Random, somewhat related story. I went househunting in East London today, and ended up getting into a debate with a Hizb ut-Tahrir (at least I'm pretty sure he was Hizb) leafleter outside Stratford tube station. He was telling me about the virtues and desirability of an Islamic caliphate in Britain, and the more I would ask him stuff like "what about women/gays/freedom of speech/apostates/democracy/Jews/the fact that Muslims are a pretty tiny minority in the UK" and so on, the more ardent he was in his defense of it. None of that mattered though, since his trump card was that the Islamic caliphate would be coming rather soon whether any of like it or not. I asked how he knew that, and he just winked at me and said "I know."

A rather creepy experience, but quite a lot of fun nonetheless. Hizb guys are weird, they have the most ****ed up, violent, racist world view, but every time I've talked to one of them, they've always seemed very nice, affable people. Weird.

Interesting enough, same people who fight so hard for the rights of women\gays\freedom of speech are the once who will open the door for his dreams to become a reality...and there is nothing weird about that.

lol

The topic is kinda dead but I do want to say four things.

1) While it is true that some of the troops put effort in not killing civilians,etc it does not in anyway mean that the USA goverment is not guilty, once you decide to attack Irak tens of thousands innocent dead is best case scenario, americans reelected a goverment that went to war for a fake reason and against United Nations will.

2) Saddam Hussein being a douchebag was not the reason they gave to invade Iraq and even then mortality increase 150% after USA invaded Iraq, even though Hussein was a very evil man Iraq was better off with him which shows how horrible USA invasion turned out to be.
You believe that USA seriously didnt expect the insurgents to fight back and react the way the did, which is why this discussion is going nowhere.

3) On the genocide thing USA is guilty on the charge of probable consequences of actions.

From the genocide convention:

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...on_of_Fallujah

From the guardian, article by George Monbiot( the link is also in the wiki article on fallujah invasion of usa):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/22/usa.iraq1

Btw when you read this post, there are two possible thought process.

A: What facts can I use to defend USA?
B: Lets review all the facts and then form the opinion.

You should use B but you are going to use A anyway so go ahead.

I swear that after I posted in this thread my opinion on USA has gotten worse, because since I tend to agree with your ( NIMN) posts I actually thought that I should investigate what actually went on and I find myself with the fallujah crimes.

4) My hate towards USA policy is from my dad, Im not sure Allende goverment was actually legit in the first place because he was elected after the congress elected him and he agreed to not do certain stuff with part of the congress to become elected but then went on and did that stuff anyway.

The Iraqi war and the battle of Fallujah do not fit any of these definitions.

I'm with you on the ******ed cultural relativist left which makes a common cause with these nutters, but nothing will open up the door to the nutters reality. It's impossible, both in the sense of being a completely incoherent, utopian delusion, as well as the lol Islam dominating Britain is not going to happen, no matter how hard George Galloway tries, side of it.

Will respond to the charges of being George W Bush's lapdog tomorrow, I'm off to bed.

It's not going to happen in our lifetimes, but it's a demography issue for the 22nd century. The rest of Europe is ahead in the queue however.

Don't let the facts stands on your way. Combined casualties from all the wars started by Hussein are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,5M people...or we don't count those?

What's the body count on wars started and/or funded by the US?

So your argument is that Hussein is just a bigger criminal than USA? We can debate whether USA is guilty under the genocide convention which I think it is because I believe that USA didnt make mistake after mistake they simply didnt care about the consequences of their acts, however that is my personal belief and I dont have concrete evidence for that( although its quite obvious if you look at the whole picture), however it is a fact that USA acted criminally, first of all invasion of iraq was against United nations will. And within an already illegal war they commited serious war crimes by using chemical weapons that affected civilians.
Lets save ourselves the white phosphorus debate, you are going to claim that the white fosforus isnt a chemical weapon and you are going to claim that USA didnt target it towards civilians.

That said it is a fact that mortality rates increased after USA invasion, in spite of all the war crimes Hussein made by the time it was 2002 things were relatively peaceful.

You can debate that the US has committed genocide in Iraq, but you would be very wrong. I get the impression that you don't really know what genocide is.

And why do you think things were "relatively peaceful" during that time?

A lot higher but at the same time US also had greater objectives. I understand that it is laughable to debate "higher moral ground" when it comes to body count but final objective of winning cold war was a worthy cause.


Things were relatively peacefully after Hussein Kuwait's debacle (it wasn't peacefully at all prior to that) and that was caused by US intervention and that was a reaction to his aggression. So you propose that great power would act reactively on an issue as an oppose to proactive action of illuminating further need to intervene? Sorry, this just not how the world works, like it or not. You can argue until you we blue in the face, if US or any other great powers have a moral right to act as a world policeman but this debate has been already settled by those who have power and on balance leads to approximately the same or lesser body count.

Correct argument would be if US action led to genocide but it would be like arguing that Entente actions in WW1 led to Armenian genocide. At the same time you can argue that Allies inaction and Munich accord led to Holocaust.

Define "act" as you're using it here, please.

Because, as I'm currently reading this, I disagree.

First of all the gulf war at least authorized by the UN, second ok lets suppose that war is legit, after the war is over and USA got its wish to calm down Iraq why the need to slaughter it again?

[ ] muslims are the violent ones
[x] Americans support illegal crimes within illegal wars.

The reasons why muslims are usually portrayed as violent is because americans are more careful with their speech but if you dig in stuff like this comes out.
My whole thesis is that saying that muslims are the violent ones is beyond laughable, that was my first post in this thread.


So now that we have acknoweledged that USA is a criminal state and that muslims are not really the violent side we can move on to genocide( next post).

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.


Intent: Intention is defined in R. v Mohan as "the decision to bring about a prohibited consequence".
The policy issue for those who administer the criminal justice system is that, when planning their actions, people may be aware of many probable and possible consequences. Obviously, all of these consequences could be prevented through the simple expedient either of ceasing the given activity or of taking action rather than refraining from action. So the decision to continue with the current plan means that all the foreseen consequences are to some extent intentional, i.e. within and not against the scope of each person's intention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_(criminal)


USA had the intent to kill, that is clear, now did they wanted to destroy part of the sunnis in Iraq? To me USA indiscriminate use of force in Fallujah implies the intent to destroy part of a the sunnis by killing them, also I think USA wants to destroy Iraq as a country to take control of the middle east, even 3rdcheckraise says its ok to do kill a lot of people for geopolitical reasons because if you dont kill them then they will probably die anyway.

edit: I dont know the exact definition of intention under united nations law.

Us didn't calm down Iraq , US intervene against Iraq's aggression against another country (smell the difference? or is it all the same?) So we should just wait till he attacks AGAIN and then intervene AGAIN??? As i said before, great powers have a prerogative of acting proactive and for every move that would have opposition on one side there would be plenty of supporters on the other.
Now about UN. I love how whiny bitches start appealing to UN action or inaction every time it suites them. Out of curiosity, how many wars have there EVER been sanctioned by UN ( 3-4???) and what is the purpose of UN? If you think that war is morally justifiable if it was sanctioned by UN...well..well..i am not sure i 'd ever shake your hand to say the least. Were any of India-Pakistan wars sanctioned\stopped by UN (hint it stopped a real genocide by one of the sides). Were any of Israel-Arab wars sanctioned\stopped (and another real genocide prevented)? How about Iran-Iraq? No again? How much of a success UN's actions were\is in Somalia, Durfur? What would UN do without NATO forces in Serbia? If organization carries no real power and no real responsibility how can anyone ever appeal to its legitimacy or it decisions. UN is a forum for discussion of different and sometimes important issues but when it comes to real actions UN is completely useless.

Just LOL...How far did you have to dig to find out? First page of CNN? And btw if you scream at anyone who wants to listen about your objectives of worldwide Sharia laws eventually people would hear you...and may not agree with you...


Take control of the country may be, but so far US proved that destruction of of Iraq as a country is not in their plans. How do you come up with that staff?


History has plenty of examples where killing some people would have saved 1000 times more people. Timely Entente intervention would have saved the world from Communism. Timely war against Nazi in 1935-37 would have prevented WW2 . Somewhat timely intervention by India prevented genocide against the Bengali population of East Pakistan.

You lack reading comprehension. I never spoke against the gulf war, you are moving goalposts. ( just in case Im not speaking for it either). Also I never said that United Nations allowing a war justifies it.
Also no need to make it personal, thinking united nations has a role to play in providing peace in the world does not make me a whiny bitch. If you think United Nations is worthless then why does USA belong there? USA should at least be consistent and say " we are not whiny bitches **** UN" right away not after UN says no to USA plans.

Before we discuss this any further, are you acknowledging that USA did want to destroy part of the sunnis in Iraq? Im making two different accusations here and you only responded to one of them.

Too bad you cant read the future, there is no evidence at all to show that more people were going to die had USA not bombed Iraq.


Lets start this conversation over: What is it exactly that you have against muslims?

Nothing against moslems or Islam at all!!!! I do have a lot of issues with political Islam and Islam fundamentalism.

No. The objectives were to remove Huseins regime from power. Most of the damage to sunnis were inflicted by Shea's and vise versa. Yes, US could be blamed for the violence that occurred after the invasion but also a parallel could be made to a removing cages in the zoo...technicly you just removed the cage, practically you responsible for woolf's left unsupervised and a lot of dead sheeps.

Thanks to Stalin who wanted to protect himself, mass murder for political reasons doesn't count as genocide. That's what happens when the UN is put together by commie spies like Alger Hiss.

This is absolutely true, thanks to Stalin america commiting genocide in Iraq is debatable instead of a fact.

there is a difference between direct intent and oblique intent, USA wanted to destroy part of the sunni population as a mean to make sure Hussein went down.


what is your problem with political islam and islam fundamentalism then?

Religious freaks should stay away from governing the state and should have no influence on judiciary system. Thats just short short short version of it.

Was Pinochet ever indicted for genocide against his own people?

I agree with this, well my whole point of attacking USA in the first place was showing that they are not that much better compared to violent, crazy muslims.
The world is ****ed up on both sides, americans are preety crazy as well, I dont know why they do it, but they are ****ed up too maybe its not by religion, but some other kinda thing they worship, maybe its their own country, money or power, its not sane either and AFAIK muslims have stayed the **** out of latinamerica except from a terrorist attack in Argentina.

Yes but by Spain under spanish law which includes politcal motives on their genocide law.