All Bets Are Off in Iraq....AGAIN! Torture is in for Keeps....

The photos of Iraqis being tortured at Abu Ghraib should have sent a message to the maniacs in the WH who are conducting this war as if were a video game. It is not. The two GI's who were killed so horridly this week should not come as a surprise. It was bound to happen.

To date, only one other American soldier has been taken hostage, and we hear nothing about him. The latest tactic by the insurgency should be no surprise to us. Until now, hostages have been journalists, private contractors and others working with or for the US occupation team. It took a while to get to this point, but the moment the US waged this illegal war, the rules were all dumped. And once our use of torture and our dismissal of Geneva Convention treatment was in the open, this action against our troops was inevitable.

The corporate media will demand blood. How dare anyone torture or behead Americans? Hell, we may - they may not. Don't they understand that? After all, we're the good guys and they're the 'bad guys.' The 'bad guys' term has been standard far from the Pentagon and the WH. In the old movies, the bad guy always got his due punishment in the end. That's the illusion this administration has created in the minds of the public. We may, they may not....because God is on our side.

That, buy the way was inscribed in the belt buckles of the Wehrmacht troops during WWII. GOTT MIT UNS. God is with us. I suppose that's all anyone needs to justify death and destruction. Put God on your team. Hallelujah.

Still, this is old stuff. No one is screaming that the bulk of the torture photos and DVD's have been held by Rummy despite a court order to release them. Geez, let bygones be bygones. Yeah, right.

But some people understood what was to follow. And now, it's going to be standard fare when ever an American soldier is caught unaware. Our poor kids are going to pay the price for the sins of their leaders.

Please read this....it was published when the photos first were released and few people understood the real consequences. Time is not an object when vengeance is a cultural obligation. When will it end?

ALL BETS ARE OFF is a must read for anyone who really wants to understand why we cannot throw up our hands in mock horror at what has happened to our sacrificial lambs...the troops who were just killed and those who will die after them:

http://tvnewslies.org/html/iraq_-_all_bets_are_off.html

it was always my understanding that at least part of the rationale for the Geneva Conventions was that establishing some sort of rules of conduct for warfare would hopefully offer some degree of protection to soldiers of every nation involved in a conflict. In other words, we won't treat your soldiers barbarically if you don't treat ours barbarically. Could even BushCo have been stupid enough to have missed this? My guess is that it was not stupidity but arrogance on their part. In point of fact, the BushCo chickenhawks really don't give a damn. It's not their asses on the line. All they care about is oil profit. Whatever puts money in their bank accounts is acceptable including the sacrifice to a horrible death of brave but unwitting soldiers. Those who believe the end justifies the means will spend the rapture's eternity in hell.

As soon as Gonzo started referring to the Geneva conventions as "quaint", I knew our servicemen were going to pay a steep price for BUSHCO's OUTRIGHT BARBARISM.

Remember WW2's Japan Bataan marches that killed American POW's? Remember the sense of outrage you had when you learned of this, when ever it was in your lifetime? Remember thinking of those Japanese soldiers as SAVAGES?

Gonzo and GWB knew the consequences of violating the Geneva Conventions, and THEY KNEW THE ENLISTED SERVICEMEN WERE THE ONES THAT WOULD EVENTUALLY PAY THE PRICE!!!

they're just expendable pawns, anyway.

WAY TO SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BUSHCO! Real FUCKING PATRIOTIC!

-85% Jimmy

Ok, ok, I know we hate Gonzales. But everytime I see the "quaint" quote dragged up out of context, I wonder if it is being purposely misused or if people just don't know what Gonzales really said?

renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, script (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments.

That's it, the whole quaint quote. The geneva convention says that captured enemy get to have a place to shop, money, sports cloths, and barometers. Gonzales thinks that is quaint, and in fact, so do I.

Just a pet peeve, I'm sorry, I'll piss off now.

They apply if you sign them; the actions of the enemy are irrelevant. The conduct agreed to by signing them isn't contingent on anybody else's conduct, but on the terms as agreed upon in the text of the conventions. Period. They are understood as a treaty incumbent upon the signatory, with reference to nothing that's not defined or referred to in the treaty.

Bombing a mosque might be licit conduct. It might not be. Check the definitions for applicability. Killing a civilian might be ok, as well; check the definitions and circumstances.

The Iraqis have not signed them. They agreed to no pre-set code of conduct, and the Geneva Conventions simply do not apply to them in any way, shape, or form.

The best you can do is to try to make a general argument that the code of conduct ought to be universal, and that therefore they should be bound by it. But the counter argument is trivial: The code of warfare that resulted in the Geneva Conventions is based upon a standard that resulted from ethics and values affirmed in the European Enlightenment as applied to the kind of warfare that European nations engaged in, and expresses a particular kind of morality, one that may well not be held by others with a different tradition.

Discussion of the Geneva Conventions in the context of Abu Ghraib is worthwhile, but there are plausible disputes that nobody is able to give an authoritative answer to because there is no adjudicating authority for such questions. Discussion of the Geneva Conventions in the context of what the Iraqis do is a waste of time, an irrelevancy.

It did occur to me that the Iraqis, not being signatories, were not bound by these standards. I am, however, inclined to disagree that discussion or at least consideration of the Geneva Conventions is "a waste of time, an irrelevancy" in the context of the Iraqis, or for that matter, any other nation with which a signatory might come into conflict. I do agree that non-signatories are not legally bound. The United States is, however, a signatory (or at least I believe that is so), and when a signatory turns its back on the Geneva Conventions and subsequently engages in the kinds of abuse that the U.S. has aggressively perpetrated during this conflict, then I think it is to be expected that our enemies will pull out all the stops. True, they may have done so anyway, and if they had we could not have held the Geneva Conventions over their heads. Nevertheless, I personally feel it is incumbent upon democratic nations to be as moral as the policies they profess and thus to behave, in as much as it is possible to do so in time of war, in a civilized manner. To do otherwise only invites barbarism. Our enemies may not be signatories to certain of our international agreements, but they are people nevertheless with lives and families and cultures of their own. If we behave as barbarians toward them, we ought not be surprised if they react accordingly. How can we spread democracy if we don't live it?

And all the frothing outrage over this wholly predictable chain of events will completely miss the point that we come to this table with unclean hands. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me a bit to hear of some of the less intelligent folks in the Reactionary and Repressive Right who think that by foreseeing this inevitable atrocity, they will try to attach some culpability to us, rather than recognize this as the natural consequences of their own misdeeds.

My family here in the USA does not. How long until the Iraqis decide to fight us over here so they don't have to fight us over there? That is my concern.

Don