneva Convention states " It is prohibited to attack, destroy or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population" and includes foodstuffs, livestock, and "drinking water supplies and irrigation works"
There is a report prepared before we bombed, by the Defense Intelligence Agency that points out the vulnerability of the water system in Iraq. Its dependence on imported equipment and chemicals and what would happen if we destroyed that water system. Sick as it is, we knew going in that we would kill thousands of children with this bombing and we did it any way.
A nation can justify bombing bridges, air fields, and TV stations, but how do you justify city sewage systems and water supplies?
http://www.jamesglaser.org/2002/p20020828.html
I want to give testimony on what are called the "highways of death." These are the two Kuwaiti roadways, littered with remains of 2,000 mangled Iraqi military vehicles, and the charred and dismembered bodies of tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, who were withdrawing from Kuwait on February 26th and 27th 1991 in compliance with UN resolutions.
U.S. planes trapped the long convoys by disabling vehicles in the front, and at the rear, and then pounded the resulting traffic jams for hours. "It was like shooting fish in a barrel," said one U.S. pilot. The horror is still there to see.
On the inland highway to Basra is mile after mile of burned, smashed, shattered vehicles of every description - tanks, armored cars, trucks, autos, fire trucks, according to the March 18, 1991, Time magazine. On the sixty miles of coastal highway, Iraqi military units sit in gruesome repose, scorched skeletons of vehicles and men alike, black and awful under the sun, says the Los Angeles Times of March 11, 1991. While 450 people survived the inland road bombing to surrender, this was not the case with the 60 miles of the coastal road. There for 60 miles every vehicle was strafed or bombed, every windshield is shattered, every tank is burned, every truck is riddled with shell fragments. No survivors are known or likely. The cabs of trucks were bombed so much that they were pushed into the ground, and it's impossible to see if they contain drivers or not. Windshields were melted away, and huge tanks were reduced to shrapnel.
"Even in Vietnam I didn't see anything like this. It's pathetic," said Major Bob Nugent, an Army intelligence officer. This one-sided carnage, this racist mass murder of Arab people, occurred while White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater promised that the U.S. and its coalition partners would not attack Iraqi forces leaving Kuwait. This is surely one of the most heinous war crimes in contemporary history.
http://www.deoxy.org/wc/wc-death.htm
There are, in addition, strong indications that many of those killed were Palestinian and Kuwaiti civilians trying to escape the impending seige of Kuwait City and the return of Kuwaiti armed forces. No attempt was made by U.S. military command to distinguish between military personnel and civilians on the "highway of death." The whole intent of international law with regard to war is to prevent just this sort of indescriminate and excessive use of force.
http://www.deoxy.org/wc/warcrime.htm
http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/iraqgenocide/HighwayofDeath.html

When the story of My Lai was exposed, more than a year later, it tarnished the name of the US army. Most Americans did not want to believe that their revered GI Joe could be a wanton murderer.
My Lai was the sort of atrocity American patriots preferred to associate with the Nazis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/03/98/mylai/64344.stm

The international Red Cross says it deplores the US bombing for a second time of aid warehouses in Kabul.
It says the buildings contained food and blankets for thousands of vulnerable people.
It says each warehouse was marked clearly with a large red cross.
The US defence department has admitted that warplanes mistakenly dropped EIGHT TONS OF BOMBS on the warehouses.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_434753.html
Reports from Afghanistan say the United States air force has mistakenly bombed a village wedding party, killing many of the guests.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2079565.stm
Miss Clarke said that an F/A 18 had accidentally dropped a 1,000lb bomb near a "senior citizens' home" 300ft from the intended target. Under pressure during a press briefing, she conceded that the building might have been a hospital. A United Nations spokesman said earlier that the structure might have been a military hospital.
Miss Clarke also said that, on Saturday night, two 500lb bombs were dropped accidentally on a residential district north-west of Kabul by an F-14 trying to hit military vehicles half a mile away. She said: "As we always say, we regret any loss of civilian life."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$FZZ5JNMQIOBEXQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2001/10/24/war24.xml

All the surviving refugees of Hadjici - most of them
fled to Bratunac on the Drina river in the
months after the bombings - believe that the cancers
and leukaemias that have affected this
population were caused because the American A-10
bombers which struck their factories were
firing depleted uranium rounds.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/fisk-du1.html
http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/fisk-du.html
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/262.html
To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be a last resort, not a first choice. I truly must question the judgment of any President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50% children is "in the highest moral traditions of our country". This war is not necessary at this time. Pressure appears to be having a good result in Iraq. Our mistake was to put ourselves in a corner so quickly. Our challenge is to now find a graceful way out of a box of our own making. Perhaps there is still a way if we allow more time.
http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/03e/iraq/waragainstiraq/byrde.html
http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/index_e.html
Basra, Southern Iraq—I thought I had a strong stomach toughened by the minefields and foul frontline hospitals of Angola, by the handiwork of the death squads in Haiti and by the wholesale butchery of Rwanda. But I nearly lost my breakfast last week at the Basrah Maternity and Children's Hospital in southern Iraq.
Dr Amer, the hospital's director, had invited me into a room in which were displayed colour photographs of what, in cold medical language, are called congenital anomalies, but what you and I would better understand as horrific birth deformities. The images of these babies were head-spinningly grotesque and thank God they didn't bring out the real thing, pickled in formaldehyde. At one point I had to grab hold of the back of a chair to support my legs. I won't spare you the details. You should know because according to the Iraqis and in all likelihood the World Health Organisation, which is soon to publish its findings on the spiralling birth defects in southern Iraq we are responsible for these obscenities. During the Gulf war, Britain and the United States pounded the city and its surroundings with 96,000 depleted-uranium shells. The wretched creatures in the photographs for they were scarcely human are the result, Dr Amer said. He guided me past pictures of children born without eyes, without brains.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=107715
http://www.arabrights.com/iraq/iraqmntr.html
THEY SMILED as they were dying. One little girl in a Basra, Iraq, hospital even put on her party dress for my newspaper's portrait of her. She did not survive three months.
All of them either played with explosive fragments left behind from U.S. and British raids on Southern Iraq in 1991 or were the children -- unborn at the time -- of men and women caught in those raids. Even then, the words "depleted uranium" were on everyone's lips.
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/DU-Iraqi-Kids-GWS.htm
http://www.islamicawakening.com/index.htm?http://www.as-sahwah.com/Sahar/The%20Children%20of%20Iraaq%205%20Thursday%20September%2028th%202000.phtml

In fact, as former army intelligence officers Richard Gabriel and Paul Savage wrote a year later in the Boston Globe, "What really happened in Grenada was a case study in military incompetence and poor execution." Of the 18 American servicemen killed during the operation, 14 died in friendly fire or in accidents. To this day, no one has been able to offer a reliable estimate of the number of Grenadans killed.
<snip>
In El Chorrillo, the desperately poor neighborhood in Panama City where General Manuel Noriega's headquarters were located, at least 300 civilians died in the attack and resulting crossfire, some burned alive in their homes. Aside from the victims and US Army film crews, however, no one was allowed to observe the attack. The media dutifully reported the Pentagon's claim that only 202 civilians and 50 Panamanian soldiers died in the entire invasion, even though estimates from other sources ranged as high as 4,000 civilian deaths.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Public_Relations/TorLob_Grenada_TSIGFY.html
Indeed a group of Ecuadoran peasants filed a class action against the company in September 2001. The suit alleges that herbicides spread by DynCorp in Colombia were drifting across the border, withering legitimate crops, causing human and livestock illness, and, in several cases, killing children. Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers intervened in the case right away telling the judge the lawsuit posed "a grave risk to US national security and foreign policy objectives."
<snip>
"People do not like Saddam, but they do not want a colonizing army," one young man told the Independent of London. "In the area where I live there was an older man, a retired soldier ... When he heard the Americans were coming he went and got his gun. When people asked why, he said it was because he did not want to be invaded."
http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=6328

The July 24, 1995 issue of Newsweek writes:
"A bright light filled the plane," wrote Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb. "We turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud...boiling up, mushrooming." For a moment, no one spoke. Then everyone was talking. "Look at that! Look at that! Look at that!" exclaimed the co-pilot, Robert Lewis, pounding on Tibbets's shoulder. Lewis said he could taste atomic fission; it tasted like lead. Then he turned away to write in his journal. "My God," he asked himself, "what have we done?" (special report, "Hiroshima: August 6, 1945")
note: Paul Tibbets was Colonel, not "Lt. Colonel," when he was the pilot of the Enola Gay.
http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/

Arthur H. Vickers, Sergeant in the First Nebraska Regiment:
"I am not afraid, and am always ready to do my duty, but I would like some one to tell me what we are fighting for."
http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/ailtexts/soldiers.html

"The US soldier is a killing machine.
When they turn up on your doorstep, expect to die.
Slowly, quickly, it matters not to them."

[DulceDecorum]

16. Cleaning up the mess

Special Report
Somalia 1993: A Look Back
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/issues/somalia1993/

The operation was directed by an American admiral, and spearheaded by American Marines. After the murder of 20 Pakistani soldiers in an ambush and the killing and dragging of two American Marines through the streets of Mogadishu, the American command moved from peacekeeping to offensive operations against the warlords running the main Somali cities, principally Mogadishu and Kismayo.
Though they used helicopter gunships and area bombardment, the Americans failed to defeat the leading warlord, Gen Muhammad Farrah Aidid, and eventually the UN forces were ordered to withdraw. A common thread through the accusations against the Belgian, Italian and Canadian forces, is the racism of elite units, particularly airborne units, and their inability to adapt to low-intensity peacekeeping operations.
Last week an Italian paratrooper said: "What's the big deal? They are just niggers anyway."
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~vwindsor/WTH.html

We went to Somalia a decade ago for what was supposed to be a humanitarian mission, after 300,000 people died in war and starvation. We fled within months of a failed raid by Army Rangers that ended in the deaths of 18 soldiers and the searing photographs of the corpse of a US soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0618-01.htm

Stripped down, most Rangers looked like teenagers (their average age was 19). They were products of rigorous selection and training. They were fit and fast. With their buff bodies, distinct crew cuts - sides and back of the head shaved clean - and grunted Hoo-ah greeting, the Rangers were among the most gung-ho soldiers in the Army.
Inside Super 67, Eversmann was anxious about being in charge. He'd won the distinction by default. His platoon sergeant had been summoned home by an illness in his family, and the guy who replaced him had suffered an epileptic seizure.
<snip>
The Rangers had been issued strict rules of engagement. They were to shoot only at someone who pointed a weapon at them, but already this was getting unrealistic. Those with guns were intermingled with women and children. The Somalis were strange that way. Whenever there was a disturbance in Mogadishu, people would throng to the spot: men, women, children - even the aged and infirm. It was like some national imperative to bear witness. And over this summer, the Ranger missions had stirred up widespread hatred.
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/nov16/default16.asp
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON of Sunday, Oct. 3, 1993, attack helicopters dropped about 120 elite American soldiers into a busy neighborhood in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct several top lieutenants of Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and return to base. It was supposed to take about an hour.
<snip>
The Somalian toll was far worse. Reliable witnesses in the U.S. military and in Mogadishu now place the count at nearly 500 dead - scores more than was estimated at the time - among more than a thousand casualties. Many were women and children. This was hardly what U.S. and United Nations officials envisioned when they intervened in Somalia in December 1992 to help avert widespread starvation.
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/nov16/rang16.asp

MikeS,
what exactly were these overgrown-pit-bull children trying to do?
Demonstrate American superiority by feeding bullets to the Somali?
We are all aware of the mess they made.
Pray, what mess were they cleaning up?
I am certain however, that you will be happy to see that the American personel who participated in this massacre are mostly decorated and are considered heroes.

Naturally, the US could have if it so desired, taken the diplomatic route and avioded this entire mess.
Hussein Aideed, who later returned to Somalia and took up where his father left off, was deployed to Mogadishu for Operation Restore Hope.
According to published reports, Hussein is an engineer and a US citizen and was a Marine at the time. Furthermore, he was on speaking terms with his dad.
http://www.peacelink.it/users/npeople/mar/pag6mar.html

[MikeS]

17. Still Trying to Understand your Point

"...what exactly were these overgrown-pit-bull children trying to do?
Demonstrate American superiority by feeding bullets to the Somali?
We are all aware of the mess they made.
Pray, what mess were they cleaning up?"

At the time, Somalia was what the international community is pleased to call a "failed state." Meaning that, for all practical purposes there was no rule of law, no police, no services, no government, save tribal leaders, who readily withheld food from the starving and often robbed or killed anyone who mistakenly ventured into their territory. Each neighborhood was an armed enclave and the only semblance of normal city life was in the areas under the control of outside forces under United Nations mandate. By the time of the battle, the presence of American troops in Somalia had almost been forgotten by the American public. But not us in the military.

"I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, 'We serve no red-coats here.'
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, go away';
But it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play'

The specific job on the day of battle was to capture some of Aidid's lieutenants, with the hope that they might lead to the capture of Aidid himself. Whether those orders were wise or not was a matter for our National Command Authority to decide, not the Rangers. It's a matter of record that their commander had asked for more assets - armor, gunships, etc., based on the idea that overwhelming force would tend to suppress the opposition. He was turned down.

"I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!"


In any case, 90 Americans participated in a mission that started to become unhinged when one of their helicopters was shot down and some of the Rangers tried to rescue the crew. While the group with the Somali prisoners did not become trapped, the security elements (about 40-60 men) were soon surrounded by an estimated 2,000 armed Somali militia in two separate areas. A second helicopter was shot down and two Rangers volunteered to try to rescue the injured. They likewise became surrounded. The fire became too intense for any of the groups to be picked up by helicopter and a rescue force in unarmored vehicles was shot up and turned back. The Americans were finally retrieved after a 14 hour battle in which 18 Americans died and an estimated 500 Somalis were killed.

"Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?'
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll."

In the considered opinion of experts, the battle was an example of poor coordination, poor planning, and insufficient resources to do the job without inviting opposition. But none of that has anything to do with the behavior of the individual Rangers, who were merely doing their jobs as best they could under extreme danger.

Dulce, what those Rangers were trying to do is simple. They were trying to stay alive, from one minute to the next, while attempting to rescue wounded comrades. For the most part, the men on the ground were no better armed than their enemies and were greatly outnumbered by armed Somalis the whole time. That they killed unarmed women and children is without dispute. It is also clear that they took often took enormous risks to avoid killing the unarmed when they could safely do so.

"We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints"

Despite the high Somali death toll, there was not one documented instance of wanton killing by the Americans trapped in Mogadishu that day. The two Rangers who dropped in to protect the injured men in the second helicopter came under immediate fire and both were soon wounded. Together with one man from the helicopter who could move, they held off repeated attacks until they ran out of ammunition and were killed. The two soldiers were the first Americans to receive the Medal of Honor since Vietnam.

"For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Chuck him out, the brute!'
But it's 'Saviour of 'is country' when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!"

The Battle of Mogadishu was a disaster that didn't have to happen. Our leadership failed us, from President Clinton, right on down to the commander who sent them in. But don't blame the Rangers, Dulce. Maybe you should actually watch "Blackhawk Down."

v/r, MikeS

[DulceDecorum]

18. Lies, theft and murder.

Justifying an invasion and the slaughter of THOUSANDS of people.

"With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide,
And many a childing mother then
And newborn baby died;
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

"They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.
http://www.netpoets.com/classic/poems/059001.htm

MikeS said:
"Despite the high Somali death toll, there was not one documented instance of wanton killing by the Americans trapped in Mogadishu that day."
I am hereby, and publicly, calling those statements flat out LIES.
Even YOU have condradicted that statement.
There are NUMEROUS WELL-DOCUMENTED instances of wanton killing by Americans in Mogadishu.
http://www.afrocubaweb.com/news/somalia.htm

Official estimates of Somali casualties in the summer of 1993 alone are 6-10,000 of which two-thirds are women and children. Marine Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni, who commanded the operation, informs the press - "I'm not counting bodies...I'm not interested." Specific WAR CRIMES of U.S. forces include direct military attacks on a hospital and on civilian gatherings.
http://free.freespeech.org/marquelinques/Somalia.html

Laws of War :
General Orders No. 100
Art. 44.
All wanton violence committed against persons in the invaded country, all destruction of property not commanded by the authorized officer, all robbery, all pillage or sacking, even after taking a place by main force, all rape, wounding, maiming, or killing of such inhabitants, are prohibited under the penalty of death, or such other severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense.
A soldier, officer or private, in the act of committing such violence, and disobeying a superior ordering him to abstain from it, may be lawfully killed on the spot by such superior.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lieber.htm#sec2

This is the fate of the Rangers.
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/dec14/wherenow.asp

You appear to be trying to JUSTIFY the murder of the Somalis, who were in their own capital city in their own nation, when they were ATTACKED by the Rangers.
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON of Sunday, Oct. 3, 1993, attack helicopters dropped about 120 elite American soldiers into a busy neighborhood in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct several top lieutenants of Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and return to base. It was supposed to take about an hour.
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/nov16/rang16.asp

It was midafternoon, Oct. 3, 1993. Eversmann's Chalk Four was part of a company of U.S. Rangers assisting a Delta Force commando squadron that was about to descend on a gathering of Habr Gidr clan leaders in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. This ragtag clan, led by warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, had challenged the United States of America.
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/nov16/default16.asp

HOW had Aideed "challenged the United States of America?"
Simple,
he had retained control of his tribal land which had OIL that BushCo wanted.
THAT is why he had a price on his head.
http://www.somaliawatch.org/archivejuly/000922601.htm

Not their fault, my aching ass.
Operation on 3/4 October in MOG.
I. The Authority, Responsiblitiy and Accountablitiy for the Op rests here in MOG with the TF Ranger, Commander not in Washington.
XII. The mission was a sucess. Targetted individuals were captured and extracted from the target.
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/dec14/garrison.asp

The Rangers mounted raids in which THEY ATTACKED CIVILIANS in their homes, in marketplaces, in refugee camps, and they killed hundreds at roadblocks. They are doing the same thing in Iraq right now.

The US invaded Somalia for OIL.
http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/15032002/1503200246a.htm
THAT is what the Rangers were fighting for.
Conoco.
Amoco, Chevron and Phillips.
As for the battles the Rangers had with Delta Force on that night, I suspect it was due to sibling rivalry.

I notice that you blamed Clinton for all this.
Clinton did not send the military into Somalia.
He pulled them out.
You have no word of recrimination against the man, George HW Bush, who dispatched the US military into a sovereign state to help out his country-club cronies.
People DIED in Somalia.
Yet you claim that the man, William Jefferson Clinton, who STOPPED the killing and returned the invaders to their own land, is the one who "failed."
http://www.military.com/ContentFiles/BHDbackgroundM

You, sir, are no Democrat. Neither are you progressive.
The position you have taken is that of the "compassionate" conservative, or, the neo-con chickenhawk.
What did you want, another quagmire with US bodybags and US casualties so numerous that the Pentagon refuses to release the figures?
Why would anyone, other than a traitor, want to see his comrades slaughtered on a daily basis?
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_deever.htm
Tommy Atkins is not alive to hear your take on his words, sir.
And neither is Rudyard Kipling nor his seventeen year old son.
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=240
Since you are displaying a hitherto unknown love of poetry, here is a poem just for you.
http://www.ranger.org/somaliaPoem.html
I trust you are not embarassed.

http://www.military.com/ContentFiles/BHDbackgroundS
First, we currently believe and are certainly hopeful that the number of casualties being reported in the press is high. As you know from your own observation out there, the work is still going forward, and we won't know for some time precise numbers. But from everything that we currently know, the estimate that's been widely reported is considerably high, and we certainly pray that that's the case.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2001/t09122001_t0912sd.html

I, and numerous others here, did not and do not support pre-emptive warfare. Nor genocide.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm
If you support this type of behavior, MikeS, might I kindly suggest that you reconsider if not your beliefs, then at least your participation here.
http://www.shakespeare.sk/Quotes/005_Out_damned_spot.html
And quite frankly, I am glad that the actions of those "skinnies" on Ma-alinti Rangers, resulted in the redeployment of KKK ass right back into Fort Bragg.
Look at the anger that was sparked in the hearts of the American people by the events of September 11, 2001. The sheer pulsating rage, the desire to bring "infinte justice" to whoever it was who had done this thing.
Why would you assume that the Somali people do not also experience the same rage?
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/dec06/default06.asp
Do you think that they are NOT human?
Or do you think that you are the one chosen to rule the world as you see fit?

Let’s not forget that U.S. ground troops caused much more devastation in Mogadishu--killing close to 10,000 people in a matter of just a few weeks. Let’s not forget that U.S. ground troops turned whole neighborhoods of Panama City to rubble in 1989, while killing thousands of people.
We can’t just question the tactics used by the U.S. military. We have to question the U.S. government’s claim that it has the moral high ground to intervene anywhere, at any time, in any way it so chooses.
http://www.socialistworker.org/2002-1/395/395_08_BrendanSexton.shtml
The British tried that.
And they have been kicked out of so many countries that the sun can never set on them all.
You sir, are next.

"But none of that has anything to do with the behavior of the individual Rangers, who were merely DOING THEIR JOBS as best they could under extreme danger."
Is THAT is what a bunch of brainwashed drugged-up nineteen year olds are calling it these days.
Where did they get that defense?
From their uncles at Nuremberg?
And WHAT was this TEENAGER doing so far away from his mother's good home cooking?

He felt a stab of despair. Somebody's been shot already! He gripped the rope hard to keep from landing on top of the guy. It was Pvt. Todd Blackburn, at 18 the youngest Ranger in his Chalk, A KID JUST MONTHS OUT OF A FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL. He was unconscious and bleeding from the nose and ears.
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/nov16/default16.asp

"Dulce, what those Rangers were trying to do is simple. They were trying to stay alive, from one minute to the next, while attempting to rescue wounded comrades. For the most part, the men on the ground were no better armed than their enemies and were greatly outnumbered by armed Somalis the whole time."

LIES:
The Task Force Ranger commander, Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison, testifying before the Senate, said that if his men had put any more ammunition into the city ``we would have sunk it.''
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/nov16/rang16.asp
In the movie, the gunships are shown making only one attack. In fact, they were constantly engaged all night long. Each aircraft reloaded six times. It is estimated that they fired between 70 and 80,000 rounds of minigun ammo and fired a total 90 to 100 aerial rockets. They were the only thing that kept the Somalis from overrunning the objective area. All eight gunship pilots were awarded the Silver Star. Every one of them deserved it!
http://www.ranger.org/somaliaHistoryBlackHawkDownReviewIzzo.html

"That they killed unarmed women and children is without dispute. It is also clear that they took often took enormous risks to avoid killing the unarmed when they could safely do so."
The Rangers - and their cohorts in Delta Force-
SLAUGHTERED over one THOUSAND CIVILIANS
CIVILIANS
DAMMIT,
CIVILIANS - and they started off by shooting TOW missiles into a bulding that they KNEW was filled with people who were trying to bring about peace to Somalia. And they BRAGG about this massacre, to this very day.

I hope that when you do see the movie it will fill you with pride and awe for the Rangers that fought their hearts out that day. Believe me, they are made of the same stuff as those kids at Normandy Beach. When 1LT Tom DiTomasso, the Ranger platoon leader on my aircraft, told me that we did a fantastic job, I couldn't imagine ever receiving higher praise than that. I love my wife and children, but the greatest thing I've ever done is to be a Nightstalker Pilot with Task Force Ranger on 3-4 Oct 1993.
http://www.ranger.org/somaliaHistoryBlackHawkDownReviewIzzo.html

American soldiers KNOWINGLY MURDERED tribal elders engaged in a PEACE conference.
PEACE, dammit.
What was wrong with them?
The bastard vampires had not yet spilled nor drunk enough blood?
Struecker, a born-again Christian from Fort Dodge, Iowa, knew Mogadishu better than most guys at the compound. His platoon had driven out on water runs and other details daily.
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/nov16/default16.asp
What his mission, fill the chalice up with red stuff, and bring home a few alter boys?
http://www.biblicalrecorder.org/content/news/2003/1_17_2003/ne170103fort.shtml

Senator McCAIN: Perhaps it was not in the United States' vital national security interests, but certainly as a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles we felt that it was the right(wing) thing to do.
http://www.cdi.org/adm/713/transcript.html
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
Isaiah 6:8
http://www.ranger.org/rangerCreed.html

But don't blame the Rangers, Dulce.
http://inwarwetrust.org/archives/000098.html
Maybe you should actually watch "Blackhawk Down."
http://www.internationalanswer.org/news/pr/012002blackhawkdown.html

I hope and I pray
that ALL supporters of genocide,
ANYWHERE on Planet Earth,
rot in hell.

[MikeS]

19. Calm down, Dulce, Please

You have me in the impossible position of proving a negative. Or rather, a series of negatives, most having little to do with my point. Which is that it wasn't the fault of the Rangers that they found themselves in that terrible situation in Somalia. (Kipling's "Tommy" wasn't justification of imperialism, so much as it was a sympathetic view of the soldier's life and plight.)

It is simplicity itself to come up with countless accusations of crimes, evil intent, and descriptions of our soldiers as ogres in every military action, going all the way back to the Revolutionary War. Naturally, the use of the word "alleged" tends to be conspicuous in its absence, particularly in cites with an axe to grind. Such is life on the internet, I suppose.

I was in no way trying justifying the overall purpose of the anti-Aidid campaign - the reasons behind the switch from pure humanitarian aid to UN-backed nation-building have never been totally clear to me. I disagreed with it then and I disagree with it now.

As for my "blaming President Clinton" and not President Bush, that is simply unfair. I faulted the whole chain of command, right down to the commander in Somalia for the tragic events of that specific day, as is only proper - those in charge are always responsible, even if they were simply mistaken, as I suspect President Clinton was.

Taken from one of your own cites:

"These young men were shocked to find themselves bleeding on the dirt streets of an obscure African capital for a cause so unessential that President Clinton called off their mission the day after the fight....

...the awful price of those arrests came as a shock to a young president, who felt as misled as John F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. It led to the resignation of Defense Secretary Les Aspin and destroyed the career of Gen. Garrison, who in a handwritten letter to Clinton accepted full responsibility. It aborted a hopeful and unprecedented United Nations effort to salvage an impoverished and hungry nation lost in anarchy and civil war."

I'm certain that if you asked President Clinton today if he thought the whole thing was a mistake, he'd say, "Yes."

As for my being, or not being, a Democrat, I'll have you know that my entire family has always been Democrat, from solid working class, union stock. As a military professional, I followed the old tradition of remaining apolitical and only in recent years have been seeking my political roots, again. Which, in almost all cases and arguments, have led me to fall back on the principles of the Democratic Party. Hence my occasional forays into this cite, checking out the latest in Democratic thinking and news about the candidates. I skip some threads here because I'm not interested in cheerleading or vitriol, but, rather, enlightenment on issues. I am content with mostly lurking, and I'm used to a milder form of discussion, so forgive me if anything I've said seems insufficiently partisan.

But my credentials are beside the point. I can understand your anger at policy - it is our right and duty as citizens to make our displeasure known. But I beg you to consider that Democrats will eventually be running the White House again, and thus, once again in charge of those young men and women you so thoroughly disparage. And I can assure you that they will remain as faithful and honorable then as they are now. I've worked with these kids all my adult life and they aren't drugged out animals, nor are their officers heedless monsters. We receive repeated training in the laws of armed conflict and, better than any military on earth, attempt to follow them. That includes the Geneva Conventions. I think it is wrong, for the United States to seek promises from countries that they will refrain from charging US military personnel with war crimes. In the vast majority of cases we don't need such protection and, in those isolated cases where such charges are warranted, we should be the first to demand them.

During my career I served under seven Presidents, joining under Johnson and retiring under Clinton. For very good reasons, the US military insists on allegiance to the Constitution and obedience to all lawful orders. (And disagreement with policy doesn't mean the orders are unlawful.) That might be difficult for the most committed partisan to understand, but the alternative - an overtly partisan military - is simply too dangerous to contemplate. Reasonable people can disagree as to the size, composition, and use of our military. But I ask you, if the only reaction the military receives from Democratic partisans is hatred and disdain, what does that portend about our ability to run the government?

I'm sorry for disturbing you and willing retreat from the field.

v/r, MikeS

[DulceDecorum]

24. The Constitution of the United States

Article. VI.
All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

This means, among other things, that Islam is NOT to be abused or outlawed in the United States.

The Red Cross movement (later renamed the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement) spearheaded the first Geneva Convention in 1864. The purpose of this first treaty was to protect wounded soldiers and those caring for them during times of war. Twelve nations signed the initial document. Over the following decades, more countries agreed to the convention.
<snip>
The second Geneva Convention in 1907 extended protection to wounded armed forces at sea and to shipwreck victims. The third convention in 1929 detailed the humane treatment of prisoners of war. The fourth convention in 1949 revised the previous conventions and addressed the rights of civilians in times of war. This convention is said to be the cornerstone of modern humanitarian law. It was amended in 1977 with two protocols that further protect civilians during wartime and address armed conflicts within a nation.
According to the Red Cross/Red Crescent, the U.S. has signed each of these international agreements. However, a signature does not bind a nation to the treaty unless the document has also been ratified by that nation (in the U.S., Congress ratifies such treaties). Generally, these treaties are open for signature for a limited time period after they're written. The U.S. ratified all the Geneva Conventions with the exception of the two protocols of 1977.
http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020212.html

Therefore, the Geveva Conventions carry as much weight as the Constitution of the United States of America.

U.S. Military Oaths of Office
Enlisted Oath of Office for the U.S. Military:
''I, <insert name>, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.''

Commission Officer’s Oath for the U.S. Military:
“I <insert name>, having been appointed a <insert rank> in the U.S. Army under the conditions indicated in this document, do accept such appointment and do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.”
http://www.hackworth.com/

In as much as conflicts of arms are inevitable, so long as human passions and interests continue as they are, it is at least the duty of the intelligent and liberal minds of all nations to unite in endeavoring to migrate, as far as possible, the horrors of such conflicts, and to stimulate philanthropic effort in behalf of their victims. Already a great step has been taken in the right direction. The wounded are no longer maltreated, whatever may be the animosities of the parties engaged. The victor collects the enemy's wounded, and treats them with the same care as his own.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/EUgeneva.htm

Laws of War :
General Orders No. 100
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD
SECTION IX
Assassination
Art. 148.
The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such intentional outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever authority. Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lieber.htm#sec9

The ongoing Sunni/Shiite conflict hints that this may be a possible future for Iraq, so that in the end all we accomplished was a short term regime change by removing Saddam Hussein from power. We should have sent in a CIA hunter/killer team, it would have been much cheaper and in the end achieved the same result.
http://www.hackworth.com/
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Special%20Reports%20Hack.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=44&rnd=121.54921034678951

Last week the US military assassinated Uday and Qusai Hussein in a villa in Mosul, Iraq. Hundreds of troops armed with automatic weapons, rockets, rocket-propelled grenades, and tow missiles, and dozens of vehicles and aircraft, attacked four people armed with AK-47 automatic rifles. Mustapha, the 14-year old son of Qusai, was also killed in the operation, along with another individual who was apparently a bodyguard.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew121.php

"...For very good reasons, the US military insists on allegiance to the Constitution and obedience to all lawful orders. (And disagreement with policy doesn't mean the orders are unlawful.) That might be difficult for the most committed partisan to understand, but the alternative - an overtly partisan military - is simply too dangerous to contemplate. Reasonable people can disagree as to the size, composition, and use of our military. But I ask you, if the only reaction the military receives from Democratic partisans is hatred and disdain, what does that portend about our ability to run the government?"

The ICC treaty – which was signed by President Bill Clinton – has been signed by almost 140 countries and ratified by 66 and takes formal effect July 1.
<snip>
The decision to unsign may also be largely symbolic. Human rights advocates say that renouncing Clinton's signature will have no legal effect, since the treaty gives the Court universal jurisdiction.
"'Unsigning' the treaty will not stop the Court," said Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth, who called the move "an empty gesture" and "a triumph of ideology over any rational assessment of how to combat the worst human rights crimes."
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13055

The American servicemen who flew an AC-130 and mistakenly bombed dozens of civilians in remote Afghan villages last week can thank their lucky stars that their commander in chief is George W. Bush, not Al Gore. It doesn't take much flight of imagination to believe that the angry Afghans would like to take their demands for punishment and retribution to the new International Criminal Court.
<snip>
Here are some U.S. constitutional protections against unfair prosecutions that are violated by the ICC: (1) the right to trial by an impartial jury of one's peers (the most important protection); (2) the right to trial in the same jurisdiction where the offense was committed; (3) the right to a speedy trial within months, not years; (4) the right to a unanimous verdict for serious crimes; (5) the right to confront witnesses (the ICC has key loopholes); (6) the obligation to turn over exculpatory evidence to the defense (the ICC lets the prosecutor decide); and (7) no double jeopardy (the ICC is full of loopholes).
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/phyllisschlafly/ps20020716.shtml

Bush proudly stands on a trash heap of treaties he has rejected either in word or by spirit--Kyoto, Madrid and Oslo, International Criminal Court, Anti-Ballistic Missile, Nuclear Test-Ban, the Biological and Toxin Warfare Convention (BTWC), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Ottawa Convention on Land Mines, and, more recently, the UN Charter and NATO.
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen02112003.html

The politics of veterans’ needs will put real pressure on the Senate to beat the House’s number, and on the House to compromise. The VA bill, however, could easily get lost in what is becoming an annual financial train wreck, with VA funding tucked into a massive omnibus spending billed passed in a hasty shamble long after the budget deadline of October 1.
If that’s the outcome, veterans’ groups have ire enough for both Republicans and Democrats. Said Ron Conley, outgoing national commander of the nearly 3 million-member American Legion, “I’m angry at both of ’em.” The Senate’s task is to try to defuse that anger.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0803/082903nj1.htm

I do not hate the soldiers.
But make no mistake, I DO hate their actions and I am most willing to hold ANYONE who violates the Sixth Commandment most accountable.
Cain shall not be the only one to suffer for his crime.

I also have the UTMOST respect for ANYONE and ALL of those who simply REFUSE to kill their fellow man. And most espcially those who decline to be the aggressor.
http://www.seruv.org.il/defaulteng.asp

The Pentagon insists on recruiting teenagers because they are impressionable and it can mould them into cold blooded killers. Eventually, though, the kids wake up and see their reflection in the mirror. Then they are destroyed.

A year and a half ago, terrorist Iyad Batat was assassinated in the territories. At first, naturally, there was joy over the successful action. However, what took place in the next moments was appalling. The soldiers had their picture taken with the dismembered parts of the terrorist's body, smiling and laughing. Some even held parts of his body.
"A few weeks later, the operations officer came and asked to collect the pictures," related one of the discharged soldiers. "He burned all the pictures, and then it all came back to us. Suddenly we realized what we were doing."
http://friendvillarticles1102.homestead.com/32Intifada051102.html

When diplomats witness the outbreak of war, they hang their heads for they know they have failed in their duty.
The current administration NEVER allowed diplomacy.
They WANTED war.
And the men in uniform seem to have intitally gone along with this idea. Mow that they come home maimed or in body bags, a little piece of be-ribboned metal no longer seems as important as it once did.
War is hell.
And killing is wrong.

I support the Geneva Conventions and I have nothing but disdain for those SOLDIERS who do not. A military man who fights against them is one who is asking to left on the battlefield for the maggots to consume.
I say, grant him his wish. The sooner, the better.
The humans among us will take care of our own - fellow humans - regardless of which politico sent them to die this time.

[DulceDecorum]

25. The Importance of being Human.

USA-- “It was like a long trip to hell that you knew you might return from. Of course it is as bad as the soldiers say it is. Hell it’s even worse if the truth has to come out. It’s a constant fu..ing nightmare trying to figure out where the guerillas are going to hit, how to keep the civilians calm, and also getting enough water and food to eat. That is one thing the media never really told the Americans about, how bad it was when our convoys weren’t getting through. We had to go to some Iraqi people and trade socks and underwear for some food and a little water.”
CFTM-- “You really did get that desperate because I saw it in the foreign media that the Iraqi civilians had stepped in and fed a whole bunch of troops that had been days without food.”
USA-- -“Yeah, that ain’t no joke about getting help from the civilians right after the invasion. We had a pretty good laugh about that and how the army owed them some money for reimbursement. We would not have starved probably, but when we got the food from the people it made sure we could still operate as a functioning unit. It was a near thing that several guys almost died of dehydration because we ran out of clean water for a few days.”

<snip>

USA-- -“I want to talk about some of the children I saw killed for no reason, maybe it will wake someone up who doesn’t believe it was happening, or that it was very bad. I can tell you I will never forget the screams of the wounded or orphaned kids, or the wailing of the parents who lost their kids. The Iraqis and most Muslims have a very vocal way of mourning the dead by lamenting and wailing for the dead. There is no mistaking a mother or father crying out in pain for the loss of a child. They don’t cry like that unless there has been a death. Sometimes after a bombing raid or an artillery attack you could here hundreds of people wiling and weeping.”
“I have several grown children with grand kids about the age of most of the dead children I saw in Iraq. I also have several kids who are about half grown and I saw a lot of Iraqi children that age wandering around in charge of three or four little ones because their parents were dead.”
“Let me tell you about the cluster bomb raid we saw wipe out a whole bunch of little kids. It looked like they had already lost their parents and were trying to salvage food from a destroyed Iraqi convoy by the side of the road we were on. The kids were way off to the side about half a mile away by then when we got the word that the Iraqi column was going to be hit with cluster bombs and we had to clear the area. We got on the radio and tried to get the air strike stopped but we were told it was too late to get it stopped.”
“We could see the body parts flying up into the air after the bombs hit. It was terrible and we could not do a damn thing but watch it happen and scream into the radio at the dumb sh.t pilot that was dropping the bombs. After the strike was over we went to see if there were any survivors and all we found was bits and pieces of little kids and here and there an arm or leg you could still identify.”

<snip>

“I damn sure will not go back over there even if they throw me in Leavenworth. I never could understand how a guy could be a conscientious objector until what I just went through. I wish more guys would stand up and tell Bush and the Pentagon they will not fight their war for oil. We should not have to die for these rich bastards profits and enrichment.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0310/S00105.htm

“I had one guy tell me all he wanted was to see his little daughter; she was born three days after the war started. He died in the sand holding my hand and crying because his daughter would never know him. Tell me that’s fu..ing right. Where was George Bush when this kid was gasping for air and spitting his blood on foreign soil?”
http://cronus.com/twain/
It is right - extremely right - right from the right-wing.
Dulce et Decorum est pro petroleum mori.

[Tommy_Douglas]

10. I'll vouch for this...

Canada disbanded (in disgrace) our first borne air regiment after Somalia. A teenager was caught in the Canadian compound looking to steal food. Members of the regiment systematically tortured and killed the individual with photographs that were shown on television much to the horror of Canadians.

Later a video was found of the same regiment's disgusting and debasing hazing rituals to fellow members in what quickly seemed to be nothing more then a cabal of white supremacists.

[Wetzelbill]

12. Yikes, all this turned out pretty wild

That is one thing I worry about and lament quite wholeheartedly. I veritably fear that often times our boys in uniform do bad things in the name of our country. I'll have to research this further, yet my own experience in looking at U.S. military history and what we supposedly stand for brings chills up my spine. My hope is we can evolve our foreign policy into viable peace and not garbage such as our Iraq campaign(s). Not that we don't do good sometimes too though, however, we need to improve our faults greatly.

[dubbyaistheman]

20. wow

wow

[dubbyaistheman]

21. again

wow

[dubbyaistheman]

22. ehehe

ahha

[dubbyaistheman]

23. here we go

on to the main forum