JavaFox

Groups of people, including American and British citizens, have recently made their way to Iraq to function as "human shields" in an attempt to avert or postpone the upcoming war on Iraq. I don't know about British law, but under American law, as defined by our Constitution, this act should be considered treason.

Americans --myself included-- have no interest in silencing debate. I welcome protests. But these protests should remain on college campuses, town squares, and on television. Taking "debate" onto the battlefield by using yourself to shield the enemy is treasonous. Now, treason is a capital crime in America, but I don't believe these people should be killed, or even punished criminally on our shores. They should be tried and, if found guilty, expatriated.

It is shameful and foolish, and we should not stand for it.

raid517

Well really these guys are just protecting schools, hospitals, water treatment/sewage and other civilian institutions. They are genuinely concerned that these purely civilian facilities could be hit and are in their eyes doing everything they can to actively prevent this. So unless you think civilian institutions like this should be prime candidates for attack, I don't really see the harm in it. Considering that they are willing to place there lives at serious risk (something pretty much no one here is preparing to do) to stand up for something they believe in, I think it must take a lot of courage to do what they are doing. I mean its not like their strapping themselves to any of Saddam's missiles in order to protect them, as you appear to be suggesting. They are just fairly decent people who are showing a genuine concern for ordinary Iraqis - and who do not wish to see them suffer because of any war, or become pawns of the US and Iraq's respective governments. If anything, it will just give the US and UK some cause to think before they go bombing any schools. What is the big problem with that?

Q

ByteMe

Well, if they believe that strongly that they are willing to die for their belief.... we should let them.

JavaFox

Actually, you're mistaken. I think what you posted is a mischaracterization at best, and I won't let it stand. The groups, as reported by the UK's Guardian, are protecting identified military targets -- that is, "power stations, key bridges and roads." This isn't about "protecting schools" as you suggest. It is about obstructing our (US, UK, Australia) military campaign. It's NOT about protecting citizens; it's about undermining war plans.

edperks

If they feel that strongly about it why dont they change residency to IRAQ and stay the hell over their. What some people will do for publicity.

raid517

Well its news to me. It depends what you identify as a legitimate military target. Previous Guardian articles (which I generally read every day) painted them in a fairer light as protecting only key civilian installations. It depends if you view a power station as being of strategic importance or not. Most military bases/installations have their own unique energy supply in case of an event where power loss might be experienced. And it depends what roads and what bridges you are talking about and in what sense are they regarded of being of strategic importance? Having said that it is possible that these people could be misguided and might be persuaded that a certain road is of civilian interest only when it is not. But what they hey, they are still relatively harmless and good intentioned - and on the scale of the things, what they do or don't do isn't all that relevant.

The power station thing is in any case debatable, as the only people who will suffer are the schools, hospitals, emergency services and civilian institutions that you claim are not a target http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2783953.stm which is why this guy decided to go.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with them, but lots of peeps here said that if peace protestors had any balls they should go to Iraq and try to protest, which is what they did. And now they have done what you said they should do, you are calling them traitors.

Whether they are misguided or not (I think they are misguided because I think that ultimately they wont achieve anything) you can't deny that they have the courage of their convictions to do what they are doing. Which is far more than I have seen many people here being prepared to do. I would be the first to confess that its one thing sitting in front of a computer screen arguing the toss about international world politics, but quite another to go out and be prepared to risk your life for the principals you say you support. At least for these guys, politics is not a spectator sport.

Q

edperks

I spent some time over there during desert storm (Army) so making the statement "Which is far more than I have seen anyone here being prepared to do." Is incorect. There are probably more then a few of us here at driverheaven that were in the gulf war and are proud to say that we stood up for are country and our way of life.

raid517

Well welcome Sir, but I think you will find you are in the minority around these parts. At least like the above guys however you were ready to risk your neck for what you believed in. I find that admirable, no matter who is prepared to do it. (Unless of course they are raving mad brutal nazis or something). Just because their views are different from yours doesn't mean they lack courage.

Q

raid517

Ok, we do have one other soldier who quite regularly visits here, so out of respect and since you picked up on what was a relatively small point, I edited my post from 'anybody' to read 'many people'. Happy now? I think this is probably fairer and more accurate anyway. (And I did forget about Jeff too).

Q

edperks

I would have to agree, But there just seems something wrong to me with these people going over their and geting in the way, they have to realize that what they do will not have any impact on the boys on the hill in washington as far as stoping the outcome. once this ball was set in motion I dont see nothing stoping it.

raid517 you have good points and they make see the broader picture here, and I can also see you are fair and not discrimanting for someone beliefs. I was not trying to be trivial about the quote. It was just something that I though needed to be said. Well Its almost 1 in the morning here so Im going to turn in. Thanks for the talk.

raid517

In a sense what they are doing requires even more courage, because they are doing what they are doing purely out of personal conviction and not because anyone or a government has told them to - and they are prepared to die for their beliefs too. Personal conviction can lead people to act despite however immense the odds against them might be, since these people may often feel that if they did not act they wouldn't be able to live with their consciences - and might have to live with the fact that they did nothing if something terrible should go wrong. Does that mean that well intentioned people can't be manipulated? No of course not. But it doesn't make them any less well intentioned or any less courageous for doing what they do. There is a strong tradition of this in war were a small contingent of people act bravely in a way that many people see as futile and misguided. I believe a fair percentage (though not all) of those going are Quakers and other religious types, as well as diehard (literally) pacifists and the like. I don't think its fair or reasonable to call them traitors, no matter how misguided you think they may be. Misguided perhaps, traitors no. Mind you it will make people think twice before selecting sensitive targets, so if the US and UK want to avoid bad publicity by bombing a medical supplies factory or something, maybe some of what they do might have an impact. Who knows? Well meaning people always become pawns at times like this.

Q

Smoothdrive

There's at least one more gulf-veteran on this forum..forgot who it was but have spoken to him about that on this forum already.

The people in Iraq..well i think they are fools..there opinion is "we are against war" and that is about it..ask them why or how to resolve it otherwise and they'll just say "there has to be another way" or they'll start attacking the US and claiming US would be the aggressor..

Reminds me of those suicide cults..someone talked them into it and they are now blind for any onther opinion and refuse reasoning.

Funny thing..if the Americans participating are guilty of treason it'll be easy to execute them for that when they're standing next to a military target in Iraq

__________________
GA-7VRXP, AMD2000+, 256MB PC-2700 DDR, Radeon 8500LE, 2x Maxtor 740 (40GB) stripe set, AGNeovo X-150.

bluelight

Yes i dont kn ow what kind of organisation they are...but...since they let Saddam pay for their stay ..and let him take advantage of their stay ...yes they are not good.

Regular known peace organisations around here condemm their actions because of their way of uncritically letting Saddam use them.

The task they are trying to do...is impossible..because Saddam will use them for his own puproses.

You are right they should be manifetating at home.

BlueLight

bluelight

Guilty of treason....execution.....well shows the temperature with some...doesnt it.Thats why this should not be handled bu Usa but by the UN.

BlueLight

Smoothdrive

Ever heard of sarcasm Bluelight ?

__________________
GA-7VRXP, AMD2000+, 256MB PC-2700 DDR, Radeon 8500LE, 2x Maxtor 740 (40GB) stripe set, AGNeovo X-150.

ToshiroOC

Article in the LA Times today mentioned that a high level military US official said that because the HS people were cooperating to an extent with Iraqis, they were considered combatants and could be shot during any war, and while the US would try to avoid it, HS people would die. While under other circumstances I would think the HS to be very heroic, they are just being stupid here. If they had perhaps a million supporters, I would tell them that it is a great idea, but just scattering US lives around Iraq might make our soldiers hesitate to destroy large HS guarded targets, and cost American lives, which is utterly unacceptable..

__________________
[img][/img]
[color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color]
Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

bluelight

Well i am strting to get used to it.The arguments from those in favour of bombing Iraq has all the spectrum from fascistoid and racist claims that muslims as a whole should be eliminated to reasonable arguing that Saddam must be removed.

The sercasms are difficult to sort out from the bollocks so i alsways reply to them as if they were meant for real.

In my discussions i never "sarcastically" say things like Usa should be nuked or American soildiers ought to be killed at high speed...

These type of "sarcastic" (if they are ..sometimes i doubt it)argumentation is usually coming from those in favour of war.

And why?Well they get a kick of it...they actually like war and killing.Not saying you do but ...some do.Especially killing muslims.

Muslims have taken the place in the western world held by the Jews up until the end of WW 2.

Always gotta be someone to blame....and ..to kick around.

Nothing changes.


BlueLight

Smoothdrive

Human nature bluelight..mankind can not live in peace..they allways want to be better, stronger, smarter, richer than the next man..don't know why..must be instincts from the ice-age when man lived in tribes and fought the other tribes for ground, food, women...whatever.

The charm of humans should be inteligence overcoming these instincts..guess we're just not intelligent enough yet.

Childs and psychopats are in favour of war..no normal human would like to be where the bombs fall and the bullets fly...wars get started by people who do not have to fight themselves.

Muslims have many problems to sort out within their world-wide community..their religion needs to be modernised which is prevented by the powers that be in muslim countries..problem is the koran is regarded as the word of god in writing..no human has a right to change the word of god they say..can you imagine what would happen if others would take the words in the original bible (including the war stuff) like the radical muslims take the words in the koran ?

Keep the faith Bluelight..when hope is lost all is lost

__________________
GA-7VRXP, AMD2000+, 256MB PC-2700 DDR, Radeon 8500LE, 2x Maxtor 740 (40GB) stripe set, AGNeovo X-150.

bluelight

Id o keep the faith.Spwaking about the Koran....When our highest "priest"here in Swden claimed that one can as a christian look uopon the virgin birth as a poetic description instead of a literary truth...half the Swedish church went crazy....So believing in the book...is not something Muslims exclusivly do and in these instances we arew pretty radical as opposed to many other especiallyt catholic countries that take the bible as exact science.


You are absolutly right that the muslim world needs developing in many ways.They are today the population that when you consider their riches are the poorest.

There are others being more poor less educated etc etc..but none that have as much money (oil)in reality.

Some of this money that rightfully should go to education development etc etc...goes to their dictators and a great deal goes to us through our oil companys.

One reason that some of their dictators can remain in place is that we protect them (SaudiArabai etc..)

Yeah there is a lot to do...both for them...and us.


Bluey

JavaFox

You know, I never did challenge the courage of these people. Any fool can see that using yourself as a shield in a warzone is not cowardly. At any rate, Raid, I never called for protestors to "go protest in Iraq." Protests in America, online, on TV, and at school are welcomed by me. But when you go overseas to interfere with our military plans, you are aiding the enemy, and you are a traitor.

raid517

Well that depends if you are willing to define conscientious objectors and the likes as 'traitors' too. This is purely an extension of the same ideal. Do I think they are right? Well I think they may be right in what they believe they are trying to do, which is to prevent harm to the civilian population and civilian institutions. Do I think it is possible for well meaning people with good motives to be manipulated by less well meaning people with far more dubious motives? Of course I do! It even happens here in the West to people like me and you - its what our politicians do best. Only far too often we are too uniformed, or too busy, or just to lazy to notice it.

Perhaps you didn't say if they had any balls they should go to Iraq and protest, but it has been a fairly common conservative theme on these threads. So when they showed they had the balls to do it, they just get it in the neck for that too. Well I don't understand that...

There is a fair element of people attracted to this thread (perhaps due to the framing of the question?) that seem prepared to burn these people at the stake. But if you ask these people what their motives are, I'm sure you would gain a much clearer understanding of them. If religious or moral convictions compelled you to act in a certain way and would not allow you to rest until you had acted (as you appear to believe to be the case in Iraq) then I find it hard to understand how such deep seated moral conviction could be deemed as 'traitorous'. You could only really say that if you were unable to appreciate what it was like to hold a deep moral conviction concerning something that you cared about very deeply. Even if their good intentions are manipulated, you can't say that their motives were ever traitorous.

Its thinking like this that led officers during the first world war to shoot conscientious objectors and those suffering from 'shellshock', because the authorities found it much easier at the time to demonise all possible opposing forces, rather than admit there might be something faulty about their strategy and in their reasoning and justification behind what they were doing. Its traditionally best to create scapegoats before a war, so that you can always blame them if things go wrong.

Q

The_Neon_Cowboy

unfortunatly thats wre the good stuff gets hid ... in ... under ... or right next to.. civilian facilities to hide them or to make them very hard to get without killing tons of civilians. ex.... it like haveing a anti aircraft battery on top of a school!!!

__________________

raid517

Well whatever way you look at it, bombing a school, or a hospital, or a medical supplies factory, or a bomb shelter full of innocent women and children (which happened last time - and it was later proved there was no military installation nearby at all) is not altogether a good idea and should probably be avoided at all costs. Saying all of these places are covers for military installations is just another form of cover in case something goes wrong. It is an augment that was used on that previous occasion and was later proved to be utterly wrong. (Mind you, its interesting to see how propaganda can linger in the public consciousness for so long).

Q

JavaFox

You're obfuscating, Raid. HS is not their to protect schools or hospitals. You know as well as I that infrastructure is one of the first things that's taken out in a military conflict. And that bunker that the US destroyed in the first part of the Gulf War (after all, this war isn't really over yet) was reputed to contain none other than Saddam Hussein; that's why we attacked it.

raid517

Lol whether it was 'believed' that this target had a military use or not (although that particular piece of propaganda is very new to me, previously it was stated that it was just believed to be a military installation) it is nonetheless very clear that mistakes were made. Is it possible to avoid these mistakes? Yes! Is it wise to learn from such mistakes when the occur? Yes! Is it possible that increased awareness might help avoid such mistakes in the future? Of course it is!

In any case if this was the extent of allied intelligence at the time I think we have a lot to be worried about. I cannot for the life of me see why Saddam would be hiding out in a crumbling down town public bomb shelter in the middle of a war zone, when he has several highly luxurious nuclear bomb proof bunkers located at his various palaces around Iraq. That's not intelligence, that's just plumb dumb.

So are you saying that schools and hospitals and the like are legitimate military targets or not? I merely ask as it is clear that these are also, as you put it, part of the 'infrastructure'. I must confess I'm not at all clear what your arguing for. (Except that maybe these people set out with deliberately traitorous intentions, which is clearly not born out by any facts or reasoning I have seen here).

These people are a small (almost insignificant) part of a much wider picture. So what if a couple of them get erroneously persuaded that a bridge or road only has a civilian use, they are not experts - and their butts will still be blown to kingdom come anyway. But if it does persuade military planners to look twice at their information before attacking, then that is no huge fault either. It will just force our intelligence services to work harder to validate the quality of their intelligence. Will it stop important military targets from being struck? Hardly! But it will serve to highlight any mistakes that are made should anything go drastically wrong. And since you appear confident that nothing will go wrong and that only strictly military targets will be hit, no one has very much to worry about do they?

Anyway as usual some folks seem to have a very short memory. In 12 years it has moved from being a bomb shelter, to a command post, to now a downtown hideout for Saddam Hussein. How neat a trick is that!?!? Thankfully not everyone's memory spans only as far as the last news broadcast, or the last press release from the US Defence department. Does anyone remember Peter Arnett? Or the reports he made on CNN? http://media.guardian.co.uk/iraqandt...895384,00.html Simply by showing pictures of that bombed out shelter with all of the dead Iraq women and children, he was accused of working for the Iraq regime. It was almost as though the government of the day would have preferred that these events should simply be regarded as 'not existing'. What purpose that would have served I do not know.

Mind you if you guys ever do feel the need to blow up a bunch of well meaning Quakers, conscientious objectors and pacifists any time soon, you don't have to go to Iraq to do it, as there are plenty on your own door step you could deal with. The only problem there is, if you did do it at home, you might be accused of persecuting people for their beliefs.

In my view this is a fairly weak target to be picking on. Why don't you guys look for a tougher target to deal with? If you look at the past you will realise that essentially harmless people like this don't tend to make very good scapegoats anyway. If you want a good hate figure, why not just stick with bad old Saddam, or at least wait for a couple of months until your government tells you who to hate next?

Q

Frodo301

If they feel their cause is just then I'm sure they are/should be prepared to die. In any case Java is right, upon reentry into the United States they should be arrested and tried for treason although in the current state of opinion of the possible war I doubt that will happen.

bluelight

Arrested for treason...pathetic.....


The human shields are leaving Bagdad.Why??

Because Saddamstarted to direct them to targets they did not come to protect such as refinerys and water supplys and he also posted militray close to the "Human shields"

They were only there to protect hospitals and similar civilian stuff and...when Saddam started directing the thing in his advance they started to leave.

So far 50 of them has left.

BlueLight

raid517

Lol, it's just a good job none of you guys are in charge of anything is all. I wonder just how popular or civilised you would look if you ever did decide to fry - or lock up a bunch of Conscientious Objectors and Quakers? Not exactly a shining example of peace and freedom for the world to follow is it?

Q

JavaFox

I never said these people should be "fried" or "locked up" -- I said that they should be expatriated.

And when you actively participate in aiding the enemy, that isn't a "contentious objection"

bluelight

What are you talking about??

Do you see anyone here claiming to ne a "Human shield"?So far i havent seen anyone here claiming so....


BlueLight