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How can we possibly stop the latest wave of Iraqi looters.....

post #1 of 10
4/23/03 at 5:45pm
Thread Starter 
...when we ARE the latest wave of Iraqi looters?

<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/904187.asp?0cv=CA01" target="_blank">http://www.msnbc.com/news/904187.asp?0cv=CA01</a>
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post #2 of 10
4/23/03 at 5:46pm
Quote:
mikah912:
...when we ARE the latest wave of Iraqi looters?

<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/904187.asp?0cv=CA01" target="_blank">http://www.msnbc.com/news/904187.asp?0cv=CA01</a>
Mikah, we are NOT looters!!

We are, "liberators"!!

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post #3 of 10
4/23/03 at 5:50pm
Fox News: We don't just report the news, we steal it!
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post #4 of 10
4/23/03 at 5:52pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Papa Trouter:
I see, the actions of a few taint the whole.

You will notice that the items were seized, and the thieves are being brought before a Federal magistrate.

My great grandfather has quite a few 'souvenirs' from Japan, and my uncle has a number of Officers belt buckles and such from Vietnam. The US could just be turning a blind eye to this.

~J
The thread title is an ironic joke. Of course, we're trying to stop the looting now. To fail to do so is a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention.
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post #5 of 10
4/23/03 at 5:58pm
Trouter brings up an excellent point.

I have from my Grandfather, a WWII German officers sword, and side arm. According to my Grandfather, these were readily available, and the individual that he acquired his from, "no longer needed it." (His words)

This is just a clamp down on this behavior, and I'm glad. We have not YET gotten a terribly bloody nose over this thing, and they are trying thier best to make sure that doesn't happen.

Still, "liberating" a country DOES NOT give you the right to plunder it. Go there, free the people, and get out. (And yes, I'm a former soldier).
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post #6 of 10
4/23/03 at 7:43pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Papa Trouter:
The rioting was strongest within the first few days after the fall, a time when our troop strength was at it's weakest. We did position troops at the hospitals and such near immediately after they were looted, we didn't have the strength to patrol the whole city until more units moved in.

Sometimes, high-handed words and 'doing the right thing' has to be put aside temporarily in the light of reality and sheer, cold, numbers. How many thousands went on a rampage after they figured they were free of Saddam? No one could give an answer to that, but I can tell you it was more then the US Military could have handled in the few days after we drove our tanks in.

It takes major numbers to hold back looting and pillaging in a non-violent way, unless you are advocating the use of deadly force to stop such activity ? That is about the only way the Marines could have stopped what was going on the first few days. A few hundred innocents falling to US Military rifles would certainly have stopped the looting quick, but it also would have turned us into murders and would have opened hunting season on all Coalition troops.

MP's and such are patrolling in strength now.

~J
Of course, we couldn't guard the entire country.

But we had the oil wells locked down, while hospitals were fair game.

Now because of those supplies having been looted - along with food and water, Iraqi children don't have the means or nourishment to avoid the diseases and infection running rampant and making them ADDITIONAL (and unneccesary) civilian casualties of this conflict.

<a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030423/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_children_030423170007" target="_blank">http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030423/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_children_030423170007</a>

The sad thing is that even at reduced strength, we had the personnel to at least guard the infrastructure, but we didn't even TRY (Well, except for the Oil Ministry building, which was the only government building not targeted in the bombing and the one guarded after the looting began). Scores of divisions held back at their own discretion merely content to sit and watch this happen, and now MORE people are dying from it.
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post #7 of 10
4/23/03 at 7:55pm
Quote:
mikah912
Now because of those supplies having been looted - along with food and water, Iraqi children don't have the means or nourishment to avoid the diseases and infection running rampant and making them ADDITIONAL (and unneccesary) civilian casualties of this conflict.
Mikah, your assuming that before this happened, they did have those supplies? Bold assumption my friend.

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post #8 of 10
4/23/03 at 8:00pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Grifter:
Mikah, your assuming that before this happened, they did have those supplies? Bold assumption my friend.
WHAT?!?!

I'm "assuming" that a fully functional hospital had medicine or that markets that were looted had food?

You're joking, right? These aren't Hollywood sets. This WAS a real functional society and infrastructure. But since being bombed into nothingness, they're reliant on aid from foreign humanitarian groups even if they still had the money to pay for food and medical care.

That is both the fault of:

A) The looters
B) The United States for not stopping them. The damage has been done, and people - children - are dying as a result of our indifference.

It's all in that article above, which has testimony from both Iraqis AND independent foreign observers.
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post #9 of 10
4/23/03 at 8:36pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Papa Trouter:
Lets not be stupid.

The troops guarding the oil wells still would have had to hop onto a bus and have a day's trip to the city of Baghdad, and the US wouldnt have just left an area like that empty, even if they did decide to break up Unit integraty and send the few squads guarding the wells into the city.

Am I the only one remembering the two years it took to put out all the fires in Kuwait ?

~J
We had troops to guard the wells AND the civilian infrastructure. They had no problems firing on Iraqi civilians when they got angry about us pointlessly raising a US flag. They had no problems guarding every iota of the oil industry, including restricting their efforts to protect previous government installations to ONE building - the Ministry of Oil. These were things critical to US.

SO why, then was it so impossible to mobilize some of the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of troops deployed over there to keep places critical to Iraqi civilians.

There's no excuse. It wasn't like we couldn't. Commanders SAT BACK while Rumsfeld said the following:

"...free people are
free to make mistakes and commit crimes," as all of this happened.

And now it comes out today that some of those same servicemen are trying to smuggle these archeological items out of Iraq.

Disgusting.
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post #10 of 10
4/23/03 at 8:40pm
Well, then, let's not be silly. If the aim of our "brilliantly executed" invasion had been at all humanitarian, we would've had a plan in place to secure these hospitals, but it wasn't. It was the getting there that mattered. So, while our troops gloried in their hard-fought victory, the Iraqi people, once again, suffered.

(Edited to clarify that this was in response to Papa Boner, and not Micah.)

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