BS: 'Collateral Damage'

Subject: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Lanfranc
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 07:15 PM

It's happening again!

I have a personal interest, because,in WWII, my father fought in Norway, Greece, Crete and North Africa in some of the bitterest battles of that war, and was only wounded once, by a badly aimed bomb dropped by an American aircraft on the slopes of Monte Cassino.

Now today we hear that (a) a British Tornado fighter bomber has been brought down and its crew killed by a US Patriot missile (b) a respected and "careful" UK ITV News Reporter has been killed by fire from US troops (c) US bombs have fallen in Iran and Turkey.

I'm sorry, but it is sod all use having "smart" weapons if they are deployed stupidly, and it is not only the President of the US whose judgement and knowledge of geography is suspect. Are we supposed to believe it when we are told that only Iraqi government and military sites are being targeted?

"We have all come to fear the beating of your drum"

Alan

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: artbrooks
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 10:02 PM

Alan, from one who has been there, the expression is "Friendly fire...isn't." The only thing that can be said in explaination is that people in combat get hypersensitive, and shoot first and then ask questions. That isn't an excuse, because there is no excuse for accidently killing somebody, but it is a reason. Every death in this stupid war is a tragedy, accidental or not, regardless of what side it is on.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: DougR
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 02:19 AM

Alan: and it may happen again. Things like that happen in a war. Too bad, but that's the way it is.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Hrothgar
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 02:23 AM

The best way to keep the troops safe is to bring them home.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 03:11 AM

"Too bad, that's the way it is"!!!??? Boy, Doug, is that what you would say to the families of those killed? You're all heart, aren't you?

Alan, I find myself saying "it sucks" a lot these days. Words cannot express the despair and outrage I feel over this war. I cannot believe how inept and insane the whole thing seems to be and can only say how very sorry I am about anyone who loses their lives, but esp. those who are murdered by those they should be able to trust.

With allies like U.S. who needs enemies?

In sorrow,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 03:17 AM

British troops should NEVER have been there. Neither should the US troops. This Invasion has NOT been sanctioned by the United Nations - the ONLY organisation in the World which has ANY authority to order troops from one country to send soldiers into another sovereign state - no matter how odious the regime.
Once Bush has finished decimating Iraq, whose country will be next? Didn't Hitler invade Poland for its own good?
Sorry, but I am pissed off with the lies used to justify this war. I am with Michael Moore, See Mudcat Thread "Thank you, Thank you, Michael Moore!".
The United Nations was taking positive action to ensure that Saddam Hussein would never be a threat to anyone outside his borders. But Bush wanted an Easy Target to show off how big a thug HE is. He invaded in March becaust it gets too hot out there later in the Summer. The weapons inspectors were making a lot of demonstrable progress, but NO if Bush didn't have his invasion NOW, then it might not be as easy a target. Actually, it seems to be a more stubborn target than he anticipated. Perhaps that will prove to some of his supporters that he is just a bloody incompetent and should be removed from control of anything sharper than a wax crayon.
Geoff!

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 03:21 AM

Tell me something, Doug. Let's say that I'm your grandchild's doctor. I'm treating him for an illness, and as a result of a number of circumstances, including some carelessness and stupidity on my part, he dies. You come to me, asking "What happened?" And I say, "You know, Doug, things like that happen in medicine. Too bad, but that's the way it is." And your response is....?

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 03:48 AM

To quote Wellington:
"I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me. "

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Troll
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 05:05 AM

People get killed in war. People get killed in peacetime. To say that that's the way it is is not callous, it's realistic. Any of us could die at any time in a car accident or in our kitchen. We could fall down a flight of stairs.
Any time you have a combat situation, there exists the possibility of errors that cost lives. A battlefield is not a calm and orderly place. Reactions are at a heightened pitch and accidents sometimes happen. It's a miracle that they don't happen more often.
The men and women of our armed forces know that there is a possibility of death when they sign on.
And that's the way it is.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 06:52 AM

Troll and DougR
You warmongers just always seem happy to get people killed.
You don't give a toss who!

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 08:28 AM

Flying bits of metal don't care
They cut through flesh of soldier and civilian equally
The good, the bad, the young, the old
The smart, the stupid, the beautiful, the ugly
Are all one to them
The metal doesn't care
Dulce et decorum est....

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 08:54 AM

American pilots recently killed four Canadians in Afghanistan. The weapons are smart the pilots were not.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Charley Noble
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 09:28 AM

It seems to me that it's murder when someone is pressing a button that sends a cruise missle winging its way into some country and kills someone, a soldier kills another soldier in combat, or even if soldiers execute their prisoners. It's all murder and if you win the war you get to decide who murdered who more responsibly. Killing soldiers and civilians without staring them in the face strikes me as particularly cold-blooded murder but probably for those murderers it's all more like a video game. And when murders make "mistakes" they (or their commanders) should always say "sorry" before going back to the war.

The rest of us watching should strive for a higher level of empathy for all the victims and their families. What a fucking waste...

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 09:35 AM

As a matter of fact, the British journalist was traveling with Iraqi forces, and journalists have been widely warned that if they get between coalition forces and their targets, they may get hurt. It's tragic, but people who are not traveling with coalition forces are at risk just as much as any war correspondent in the long and honored tradition of war reporting have been. People who go out to report on war and who lose their lives deserve to be treated as fallen heroes, not victims.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 09:42 AM

I think one reason people in the UK might be particularly aware of this is because in the last Gulf War most of the British forces members who were killed were killed by "friendly fire".

I'm against throwing words like warmongers around at people who've decided to go along with this war. There are real warmongers, who coldbloodedly favour war as their chosen option when it could be avoided, and I think the word should be reserved for them.

I think this war could and should have been avoided, and that the overall results of it are only too likely to be overwhelmingly for the bad, but I also believe that people like Doug and Troll are quite sincere in thinking that it was the least bad option, and that the consequences will be less bad than the alternative.

Subject: Lyr Add: Collateral Damage
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 09:53 AM

Here are two songs called "Collateral Damage" which I wrote back at the time of the bombing of Belgrade:

Collateral Damage (1)
       G             D             G
I'd a neighbour was cruel to his children,
          C          D          G
The poor kids had a swine for a dad.
   C             D          G
I just couldn't stand it no longer,
      A                   D
The racket was driving me mad.
       G            D          G
It was plain that I had to take action,
       C          D       G
Put an end to his sinister games,
       C            D            G
And I felt such a strange satisfaction
            A                      D
Seeing his house as it went up in flames.
         C                D                  G
It's a shame the flames spread once they'd started,
       C             D            G
oh the smoke and the smell and the heat.
       C         D          G
In the morning I fairly felt gutted,
          C          G       D    G
but then, so was the rest of the street.

       C
But I couldn't do nothing,
   G
I had to do something,
    C          D          G
He was such a swine and a slob
       C         D             G          C
It's a pity the kids were burnt up in the blaze,
          A                        D
while the neighbour was down at the pub,
      C
But I couldn't do nothing,
   G
I had to do something,
       C       D       G
Hw was ever so nasty and bad
            C            D
Though the outcome was grim,
       G            C
it was all down to him
         G          D          G
And the matches were all that I had.


Collateral Damage (2)
    G                     C       G
Collateral damage, collateral damage,
    C       G                      D
Collateral damage, it could not be helped
    G                      C       G
So try not to panic at collateral damage,
       C            G
It was all we could manage,
       D            G
And it could not be helped .

Here's a song for young Tony,
And all his fine cronies
All the fakes and the phonies,
And the honest ones too.
   For you win some and lose some,
   And at times it gets gruesome,
   When you wonder just who's on
   For tonight's rendezvous.
          With collateral damage, collateral damage,
          collateral damage, it could not be helped.
          So try not to panic at collateral damage,
          it was all we could manage,
          and it could not be helped

And it's also for Gerry,
and the boys on the ferry,
came from Belfast and Derry,
to bomb me and you.
   For you win some and lose some,
   and you seek absolutution,
   and you wonder just who's on
   for tonight's rendezvous
       With collateral damage…

And the bombers in Dresden,
and the bombers in Vietnam,
and the bombers in Brixton,
and Hiroshima too.
   For you win some and lose some,
   and at times it gets gruesome,
   when you wonder just who's on
   for tonight's rendezvous
       With collateral damage…

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Troll
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 10:28 AM

Geof the Duck. Since you don't know a damn thing about me, I think that you show your political bias and ignorance by calling me a 'warmonger". I belong to that small fraternity of "Them what has been shot at" so I probably have a better onsight into just what war entails than you do.
As for the
progress" being madk by the inspectors, Saddam was playing them just like he played them for 12 long years;stall, stall, give a little crumb that's of litle consequence, and stall some more. In the meantime, keep up the secret programs. Let the inspectors find only what you want them to find. If they start to get close, accuse them of spying and stop "cooperating."
If you weren't so blinded by your own political agenda, you would have seen this. Go back and look at the past 12 years and see if what I have said isn't so.
We were no closed to Saddam's giving up his weapons the day the war started than we were 12 years ago when he signed the cease-fire agreement.
Saddam has claimed that he had no long-range Scuds, and yet two of the missiles that his forces have fired at Kuwait City have been identified as Scuds. The area from which they have to have been fired puts them in the proscribed category because of the range involved.
Saddam is a liar, a torturer. a murderer, and a danger to the world. Terrorists do not manufactuer the chemicals that make up their explosives. They buy them from people like Saddam. If he achieved nuclear capability, who's to say what havoc he would sow on the world stage?
As for this:"Troll and DougR
You warmongers just always seem happy to get people killed.
You don't give a toss who! " You are entitled to your opinion and I am intitled to mine.
And my opinion of you sir, is that you are a thorogoing ASS.

troll

troll

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 10:43 AM

"Terrorists do not manufactuer the chemicals that make up their explosives. They buy them from people like Saddam."

Generally they buy them from the same sort of commercial suppliers that Saddam would have bought them from. Some of the most devastating bombs are made using stuff you can buy in bulk over the counter. I'd have thought that after September 11th the penny would have dropped that terrorists don't need specialised sophisticated equipment.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: GUEST,Forum Lurker
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 11:09 AM

You don't even need complicated equipment to make biological or chemical weapons. A really dedicated terrorist could weaponize pneumonic plague, and it only takes a small pesticide plant to make sarin.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Lanfranc
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 11:43 AM

A few URLs from the BBC site that are relevant to my original post. Thanks to all who have contributed, on both sides - I may not agree with you, but I prefer debate to violence, which was, more or less, where I came in.

Story 1

Story 2

Story 3

Oh, and a special thanks to Kevin McGrath - I'll log in to the Ridings site and see if the tunes are there. I'm probably going to the session at Waltham Abbey tonight, so "Political Science" and "The Fiddle and the Drum" will get another airing.

Alan

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: GUEST,Penny S. (elsewhere)
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 12:02 PM

Susan, yesterday, after a lot of varied interpretations of what happened, the story about Terry Lloyd settled down to this. The two TV jeeps were on their way back to Allied lines because of the Iraqi activity. They saw a group of Iraqis, and some had the impression they wanted to surrender. The TV group drove on, and they then realised that the Iraqis had joined in convoy behind them. There were two Iraqi vehicles, one of which was a lorry with soldiers clearly visible. It appears that a group of Allied troops, (first report said, very carefully, "the shots came from an area where there were British troops") saw the four vehicles and deduced from the presence of the soldiers that all were armed Iraqis. The reporters were not "with" the Iraqis, rather than the Iraqis being with them. Although the jeeps were clearly marked TV, it may not have been clear enough from the distance. I don't think it right to suggest that they shouldn't have been "with" the Iraqis - the reporter I heard telling this implied that they were concerned about it, but had no option to get away from them - but it does seem a bit more of an understandable mistake than some other blue-on-blue deaths.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: DougR
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 12:04 PM

I don't believe that either I, or troll, indicated that we were not saddened by the deaths caused by war. If facing facts is an indication of that, so be it. McGrath is absolutely correct when he says in a previous thread, (paraphrasing) 'Doug believes that war was necessary because diplomacy did not work and would never work with Saddam.'

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: mg
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 12:33 PM

I want to shake people and make them see...as does everyone...it doesn't matter if a torturer has weapons of mass destruction or not. They can do the job with bamboo shoots. Razor blades. Throwing clorox in people's eyes. The intent to torture and hurt is the key here. The weapons are not. They can use rocks or pencils and if people don't stop them they keep going. Water dripping into your face for days at a time. A box too small for you to sit up in. Rope.

mg

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 01:36 PM

A towel shoved into your mouth and then soaked in water. A bowstring tightened around the head. Spend the night in a "little close" -- a box too small to stand up, sit down, kneel, lay. Ride the "White Mare" -- a broomstick behind the knees, your wrists tied to the back of your ankles.
Mary is right -- you don't need much equipment at all, just the will to cause pain.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 01:40 PM

And the belief that torture on behalf of the state is an acceptible practice, in line with some current "opinion makers" in some Western countries.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: MMario
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 01:45 PM

torture can be done without any equiptment at all.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: GUEST,Peter T.
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 03:38 PM

Neil Diamond records.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 03:58 PM

Choice.

A nuclear reactor can produce electricity to light up a city. Or it can produce the material with which to make a bomb that can destroy that city. A sharp cutting edge can be used to perform delicate surgery and save a life. Or it can cut a throat. The President of the United States can use the vast power and wealth at his disposal to institute programs to better the lives of American citizens and to improve the lot of peoples all over the world. Or he can institute policies that destroy the domestic economy, then threaten and intimidate the rest of the world. I can use a Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2 yellow wooden pencil to write or draw sketches. I also know how to use it to kill a man.

We all have the power of choice.

The question is: What choices do we choose to make?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 01:13 AM

Or you could choose to use a pencil made of recycled wood...

Aloha,
Mark (ducking and running)

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Peg
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 01:27 AM

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

--Gandalf

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Troll
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 01:37 AM

You make a good point Lurker. Many deadly items can be made from everyday items. But, you still have to have that small chemical plant to make ricin, and such things as LAWS and rocket grenades require sophisticated facilities. Whether Saddam has sold supplies to terrorists will hopefully be discovered when we take Baghdad.
I read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that one of the captured Al Qaeda operatives that we have captured spoke of being trained in either Iraq or Iran. I don't recall which. The fact that Saddam rules a secular state would not deter the Islamists from using his facilities and goods. After all, they trained for 9/11 in the US.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 08:04 PM

"After all, they trained for 9/11 in the US."

Precisely.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 10:31 PM

Peter's Joke acknowledged.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 10:55 PM

IF you fail to payback the dough you borrowed from Guido "The Ballbat" Carlucci, collateral damage would involve breaking your legs first and then...................

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: Forum Lurker
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 11:12 PM

Troll-It was almost certainly Iran, given that it's the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world as far as capital goes. I think Saudi Arabia might contribute more personnel. Stopping terrorism is not a question of killing all the terrorists, or eliminating their funding; one desparate person with nothing harder to obtain than a car can still inflict damage. The only way to prevent it is to eliminate the motivation.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Collateral Damage'
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 11:45 PM

Forum Lurker.......Look here, you don't get it do you? You make some statement like "The only way to prevent it is to eliminate the motivation," and you introduce elements of logic and common sense, not to mention the obvious, into the conversation and that's not done here. It completely fucks up the conversation and frankly, doing these things is in poor taste. Please stop or take your logic and go elsewhere.

Spaw