Sure, it's an indicator of militant activity. But I think it's far too broad an indicator and using it operationally would be counter-productive due to false positives.

I was just picking on a specific flaw in logic, I fully realize the complexity of the situation there. Every soldier occupying hostile territory will face this, unfortunately. I fully agree that ROE can be a real problem - but it's not usually because you need to shoot every sucker with a cellphone, it's because even if you do have obvious signs that he's more than just chatting on the cellphone, you'll get in s**t if you do shoot him. ROE have a nasty tendency to be very unpragmatic. But they are usually there for a reason. It pains me to say it, but I would rather have 4 dead American soldiers than 1 dead innocent Iraqi. Americans are professionals who are there to do a job, and part of their job is to stabilize the country and protect its civilians. They're volunteers and signed up for it. They should be responsible for taking risks. The "shoot everyone to save our boys" thing is selfish and hypocritical. Why the heck are you there in the first place? To save the Iraqis country and give them democracy, or to shoot them at first sign of danger? The two are sort of mutually exclusive...

I agree! You said everything I had to say. :up:

Thats why if they are out past curfew they must be up to no good with their cell phone so shoot them.

I'm missing something here. If a guy is out past curfew he's wrong. If he's outside curfew with a cell phone he's wrong again. Our troops don't have signs on them that says "Kill me because I volunteered". What utter bs. If Iraqi's are doing what they know they aren't supposed to be doing they are valid targets. They have the curfew for a reason. I don't see at all where that could be construed as selfish and hypocritical. Our "boys" did not sign up to be targets. Volunteeering doesn't mean being sacrificed because Iraqi's are breaking the law. They break the law they are wrong. You can't break the law in your own country yet you think it's alright for Iraqi's to break it. You think soldiers should be needlessly put at risk because they volunteered and you would rather have four soldiers get killed than stop an Iraqi breaking the law because you think the Iraqi has that right and soldiers volunteered for it so they should just accept it. No! Hell no!

Well, the logic is if you invade a country without any legal basis, the rest of the world does care a little less about the safety of your soldiers than normal.

But honestly, when I read "Polish Snipers in Iraq" I though it was about Poles stealing the sniper sights from the Marines (or even from the Iraqis)
:rotfl:

Morality
 

For the record I'm Canadian, live in Hamilton and close to the border.

I dont recall seeing any American's beheading non-combatants, and then stringing up the bodies for all to see. Totally brutal and disgusting. The U.S. military is taking great risks(to great actually) to protect civilians and non-combatant assets.

Many of the Muslim extremeists are brainwashed for sure. They dont grow up with the freedom to chose as we do. Their media is totally controlled. They are born and bred to hate, such as in Palestine vs. Isreal. They are taught strict rules that must be adheard to, any deviation is severly punished. Muslim religion is one of control, male dominated control. I dont see how anyone can defend the violence they condone.
I dont pretend to know all the details, and surely they have some legitimate claims against western policies, but groups like Al-Queda are just plain nut-jobs.

Everyone like to piss on the U.S. as the big bully but who do you run to when you need financial or other aid after a disaster of some sort. Who do you call when your little country is being invaded. Who saved the world atleast TWICE in the last 100 years.
The U.S. maybe be the worlds policemen now but only because the rest of the world doesnt want or cant afford the job. If the U.S. were to pull all troops and assets from foreign soils there would be an uproar, and the world would be coloured communist "RED".

So while everyone whines about U.S. policy, Its more or less Canadian policy as well as we are joined at the hip, and I for one feel safer that the U.S. is still out "there".

A big THANK YOU to all servicemen and women in the U.S. armed forces.

As a Polish serviceman I must say that this sounds as total bullsh*t, I will get back to this topic tomorrow when I am more sober. ;)

Then you clearly don't know about nowthatsfawkededup.com (replaced "aw" with "uc") :) It was quite a "resource" during 2005s
The point is: If it is not reported by our media immediately doesn't mean it is not there. We all know about abuses in Abu Gharib prison camp scandal which took a while to come out.

Some info : http://www.azplace.net/index.php?itemid=718&catid=10

I have some pics but I am afraid that mods may not like it. I should have backed up their whole site in past :)

lol

Is that the same 'special relationship' that we brits have with america? I wouldn't put too much faith in it if I were you... :lol:
It's already the case that american authorities think they can dictate how canada persues its own policies on drugs as they happen to differ than the stance of the us. Fortunately the canadian judiciary keeps persuing its own line whist ignoring frequent us attempts to extradite canadian citizens who have broken no laws in canada.

I'm not demeaning the troops of any nation out in iraq, but count yourself lucky that no foreign coalition is trying to bring democracy to your country, else you might find yourself in the sights of some army sniper whilst you're making an innocent phone call to your mum. You'd find the reasoning that you were using a mobile after hours, as justification for splattering your brains all over the place and leaving you without a recognisable face to speak of, fairly objectionable I should imagine.

**** happens, and fortunately for most of us it happens far away in some dust-bowl of a country no-one would have cared about if there were no oil, unlike countries like zimbabwe or congo; plenty of coalition action there no? No wealth, just a load of poor black people; or is it because we've over-stretched ourselves already...? :huh: Well, serious conflict in africa has been going on for decades longer than the recent trouble in the middle east and I've yet to hear any cries to invade and give the people the democracy 'that every free man is entitled to in this life.' So you'll have to forgive my less than sincere welcome to such claims of benevolence and altruism bandied about by our western nations, my own in particular, since that lying **** tony blair convinced us all that saddam had wmd as a pretext to invade.


It's too hot, and I'm grumpy...:hulk:

Interesting how people take my qualified sympathy for the American position there as "pissing on the US" or as a desire to see American soldiers killed.

I repeat: I fully sympathise with the complexity of the situation there. That's not an excuse to relax ROE.

I'm also raising an eyebrow at how every time shooting Iraqis is mentioned, people bring up beheadings and extreme jihadism and other lovely things.

Uh, hello, Iraq has 30 million people. Why does shooting someone who could potentially be doing something against US troops equate to killing a vile, nasty beheader? That's the thing that disturbs me. The painting of the situation in black-and-white. One could forgive the US soldier in the middle of a firefight for having that sort of black-and-white vision - but you back home should be ashamed to have that sort of picture in your head.

If it's me you are referring to I don't believe I even mentioned any nationality except for Iraqi's. You did say you would rather see 4 dead American soldiers than 1 dead Iraqi but I take no offense because I know what you are saying but I am strongly against your general opinion.
About black and white. What I don't seem to understand is there is a curfew, curfews mean nobody outside after a given time. It's that black and white. There is no "I don't feel like it". You have a male Iraqi outside after curfew and he's hanging out with a cell phone and cell phones are a common way to detonate IED's. What do you think he's doing? He's not supposed to be outside. He can call anyone he wants from within his house so what is his purpose? He can hang out outside during daylight all he wants. Would a good guy even be outside in Falusha after dark let alone curfew? People get killed and disappear there all the time. After all this is Iraq and it's a dangerous place. Would you go hang out outside in Falusha after dark? It's not the middle of London or New York or any quiet hometown USA. It's Iraq!

It's not I war I support. But we are there. And we need to stop half assing it and actually try and win a war, or leave. Anything in between is stupid, and I'm a little tired of watching Americans get blown up by the people we're supposedly liberating. Vietnam all over, IMO, in that we're too scared to actually win a war.

PD

We deliberately killed several MILLION German and Japanese civillians during WWII, because some were POTENTIALLY factory workers. Not advocating razing Iraqi towns to the ground, just saying that seeing black and white works both ways.

PD

Yea, but come on, haven't we learned anything in 60-odd years?

Pragmatically-speaking, all war is evil. But if we're to believe in the ideology behind this one, then at least we've gotta be striving to be a little more progressive than that. There's a lot of very positive ideas about America's struggle for democracy which I genuinely would like to believe in. But we better see them implemented on the ground, and not in reverse logic.