Futile Debate - but here a last ditch effort

Submitted by Michel C. Zala (Switzerland), Jan 3, 2011 at 12:20

Mr. Zala , the video that you are talking about is only true.

How do you know? That is, what a court of law or a miltary tribunal is for to judge. What you see is ripped completely out of context, like when the media takes on sentence of a speech out of context in order to support a predisposed ideology. What if: Exactly those seemingly so innocent people 30 minutes before blew up a mosque, killing dozens of innocent victims? What if the people had a few minutes before used a stinger to shoot down another helicopter? The point is, we DO N O T know the whole story. It may have been an atrocity or it may not have been. That is why the American Army has its own judicial arm to investigate and, if need be court martial. The abuses of Abu Ghraib were properly investigated and then the guilty were court martialed and draconically punished. Do you know of any such process in the Russian, Chinese or any muslim army? Please name one occasion, where army personell was later put in prison.

I guess the Islamic reaction would be muted if US govt. actually tells the world that all those marines responsible for the attack are either behind bars or court martialled for life. That would help in this particualr scenario.

You seem to forget that such procedures are already in place. When American soldiers commit abuses or murders, they are in fact court martialed. What do you hear about the Chinese and Russian Gulags? Just because the opposition silently disappears, while America's military is under civilian supervision and (media and government) scrutiny, we shall just focus on what is known?

We have seen in past American wars a tremendous amount of civilian casualties inflicted upon innocent civilians. Remember Wounded Knee massacre , remember Gen. Sherman's marches throughout the civil war , remember Philippines and American brutal colonization of that land (Mark twain condemned it in no uncertain terms and Mark Twain is probably the only good writer you Americans have produced ever ) , remember Dresden , remembr Hiroshima , remember Mai Lai massacre. All these past historical evidence proves that Americans are not different compared to any Imperial western armies like the Roman destruction of Carthage.

Every war is ugly nasty and accompanied by death. Comparisons of genozides and atrocities are futile. Considering now just the last 100 years, as before America as an entity was not really the nation we know today, I may point out that America was attacked. Before Dresden, there was Coventry, London, Paris, Pearl Harbour and millions of innocent deaths. Nobody shall be proud of Dresden, but Hitler had to be stopped - by all means. Speaking of Hiroshima, America had to make a choice between losing yet another 500000 soliers in an invasion of a still determined Japan ( after yet another war pushed upon her) or using the Atom Bomb to demoralize the Japanese People). Look up further down under "genozides" my list of atrocities committed during the 20ths century and see, how many people were killed by the Japanese. Lastly, the last time I looked, the Phillipines are an independent nation and not occupied by Americans. After liberating that nation from the Japanese, the Americans left, as there is at present no disputed occupied territory in the world. I ask again... name one nation liberated by the Chinese or the Russians. Name one example of a prospering democratic free nation, owing its freedom to a totalitarian regime.Now turnaround and do the same with regard to America. Dozens of nations owe their freedom to this one nation. If you deny this, you can't be helped.

But, Mr. Banerjeee.... we do not start wars, but beware, if it is waged upon us, we will defend ourselves and we will finish them.

Another incorrect statement. What civilian oversight and what code of honor you want to talk about here ? Has GW Bush , Dick Chenney or Don Rumsfeld (or for that matter those neo-con pundits like Richard Perle and Bill Kristol) has ever been brought to any kind of civilian trial in the USA ? What kind of code of ethics you talk about when Don Rumsfeld personally ordered innocent detainees to be tortured and put them to rendition ? Has any of the American military leadership been brought to trial for Hiroshima or the Wounded Knee massacre for that matter ? So please think twice before you come up with this kind of statements like "Civilian oversight" and "code of honor".

No code of conduct, no rules of engagement, no code of honor and even no civilian oversight is perfect. In any war there will be casualties, collateral damage and misconduct. My Lai, Abu Graib or even torture and rendition are being debated. Openly and freely. Military tribunals have been conducted. That alone proves my point, as such is not even discussed in countries such as Russia or China. The perversions of the Baath regime in Iraq were never openly discussed or debated, let alone judged in a court of law. Waterboarding terrorists is a hot topic in the USA, is being debated and opposed. Rendition is subject to an open debate. Show me similar dissent and debate in Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Iran?

To use your logic: America was hideously attacked at Pearl Harbor by a criminal regime, responsible for millions of innocent deaths throughout Asia and the Pacific. By selecting to not sacrifice yet another 500k soldiers in an invasiion of Japanese mainlands, but preferring to end the war with one strike, America committed a crime? Who was attacked again? Who was the victim? Do you seriously deny the victim the right of self defense?

America could have bombed Bagdad into the stone age, as the Russians did with Groszny. Cheap and dirty and brutally efficiently. The war could have been ended with not a single soldier on the ground by simply obliterating Iraq as a whole from the air and then demanding Saddam's unconditional capitulation.

Instead, they used expensive smart weapons to clinically take out military and infrastructure targets, then engage with ground troops and lose 10000 in the process. Why, do you think, did the Americans choose to fight such a "restricted" war, while no such limitations and rules of enagement ever existed in other armies? Why do you think is the Taliban in Afghanistan being fought by special forces, small contingents of light arms, supported by drones, taking out individual houses rather than simply obliterating entire towns and cities? The Taliban does not know such rules. No Geneva convention and any limitation. Prisoners are being beheaded or shot. Civilians are not considered. You talk about hippocrisy and double standards?

If the Americans are not "empire builders" then ask yourself why do you need to maintain World's biggest military as well as keep the largest number of military bases all over the World ?

Now that is easy: America is the last man standing in the struggle of freedom vs totalitarism, political or religious. Without the stability and protection it provides (without ever occupying any other nation), The Korean Peninsula would explode, The Russians would not stop with Georgia and the Chinese would unhamperedly expand again. Without America, Islamists would throw the world into utter chaos, as they prove it every day from Iran to PAK. Your own country would find itself in a war against such people. The middle east would be a war zone. Thank God does a majority of the people of the world still stand with us in this seemingly never ending struggle.

Sorry to say: We do not want the Khalifat on earth, we do not want communism or oppression and if you think that we will not defend a fundamentally superior system of values, morale and government by the people for the people, you are sadly mistaken.

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