Cap'n Jack

I don't think Loren Pechtel invaded Iraq?

Gurdur

*sigh*
*yawn*
Go back and read Loren's post. He used the "we" in obvious referral to the USA.
I was replying to him in kind.

RawData

Honest answer? Yes. I'd shoot myself if I were there (but I have this thing about invading other countries, just say no). Too late now of course.

Heard some of the NPR stuff. Soldiers 'didn't have orders', so just stood by and watched. Bloody stupid, especially since military discussed the antiquities to be preserved with archeologists and knew what needed protection.
Appearently they didn't really loot the libraries, just burned them and ancient books.
:banghead:

RD

Answerer

Why not? Kill one to stop a thousand.

Gurdur

Yes.

Looting is widely seen as a wrong-doing, and therefore a contravention of feelings of "natural justice".

Therefore many Iraqis would not be all that upset.

Firing upon looters is an accepted part of crime-prevention-military-policing ---- and was instituted for a week or so in Darwin, Australia, following Huricane Tracy, and is understood by the great majority.

The USA is trying to have its cake and eat it too --- it wants the glory but not the work nor expense, and as a result we all have suffered grevious losses to our history of our world culture.

ALSO:
Allowing looting, as the USA has cynically done, promotes a complete breakdown of law-and-order.

How many rapes and personal thefts would you think have also been committed during this anarchic period ???

Zar

Oh, come on, people. This discussion is very polarized.

The museum staff there in Baghdad themselves said a few soldiers and a tank would have been a sufficient deterrent, but they didn't even get that, apparently.

I don't think you need to shoot people on sight, but be there armed and ready to capture them (like if they were enemy combatants, captured as war prisoners.) If there is a big crowd and it gets unruly, perhaps shooting (in the legs?) or tear-gassing (?) some looters running away with precious cargo in hand is the only way. If they are armed and dangerous, then by all means, shoot them dead. I'm not a crowd-control expert, so I don't know for sure, but again, the museum people seemed to think it wouldn't be all that difficult to pull off.

But first you have to be there and actually try to stop it, and that is what the U.S. seems not to have done.

Gurdur

heh, Zar, I know I'm beginning to sound like a real snob, but the USA could learn a lot from the Brit Gurkhas --- even the Gurkha's military band is trained in crowd/riot-control, for heaven's sakes.

Zar

Gurdur,

Naw, you don't sound like a snob. I just don't believe what Loren Pechtel says. He frequently resorts to very drastic measures to solve problems or to cover his positon, so I don't take him very seriously at all. This is why I was surprised people were jumping up to agree with him. Loren is laying some other rotten eggs, like saying that the U.S. doesn't have the manpower to guard a few precious sites like the museum. Uh-huh...

Gurdur

hmmm, well, thanks.
Well, I've said it all, and even I get tired of repeating.

1. The Geneva Convention specifies an occupying belligerent must provide for law-and-order
   
2. the reason why there are so few troops is Rumsfeld and his pet theories about mini forces --- futiley resisted by the Pentagon
   
3. USA admin don't give a shit about anything not representing immediate security and/or profit to them --- watch the White House demand the Europeans pay for reconstruction
   
4. Even though there were so few troops, they could have done something --- the Brits were far more proactive on this in Basra
   
5. It was all predictable, and as we now learn from the two Cultural advisors who resigned, it was all predicted well beforehand.
   
6. Therefore the USA admin is morally and practically guilty of enabling this tragedy.

Gurdur

Ah fuck it all, Zar, you and me should go out and do a fair few real (i.e. non-American) beers together sometime.