Are you a Draft doger?

[BTs_GhostSniper]

Yes GhostSniper, I am actually John Kerry.  Since I've taken so much time and energy to debate with you, will you please vote for me out of respect?  Thank you.

Nope, sorry.  A vote for you is a vote for pure evill.[/size]

Now that you've called me out, please explain to me what you find so objectionable about my refusal to countenance needless death, and questioning of those who cause it willingly.

The deaths that have occurred are not "needless".  We are fighting the enemy on their soil so that they do not bring the war to our soil.  Someday you might understand that.  But then, you didn't understand that in Vietnam we were trying to stop the spread of Communism.  You know, there is still a nice Bust of you in the Hall of Heroes of Communism in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.[/size]

[Supernatural Pie]

I've been wondering about the possibility of a draft for quite a while.

1). Just what exactly are the chances of the reinstitution of the draft?

2). What kind of public outcry would follow the reinstitution of the draft?

[PsYcO aSsAsSiN]

I can't believe you numbnuts just saying that the attack helicopter fired into a crowd of civilians as if the only purpose was to kill civlians. The chopper was firing on a disabled bradley fighting vehicle to prevent the mob from pillaging its weapons and ammo cache inside - thus the violent explosion when it was struck by the rockets.

Although killing innocent civilians is unfortunate, they should have known that it is common practice for the military to do things like that to prevent looting - it was apparent that it was not the first time that some of them had been dancing around a disabled miltary vehicle.

[*DAMN Bondo]

GhostSniper...your sentiment about what war is is nice...but who the "enemy" is isn't always clear. Like in Vietnam, the whole war was wrong, and by relation the Viet Cong were not enemy...they didn't deserve to die. Americans didn't deserve to die either but we, unlike the VC, choose to be in Vietnam, they were Vietnamese. To believe that an Iraqi resistance fighter is an enemy means you have to unconditionally believe that the US is right in being there. Now, you may be able to not consider the greater implication in order to follow orders, but I couldn't. It doesn't make me less heroic or patriotic.

Sin, protecting the ammo in the tank isn't worth 15 civilian lives and another hundred resistance/terror recruits. If you really want to prevent the ammo from being taken, put some men on the ground to clear the area of civilians.

[BFG]

numbnuts just saying that the attack helicopter fired into a crowd of civilians as if the only purpose was to kill civlians. The chopper was firing on a disabled bradley fighting vehicle to prevent the mob from pillaging its weapons and ammo cache inside - thus the violent explosion when it was struck by the rockets.

Have you watched the video footage or heard the eye witness accounts?

And now murder is justified to prevent looting?

[Mr. Lothario]

     Assuming there was a Bradley, I've got to go with GS on this one. Whatever the reasons for the war, no matter why the guys are there fighting, once they're there, their first priority is the survival of them and their buddies. If the weapons and ammo had been left in the Bradley, there's a distinct possibility that they would have wound up being used against our troops. Interdicting those supplies by blowing them up would probably save some friendly lives, so it's a no-brainer.

     There's a lot of morality issues associated with firing into a crowd of noncombatants, whatever the reason, but if the pilot was shooting to destroy a Bradley, I can't impugn him. Presented with the possibility of saving friendly lives against the probability of taking "enemy" lives, most soldiers would make the same choice.

[BFG]

"I am a journalist. I'm dying, I'm dying," screamed Mazen al-Tumeizi, a correspondent for the Arabic television channel al-Arabiya, after shrapnel from a rocket fired by an American helicopter interrupted his live broadcast and slammed into his back.

Twelve others were killed and 61 wounded by rockets from two US helicopters on Haifa Street in central Baghdad. They had fired into a crowd milling around a burning Bradley fighting vehicle that had been hit by a rocket or bomb hours before.

It comes on one of Iraq's bloodiest days for weeks in which at least 110 people died in clashes around the country. The Health Ministry said the worst casualties were in Baghdad and in Tal Afar near the Syrian border, where 51 people died.

"The helicopter fired on the Bradley to destroy it after it had been hit earlier and it was on fire," said Major Phil Smith of the 1st Cavalry Division. "It was for the safety of the people around it."

Mr Tumeizi, a Palestinian, was the sixth Arab journalist to be killed by American troops since Baghdad was captured last year. The videotape of his last moments shows how Mr Tumeizi was killed during a live television broadcast, with the Bradley blazing in the distance and a crowd of young men celebrating its destruction, but it shows no reason why the helicopters should open fire.

Many of those hit by the rockets in Haifa Street, in a tough neighbourhood of tower blocks notorious as a centre of resistance to the occupation, were on their way to work. "We are just ordinary workers. We are just trying to live," said Haidar Yahyiah, 23, sobbing with pain from a broken leg as he lay in bed in nearby Karkh hospital.

He and others described how they had been woken by the sound of explosions in Haifa Street in the early dawn. They had been sleeping on the roofs because it is too hot in the Baghdad summer to sleep inside. They saw a vehicle on fire. But it was several hours later, at about 8am, that they sallied out.

By then US troops had already removed four lightly wounded soldiers from the Bradley. Young men and children had swarmed over the vehicle, cheering triumphantly, waving black flags and setting it ablaze again. The US military said that a Kiowa, a light reconnaissance and attack helicopter, fired rockets at the Bradley to destroy weapons and ammunition on board. But it is evident from the al-Arabiya video that the rockets landed among people standing or walking far away from the Bradley.

Hamid Ali Khadum was on his way to work when he was hit. "At first I thought I had just tripped over dead people but then I realised I was wounded myself," he said as he lay in Karkh hospital waiting for an operation on his heavily bandaged left leg. The rest of his body was peppered with shrapnel. A male nurse standing nearby said: "This happens not just in Haifa Street but in all Baghdad, and not just in Baghdad but in all Iraq."

The slaughter in Haifa Street took place only a few hundred yards from the heavily defended International Zone (what used to be called the Green Zone) which houses the headquarters of the Iraqi government and its American ally. It is a measure of the military failure of the US occupation that it has failed to assume control of this Sunni Muslim neighbourhood in the heart of the capital.

Early yesterday, insurgents fired more than a dozen rockets and mortars into the International Zone. The zone contains the US embassy and Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace.

There was violence elsewhere in Baghdad. Colonel Alaa Bashir, the police chief of the Yarmouk district in west Baghdad, was killed by a bomb while on patrol. A suicide bomber blew himself up in a vehicle packed with explosives at the gates to Abu Ghraib prison ? he was the only one to die. A US plane attacked a machine-gun team from the Mehdi Army in their stronghold in Sadr City in east Baghdad.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

Maybe next time those people, and the journalists, will learn their lesson and stay away from burning M2A1's.  I have no pity for people, especially journalists, who are loitering around in a war zone and get killed.  There had to be a better way to get to work than walking up next to a burning Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

[*DAMN Bondo]

But it is evident from the al-Arabiya video that the rockets landed among people standing or walking far away from the Bradley.

Read this part again GS, they were not "up next to a burning Bradley Fighting Vehicle."

This was a massacre and a war crime, plain and simple. The US military should be held accountable so they see that they can't make this sort of mistake in the future. If no one forces the US to be careful in avoiding civilian deaths, they won't be. If the US was not an occupying force, they would consider a US soldier life worth trading for an Iraqi civilian life...just like in the US a soldiers life is supposed to be sacrificed to save civilians if one of them has to be put in that position. It is imperialistic to feel an American life is worth more than an Iraqi life.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

But it is evident from the al-Arabiya video that the rockets landed among people standing or walking far away from the Bradley.

Read this part again GS, they were not "up next to a burning Bradley Fighting Vehicle."

This was a massacre and a war crime, plain and simple. The US military should be held accountable so they see that they can't make this sort of mistake in the future. If no one forces the US to be careful in avoiding civilian deaths, they won't be. If the US was not an occupying force, they would consider a US soldier life worth trading for an Iraqi civilian life...just like in the US a soldiers life is supposed to be sacrificed to save civilians if one of them has to be put in that position. It is imperialistic to feel an American life is worth more than an Iraqi life.

I think you need a good old fashioned dose of "Go Join the Military and see what it's like before you condemn others".

[BFG]

Maybe next time those people, and the journalists, will learn their lesson and stay away from burning M2A1's.? I have no pity for people, especially journalists, who are loitering around in a war zone and get killed.? There had to be a better way to get to work than walking up next to a burning Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

You quite simply make me sick. I cannot belive you can be so emotionally dissattached.

Its not just a fucking war zone - IT IS WHERE PEOPLE LIVE. You know? PEOPLE - liveing human beings. Trying to live their lives. Saying that was just like the Israelis " oh its a war zone they shouldn't have been there" THEY FUCKING LIVE THERE. IT IS THEIR HOME, THEIR COUNTRY. WHERE THEY HAVE TO LIVE AND WORK.

 You just don't seem to have the mental or emotional capacity to put the two together. I can't even make sense of what im writing you enrage me so much.

But it is evident from the al-Arabiya video that the rockets landed among people standing or walking far away from the Bradley.

Can you not read? You twist everything. Rather than it being the fault of the american pilots - the guys that fired a missile which hit the civilians you blame the civilians for being there? You blame a journalist for trying to report what is happening? Are you fucking insane? But no, god bless your fucking military, those soldiers  couldn't possibly have done anything wrong - theres no need to even fucking appologies for killing those men women and children becasue it was their fault ??

As for reporting... Unlike all those US reporters who were "enbedded" with US troops and who managed to give you wonderfull news reports of troops marching past, more trooops marching past, the odd distant explosion, soldiers polishing their tanks... the rasiing of the american flag etc etc, some reporters actually try to get close to the people who are involved in the events unfurling - they are trying to let the rest of the world know what is going on - what really happens when an american bomb miss's its target and hits a civilian building - what really happens when young scared US troops open fire on a car at a roadblock becasue the family inside didn't understand what the US soldiers wanted them to do, what happens when a Bristish Convoy is attacked by american fighter jets.

You don't seem to like the truth, or what seems to be the truth, or anything that dosn't met your narrow minded religiouse view of the world yet its what we call freedom of speach over here - freedom of information and truth or as close to it as possible.

That reporter was doing a job - to show the rest of the world what was going on. I get the overwhelming feeling not to mention from your post you give the overwhelelming feeling that you don't like people reporting the truth - it damages your little "bubble world" of how fucking perfect you are. And you wont even begin to deal with or acept the existance of anything that even thinks about threatening that bubble.

"I am a journalist. I'm dying, I'm dying," screamed Mazen al-Tumeizi, a correspondent for the Arabic television channel al-Arabiya, after shrapnel from a rocket fired by an American helicopter interrupted his live broadcast and slammed into his back.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

Rather than it being the fault of the american pilots - the guys that fired a missile which hit the civilians you blame the civilians for being there? You blame a journalist for trying to report what is happening? Are you fucking insane? But no, god bless your fucking military, those soldiers  couldn't possibly have done anything wrong - theres no need to even fucking appologies for killing those men women and children becasue it was their fault ??

Tell you what....you start blaming the TERRORISTS for 9/11, instead of the United States, and I'll take a second look at this incident and decide if the pilots could be at blame.  Fair enough?

[BFG]

Never thought otherwise - How could it be possible to blame anyone else but the guys that flew those planes into the towers? And i don't belive like you probably think i do that the Goverment decided to blow up the WTT to get an exuse to go to war.

However the reason why the men that hijacked planes can to that point where they were willing to die for a cause must go back a long way - and who lays the blame that has lead to people becoming this fanatical and extreame is anothe matter.

[Aramarth]

Patriots often say they will serve their country... would they die for it?

I was ready to do just that at the age of 16. I decided then that I would charge a school shooter in a hearbeat. The strange part is, the only people I would have "helped" are the very same classmates who treated me disdainfully at times. There is a good check for all those who claim to be patriots out there. Would you die for those enemies of yours with whom you only share a flag?

[BTs_GhostSniper]

I was ready to do just that at the age of 16. I decided then that I would charge a school shooter in a hearbeat. The strange part is, the only people I would have "helped" are the very same classmates who treated me disdainfully at times. There is a good check for all those who claim to be patriots out there. Would you die for those enemies of yours with whom you only share a flag?

Absolutely.  When it comes to war, it is like you and your brothers....you can beat the crap out of each other all day long, but as soon as the bully next door tries to do it, it's a whole different story.[/size]

[*DAMN Bondo]

I think you need a good old fashioned dose of "Go Join the Military and see what it's like before you condemn others".

Using that logic I can't condemn Hitler without becoming a Nazi. I can't condemn Bin Laden without joining Al Queda. I can't condemn the Broncos for fumbling away last weekends game without playing on the team.

[jn.loudnotes]

Fortunately all Kerry-voters are neo-nazi terrorists, and they're bad at football to boot, so you're in luck, Bondo!

By the way, why hasn't anyone here answered to the question, "would you die for your country?"

"NO, because I could help it out more alive"

I'm sure that doesn't apply to everyone, and maybe it's arrogant to think it applies to yourself, but it's got to apply to some people.  We wouldn't dream of sacrificing an Albert Einstein as an infantryman...

[z][t-Rampage]

9/11? iraq? i think i missed a part of the news here. did iraq fund or instigate 9/11? i was pretty sure that osama binladen was behind this. did the u.s attack afganistan because iraq had been bad? im really missing the link to iraq here. the facts are simple are they are still showing themselves splendedly without the news even having to show us the facts. NO ONE HAS FOUND WEAPONS OF MASSDISTRUCTION. no one. or have they? plz enlighten me, because that was the reason to attack that country. that was the arguement by every politician backing the "war" to invade. the fact that Sadam hussein is a freak and a bastard is NOT a good enough reason for western countries to attack. because if it is, well then there are so many other countries in the world that have dictators that should be invaded and are quite as dangerous as Iraq was convinced to the public to be.  I have to admit that when i watch the news and some poor soul who has been beheaded is shown publicly and on display, i play with the thought of someone western doing the same. but then i come back to wtf did we go into iraq for? a chance of finding weapons? chemicals? chance does not cut it when  civilians are dying! wether they be u.s or arabic.  we have added to their poor excuse of hating the western civilisation. we are adding fuel to the fire. this is a process that has been stirring for a long long time and it does NOT only affect the u.s. and thats another problem i see with these discussions. they become u.s vs the rest of the world. that is not the case anymore. the u.s is NOT the only country that has gone to "war" on iraq, lets not forget that. i believe that every country with a  western system is a target, especially the ones that joined the "war". iraq to me is a fucked up excuse to go get the oil that the western way of life needs. i dont believe there is a conspiracy theory going on. i believe it comes down to money and big business. the business that we as matrealistic ppl must have in our lives. the gadgets we toy with, the fuel we need for everything, the brand name clothes and electronics that are must haves in the system that we have gotten so used too. we have gone to war on a poor fucking excuse and it does not cut it. we have gone to war because the western system has worked. me me me, money money money and more more more.

when 9/11 happened i was unfortunate enough to watch cnn as they showed it the first time. just fucking horrible. anyone in these forums will agree with that. going into afganistan and getting rid of the Taliban because they backed Osama Binladen. it was almost a must in my opinion. the u.s needed to act and they needed to act fast. but that was Afganistan and the EVIDENCE that Al-Qaeda had training  camps there.
But turning around to invade Iraq on MAYBE'S is a little vague for me. there is no evidence other than the country is exploding....just like Afganistan did many many years ago. just so u know, it used to be a very modern and "western" country.

This is not about the u.s anymore and its not about the safety of america. its about every western country in the world and the way of life that we have gotten used to.
And handling religion against religion is sure to fail.  Thats one of Bush's biggest faults, he thinks he has god on his side.....well news flash....So do the terrorists. who's god is the better one? or are they the same, just with different names that MEN have come up with. We need to seperate religion from politics and handle things in a humane way and not a coorporate one. cause this ship we call the world is sinking if we dont.

[z][t-Neo]

and ofc ... who started/provoked that war? .. the US guys themselfs by supporting Irak, Israel and by bombing Bagdad in februar 2001.

How about bombing North Korea .. They have A weapons. btw. also supported by the USA in the Vietnam war !...!

And the Korea conflict is hot atm. They really change the status quo in Asia, cuz noone has such bombs prepared...
Ah... hold on. I got the answer. Korea has no Oil and the USA has strategic places in South Korea .. um.. so no need to bomb North Korea, too.

To sum up. The US conflicts are home-made. You support the countrys ... and instead saying thanks to you they do 9/11 ... Excuse me. But how can one be so stupid.

And ... what did ya president do in the first min after the WTC bombing ... oups... hell yeah. he went ahead reading a book for the little childrens. How cute.

This guy has more vacations than me and i am a student .. weird .. it seems you really want to have this guy.  

(sry, didnt have the time to read all statements .. maybe some are doubled here. sry than)

[Brutha]

Well said ramps. I just want to add something here about Afghanisthan. When they were invaded by the soviet union, the militia was armed and trained by america. This was done because it was in their best interest to do so. The ppl of Afghanistan was never in the politicians minds when they aided them. And it became clear when the war ended, and the americans left, and let the weapons stay behind. They had armed a nation to fight a war for them, a war against communism. So what happens? Afghanistans warlords turn on eachother and Afghanistan was thrown into a civil war that lastet basicly untill america invaded(fighting goes on today too). The ppl never forgot how they got used, and got angry. N wonder really.

Now many of you out there might say that its not your problem that Afghanistan couldnt handle their own internal struggles and America should not be blamed for this. Well here is the thing: You train a man to kill, and when he has killed and the killing stops, what can he do? Killing is all he knows, and you trained him to do so. Dont you think you have the obligation to teach him other ways? This is what the ppl of the middle east saw. This is a partly why they dont trust america.

9/11 was a terrible thing, and I dont support an action like that. Never have and never will. I too was unfortunate to see the whole thing on TV, and I will never forget what I saw. But I wasnt surprised it happened. And the following attack on Afghanistan was justified.