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Wikileaks. Any comments?

NO. I explained cogently why it is impossible to defeat an enemy if your RoE prevents troops from engaging the enemy. To defeat you, the enemy only has to be intelligent enough to take advantage of your absurd RoE. An IQ of 65 would be sufficient. To do so, the enemy need only use unarmed persons as human shields. Because your RoE forbids firing on armed persons when unarmed persons are near.

"My" ROE's? I've only used those provided by BAC from the American military.

You seem to have an issue with the way our troops are trained.


And now that you're cornered like a rat, you want to change the subject.

Sorry Charlie. Your hatred of the mission is no excuse for wanting to see our armed forces defeated, just to feed your bloated ego.

I'd have to know what they'd need to do to win in order to understand how they can be defeated.

There is no way a bunch of scrub thugs and gangsters in Iraq or Afghanistan will be able to "defeat" our army in terms of inflicting serious damage.

If you read Patraeus' work on counterinsurgency, you would recognize that this isn't remotely the issue.


Not as counterproductive as providing the enemy impenetrable armor by the simple expedient of taking advantage of your absurd interpretation of the RoE. Just keep some unarmed people around the armed ones at all times, and fire at will. Doesn't get any simpler than that.

This is infantile. I simply quoted back to you the ROE's provided by the US military.


The use of force in that action was very closely monitored. Video of the entire incident was recorded. The pilots provided a detailed description of everything they saw and did.

So. Has Petraeus charged the pilots with a "war crime" yet? Like you would?

Patraeus defends his troops. He's actually backed off of his own counterinsurgency philosophies and is, for example, bringing tanks and other heavy artillery into Afghanistan.

But you're making a silly argument to try and avoid dealing with the content of his words. You are just wrong based on the US Military's explanation of how to battle a counterinsurgency.

BTW: dead people don't recruit.

Yes, martyrdom has proven to be useless throughout history.

That might be the dumbest thing you've said yet.

If our troops can win without even firing on the enemy, they must be supermen. Are you saying our troops are supermen? Or maybe they're just very persuasive talkers. Because the insurgents could have easily prevented the troops from ever firing on them, if your interpretation of the RoE is correct.

I see a lot about "winning." WHat do you think that means. Do you agree or disagree with Petraeus on that score?


Hitler made a lot of mistakes, but nothing nearly as stupid as the mistake you would admittedly make. Hitler at least gave his troops a chance.

Haha, that's an amazing non sequitor.

And I would consider withdrawal from Iraq to be significantly less of a mistake than the Holocaust. You clearly disagree. That's interesting.



Changing the subject again. It's OK to impose impossible constraints on the troops because you don't think we should be there. Is that your position?

Know where you can stick your position? Know where the troops are going to stick your position?

Childish strawman. The ROE's are from the military. THEY made them. Clearly they don't impose impossible constraints, unless you're arguing that the military is trying to lose.


Right. As long as some terrorist, somewhere, tries to do something, it's all a failure, and we are defeated.

No, it's a reality of life. In a free society, there will always be danger. Dropping bombs in caves can't change that.

I'm not a coward. I move on with my life knowing that risk.

Dream on. Trouble is, with the chicken pen full of cluckers like you, you're not that far wrong. Chickens are easy pickins. I'm thinking me, five teenage girls, and your RoE could do the job. There's you some hyperbole you can latch on to. Pity is, it's not that hyperbolic. Your RoE really is that absurd.

Ah yes, the people terrified of bearded men in caves thousands of miles away are the brave ones. THis is an Orwellian understanding of cowardice.


You're just yammering desperately, trying every trick you can think of to make it look like you're winning an argument which, if won, loses a war. As I've cogently explained several times now.

Except for the part where you haven't even explained what it would mean to win.

You can't beat em if you can't shoot em, genius. And if your interpretation of the RoE is in effect, you can't shoot em. But they can shoot you. Because some of them will have weapons. But you won't be able to shoot the ones who have weapons because there will always be some who don't have weapons. So you won't be able to shoot at any insurgents at all, because the jack-leg lawyers will get you if you do that.

Again, your view is directly at odds with General Petreaus. WHy do you hate our military leaders?

Once again, I feel congratulations are in order. You have succeeded in devising a foolproof strategy for losing a war. Which seems to be all the rage these days among the lefto-chickens.

Yeah, my foolproof strategy for not losing stupid wars is to not fight stupid wars.
 
Ah yes, the people terrified of bearded men in caves thousands of miles away are the brave ones. THis is an Orwellian understanding of cowardice.

Nitpick: I'm pretty sure most Iraqi insurgents don't live in caves. Not all of them have beards either.
 
LIAR. But do keep digging. It's your credibility. :D



LIAR. But do keep digging. :popcorn1

Haha. I've been using the ROE's from your links.


See, Toontown, I told you your logic would simply pass right over TW's head. But thanks for trying to chase the chickens anyway. ;)

Oh god.

So because it's possible that an insurgent would hide among the population, not only do we have the right to kill anyone that looks like they're holding something that looks like a weapon, we can now kill anyone near anyone holding something that looks like a weapon.

This is directly contradicted by the ROE's that you provided.

It's amazing how directly you're contradicting the words of General Petraeus. Why do you think our military leaders are idiots?
 
Nitpick: I'm pretty sure most Iraqi insurgents don't live in caves. Not all of them have beards either.

We're leaving Iraq. I was referring to Afghanistan and the terrorists located there, who aren't really located there, but we have to stay in case they come back.

It was sarcasm.
 
Did you read the links? There are 5 specific drug gangsters he let go after we hunted down and arrested them, and there was a great deal of evidence about how Karzai was covering up for his drug dealing brother.

The latter was suspected, but the former was new. It's hard evidence that Karzai is undermining our attempts to establish security.
None of this is new! Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade, from October 2008, over 2 years ago.

Haha. You couldn't connect the dots? Get the hell out of there.

The details can be negotiated, but we've been there a decade and failed miserably. There's no point wasting more lives and money.
This doesn't even come close to answering the question: What should wee do about Karzai?

I appreciated Bolton's candor. His problem was that he was literally wrong around 90% of the time.

THe reason "dems" objected to his appointment is that he was so bold about wishing to bring an end to the United Nations. You may have noticed Ahmadinejad's difficulty in dealing with Israel after calling for its destruction. Same principle.
And yet you want complete transparency in diplomatic strategy? Doesn't this just make everyone have the same problems as Israel-Iran?

Do you think the military and government should be able to lie about war? Present false information to the public to win support?
I don't recall anything of the sort revealed by wikileaks. Got a link?
 
Normally, in "traditional" war, you're right; even enemy soldiers recovering bodies of their fallen comrades is a questionable target. However, in the context of counter-insurgency warfare, where bodies are vital pieces of evidence to exploit to further advance the war against the enemy, and where bodies are routinely exploited by the enemy as weapons (booby-trapped, etc), an enemy force attempting to retrieve dead (or wounded) comrades is indeed a legitimate target.

Because...?

Now, again, these weren't enemy, and it wasn't legitimate, but if you accept that the initial shooting is debatable, you have to accept the second as well, because the second leads directly from the misidentification that led to the first.

No, because the second shooting wasn't based on seeing weapons.
 
None of this is new! Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade, from October 2008, over 2 years ago.

The confirmation of suspicious, the addition of detail and specific events, as well as the revelation that we knew this was going on before it became public are all news.

It's funny, but I had an extended argument with an ex-military fellow about Afghanistan 3 or 4 years ago. I told him that Karzai and his brother were corrupt and engaged in the drug trade. He ASSURED me that based on his knowledge as a veteran, these were just conspiracy theories.

Now "everyone" knew them all along.

And I notice you just completely ignored the people Karzai released.

This doesn't even come close to answering the question: What should wee do about Karzai?

That's because you didn't ask me that question.

We've spent 9 years funding Karzai and paying for the training and equipping of his military. The Taliban does not have the richest, most powerful nation in the world supporting them.

Karzai has an army, it's time for the Afghanis to control their own destiny. We can continue to provide aid and support, but we need to leave.

What happens to Karzai happens to Karzai, just like leaders in every other country on Earth.

And yet you want complete transparency in diplomatic strategy? Doesn't this just make everyone have the same problems as Israel-Iran?

Only the places that have declared they want to wipe other places off the face of the Earth.

I don't recall anything of the sort revealed by wikileaks. Got a link?

We were very clearly lied to in the run up to Iraq. The Wikileaks show that the administration knew Iraq was going to **** around 2005 and were lying about it on a regular basis:

During visits to Baghdad's morgue over the next two days, I saw Sunni families thronging to find the bodies of loved ones killed by the militias. The morgue's computer registrar told the grim-faced families and me that we would have to be patient; the morgue had taken in more than 1,000 bodies since the Samarra bombing, and was way behind on processing corpses.
Here's the thing, though: According to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commanders, it never happened. These killings, these dead, did not exist. According to them, reporters like myself were lying.
"The country is not awash in sectarian violence,'' the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey said, on talk show after talk show, making the rounds to tell the American home-front not to worry. Civil war? "I don't see it happening, certainly anytime in the near term,” he said, as he denied the surge in sectarian violence.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-...s-rumsfeld-and-casey-lied-about-the-iraq-war/
 
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The confirmation of suspicious, the addition of detail and specific events, as well as the revelation that we knew this was going on before it became public are all news.

And I notice you just completely ignored the people Karzai released.
What additional detail? Did you read the story?

That's because you didn't ask me that question.
Yes, I did:
What exactly do want to do about this? Depose him for a puppet? Pull out of Afghanistan and allow it to be a haven for al Qaeda once again?
Bold emphasis added.

Only the places that have declared they want to wipe other places off the face of the Earth.
So you're an "axis of evil" kind of guy?
 
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Originally Posted by TraneWreck
"My" ROE's? I've only used those provided by BAC from the American military.

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
LIAR. But do keep digging. It's your credibility.

I've been using the ROE's from your links.

LOL! You really are divorced from reality, aren't you? You can't even get straight what is happening on this thread. All you used were EXAMPLES POSED BY PBS that make only partial use of the military's ROEs. Not the ROEs themselves. In situations that are apples and oranges versus what happened in Assange's video.

But you keep on digging, TW.

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Lying-Sure-Way-Dave-Craig/book/1597210013/

Lying: A Sure Way to Destroy Your Credibility (Therapeutic Cartoons for Kids Series)


:popcorn1
 
July 27, 2008: Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?
A lot of intelligence -- much of it unclassified and possible to discuss here -- indicated that senior Afghan officials were deeply involved in the narcotics trade. Narco-traffickers were buying off hundreds of police chiefs, judges and other officials. Narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government. The attorney general, Abdul Jabbar Sabit, a fiery Pashtun who had begun a self-described ''jihad against corruption,'' told me and other American officials that he had a list of more than 20 senior Afghan officials who were deeply corrupt -- some tied to the narcotics trade. He added that President Karzai -- also a Pashtun -- had directed him, for political reasons, not to prosecute any of these people.
 
No, because the second shooting wasn't based on seeing weapons.

FALSE. As pointed out in post #232, the pilot can be heard saying "So there's at least six individuals in that building with weapons." Furthermore, if you listen at 32:25 of the full video (here http://www.collateralmurder.com/ ) you can hear the pilot being given this order: "Crazyhorse One-Eight; this is Bushmaster Six Romeo. If you've PID'ed (BAC - Positively Identified) the individuals in the building with weapons, go ahead and engage the building over."
 
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What additional detail? Did you read the story?

Uh, yes, did you?

You're linking articles about general corruption in Afghanistan. There are two important revelations from the cable leaks that we didn't know before, most importantly is the nature of Karzai's activities:

The author of the cable also wrote that Karzai "appears not to understand the level of our knowledge of his activities, and that the coalition views many of his activities as malign, particularly relating to his influence over the police."
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/11/30/wikileaks.karzai.brother/

Now, if the US officials writing that cable are telling one another that Karzai doesn't know we're on to him, then obviously his behavior isn't common knowledge.

And once again, you've completely ignored the routine pardons of drug dealers and other criminals.

Yes, I did:

Bold emphasis added.

Well, my apoligies, then, I'm getting different posts confused. I thought you asked this:

"The question was what do you think we should do, not what we shouldn't do."

I see the post you're referring to now, my bad.

So you're an "axis of evil" kind of guy?

Haha, no. I just think Iran isn't all that great at diplomacy. Do you disagree?
 
LOL! You really are divorced from reality, aren't you? You can't even get straight what is happening on this thread. All you used were EXAMPLES POSED BY PBS that make only partial use of the military's ROEs. Not the ROEs themselves. In situations that are apples and oranges versus what happened in Assange's video.

But you keep on digging, TW.

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Lying-Sure-Way-Dave-Craig/book/1597210013/


:popcorn1

The exponentially increasing irony and unintentional comedy of your posts is stunning.

I used the ROE's you offered, dealt with the questions you smugly challenged me with in detail, and have only moved forward by analyzing the meaning of the specific words contained in the ROE's you provided.
 
There is no way in hell stealing these documents makes one a "whistleblower". You're not a whistleblower for stealing confidential diplomatic documents just because you disgree with policy.
I'm trying to square your comments about Ellsberg being a criminal and you've made a more confusing comment rather than clarifying what you meant earlier.
 
Please give one single plausible scenario as to how this could happen. Try to do it without going into prisonplanet-land.
Are you really oblivious to the Extraordinary Rendition controversy?

Khalid El-MasriWP ring any bells?

Maher ArarWP ring any bells?

Seriously WildCat, do you just ignore any facts which are inconsistent with your imaginary world? This is not a Prison Planet fantasy by any stretch.
 
I'm trying to square your comments about Ellsberg being a criminal and you've made a more confusing comment rather than clarifying what you meant earlier.
Wasn't this where you were going to explain how Manning is a whistleblower?
 
Are you really oblivious to the Extraordinary Rendition controversy?

Khalid El-MasriWP ring any bells?

Maher ArarWP ring any bells?

Seriously WildCat, do you just ignore any facts which are inconsistent with your imaginary world? This is not a Prison Planet fantasy by any stretch.
It sure sounds like a prisonplanet fantasy to me.

Go ahead, let's see your scenario whereby Assange is the subject of extraordinary rendition. I bet there's no way you can provide such a scenario without it sounding like a bad article from prisonplanet.
 
You can't be serious... here's a list of news stories as long as your arm about Karzai's corruption: http://query.nytimes.com/search/que...2=10&day2=04&year2=2010&submit.x=0&submit.y=0

All of them preceding this latest wikileaks.
Then the Wikileaks shouldn't have warranted any Karzai corruption headlines I guess. Wonder why the media didn't notice? :rolleyes:


What does this have to do with diplomacy?

Do you think we should solve the Karzai problem bt deposing him? Calling him bad names in public? Say he's part of the "axis of evil"?

What alternatives to diplomacy do you have in mind?
You said,
WC said:
TraneWreck said:
Should the military be allowed to lie to us about this?
Can you give an example of one of these lies?
and I answered with examples of the US government lying to the public about incidents in the wars we are in.

However, I see that TW was talking about the military lying about Karzai, and my post was about the military lying to the US public in general. But if they'd lie about friendly fire, why wouldn't they lie about everything that is convenient for the military to lie about?
 
Then the Wikileaks shouldn't have warranted any Karzai corruption headlines I guess. Wonder why the media didn't notice? :rolleyes:
What are you talking about? I posted a long list of articles about Karzai's corruption, going back years. Including how he protects the drug trade. And if you noticed, the "big story" is wikileaks, not Karzai's well known corruption.

You said, and I answered with examples of the US government lying to the public about incidents in the wars we are in.

However, I see that TW was talking about the military lying about Karzai, and my post was about the military lying to the US public in general. But if they'd lie about friendly fire, why wouldn't they lie about everything that is convenient for the military to lie about?
We're talking about diplomacy.

Do you acknowledge that in diplomacy you have to be diplomatic? Do you have an alternative to diplomacy since it bothers you so?
 

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