War on France
 

The French suffered two attacks this weekend. Both attacks were part of the war against radical Islamists that France has so far failed to acknowledge is under way.

In one attack, a small ship laden with explosives was set off next to a French oil tanker in Yemen. Nobody will admit that it's exactly like the USS Cole bombing. Yemeni officials denied everything. This however does not give us any new information. The French were hesitant to give a final statement that yes, of course, ships do not suddenly develop huge gaping flaming holes in their side, unless explosives are floated up to them and detonated.

In another, the mayor of Paris was stabbed by a man who told officials that he was a devout Muslim and acted out of opposition to politicians and gays. The first news report I saw on this came from a national news report. They called it "homophobia related" and did not mention that the man was a Muslim.

Why France?

I found it interesting that they didn't comment the atackers religion. But maybe it's becuase they didn't feel it was important. Something American Press and authorities seem to take great pride in pointing out.

France actually has a huge Muslim population. I'll look for the statistics tomorrow or something, but maybe it wasn't mentioned because the officials/media don't want to cast this as Islamic Extremist terrorism? (as opposed to here, where they're all too eager to do so.)

France has a number of overdue bills from colonial brutality. Lets not pretend that her present sensible stance, designed to avoid creating new enemies, in any way empowers these nuts. As we continue our version of colonialism, we need to remember that the arab world has a long memory. Lets look on Frances problem as a warning to interventionists not as a lame excuse for interventionists.

Griff has a good point. Firstly, france has not refused to acknowledge the war on baddies. Secondly the second one you mention doesn't exactly strike me as a masterful terrorist plot, in fact it looks like one angry guy with a grudge. Kinda like the Isreali airline shooting recently in LAX, i didn't see that labeled a terrorist attack either.

I'd also love you to find a source for the statement the french made, i doubt it's even close to your hyperbole.

I think griff answered the why france bit. My guess on the oil tanker is well, they are meant to go boom big and US warships are under orders to cap anything that comes close.

Didn't look then. Israel labeled it an act of terrorism.

Whether it's terrorism or not is semantics, but it's certainly part of the war - both the Paris mayor attack and the LAX attack.

I don't need some FBI official to label the event to tell me what's what.

My source is every news report that came out during the first 8 hours. But here's one of them where the French Foreign Ministry says it's too early to say what had caused the explosion.

The current Israeli government seems to label every crime an act of terrorism these days. It's all subjective, and depends on what you want to consider terrorism. There are currently something like 160 different definitions of the word in use today, so defining whether or not an action is terrorism becomes a bit tricky. Israel's definition is rather broad, France's is not.

Isn't terrorism just an act of war by a group that isn't officially connected to a sovereign state? That's the way I look at it anyways. Obviously it's the way it should be defined is obviously still in question so my definition is meaningless.

I personally consider terrorism to be the intentional targeting of civilians for the purpose of striking fear into the collective heart of a society.

Isreal is not my source of definitions.

Wow. A diplomatic ministry is being diplomatic. Amazing. Of course they're going ot say that, they have to.

Wierd...
<i>Journalists taken by Yemeni officials to look at the Limburg report a metre-wide hole, with tangled metal pointed outward, suggesting an on-board blast. </i>http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/3...er_info300.gif
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2308121.stm

Still could have been a bomb smuggled on board and placed in the void between the hulls, I suppose. Supertankers are *big*. Could have been a vapor explosion, too.

But don't all those reasons make absolutely no sense right now? France has been a country a little "on the bubble" on Iraqi actions. This could have the effect of swaying them on everything, right at a very crucial time.

The country has to tip one way or the other. Everybody knows this. This could have the effect of tipping public opinion towards taking the US direction on Iraq and then on future actions. Why attack on October 6, 2002?

So, you're suggesting a CIA involvement?

Stranger things have happened, but I'd doubt it. That would be far too risky to the US's relationship with France. Even a 1% risk of getting found out would be un-riskable. You'd have to trust a lot of people to get that boat into those waters. Or to get that bomb on that boat.

France has stated it supports an attack on Iraq - as long as there is UN backing. Most other nations are saying the same thing, even britan would haver if the US decided to go it alone. I doubt the CIA are involved in this.

As for the blast thing - yes it is. Maybe the French were wise to wait and see rather than jumping to conclusions after all the hot air.

What? You mean like dropping cluster bombs on Afghan weddings? The fire bombing of Dresden perhaps? Blowing the heads off of 13 year old Shepard boys? Destroying Korean villages with quad 50’s and quad 20mm cannons maybe?

Show me where it was intentional and we'll have something to talk about.

Intentional killing of civvies? Vietnam comes to mind.

Sharon comes to mind ...
 

more here.

What? Dresden was an accident?? I have a Korean vet friend who was ordered on several different occasions to level a korean village with his quad 50's. Yes the army intended it. Yes the villages were full of villagers some of whom may have been communists. My friend doesn't sleep so good and hasn't for 50 years. Let's see: Pilot sees a group of people. Pilot bombs group of people. Ya I guess it was intentional since the pilot intended to bomb them.

Look when you know your actions will kill inocent bystanders and you decide to act anyway you give up any claim to accidental deaths. The deaths are not accidents they are intentional even if they are not the intended target. If I find you to be evil and I go blow up your place of work to get you am I responsibe for the deaths of your co-workers. I say I am, but according to your philosophy is just to bad for them. Justice is not done by takeing innocent life. So I'd guess that there ought to be something to talk about.

Allow me to re-phrase:

Show me where the command was "Kill all innocent civilians". Show me where civilians were the target.

But of course. I believe the Pentagon actually has a website where it details exactly when army officers gave the commands to target civilians, since "We Murder Children!" is Rumsfeld's latest PR slogan.

Surely, a simple Google search will reveal dozens of detailed secret army documents showing civilian targeting. Right?

Come on, now. The decision to target civilians is taken in the field, the instructions handed down are often vague, and the individual action is made by the officers in charge.

Dresden was targeted for no purpose other than to intimidate and weaken an opponent, for absolutely no other military purpose. Civilians (refuges of war to a great extent) in the hundreds of thousands were indiscriminately murdered for exactly that reason.

<a href="http://timewitnesses.org/english/~lothar.html">Dresden</a> took place, so did <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/trenches/mylai.html">My Lai</a> and other massacres. Hiroshima was destroyed and innumerable people - the vast, vast majority civilians - were murdered because the alternative would have cost many American lives, too.

Do the names Arthur Harris or William Calley mean anything to you?

Civilians were targeted and killed in Iraq, <a href="http://www.iacenter.org/bombciv.htm">too</a>. What sort of proof can be presented? The US media was effectively prohibited from reporting accurately on the Gulf War, and on the War in Afghanistan. If there is another war in Iraq, you can be sure the media will be blacked out, again.

The lessons of Vietnam have been learned all-too-well.

War is hell. Civilians are targeted, because it convenient. Fear rules supreme. A fearful enemy is a defeated enemy. Basic lessons in military strategy.

X.

PS: Edit - corrected a spelling error.

Dave you're splitting hairs and avoiding the point. My Lai is by far the most infamous Vietnam incident, purely becase of its size(and brutality) but individual deaths of both POWs and civvies are were common.

Just becase a direct order was not given and repeated on CNN does not mean it has not, and does not happen.

Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki

No links, Nic?

Hey, you're right.

There are many new members who might not have read this excellent thread.

:p

I don't watch CNN, so I guess your comment is sorta irrelevant. Please refrain from being an assuming twat in the future.

In my eyes, for the U.S. government (or military) to be a terrorist organization, those as the highest levels of command need to give orders to target and execute civilians. Yes, I'm familiar with My Lai (though I've never heard of Arthur<b>t</b> Harris :P ), and yes, the actions there could definitely be considered terrorism. I didn't check Xug's links, but if I recall correctly, Calley was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison (though was released a few years later - a shame upon our military justice system). As for Arthur Harris and the firebombing of Dresden... was that not an entirely British idea? Ja, I am no <b>expert</b> on the firebombing of Dresden, but I seem to recall Harris being not American (and being in a not American military). I'm sure that's in Xug's links, or can be found with quick google searches for biographies.

I'll read more on that later and probably recant something here, 'cause I'm bound to get something wrong.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been discussed at length previously, but the short of it is that the nook-yoo-lar bombs saved both American <b>and</b> Japanese lives. Consider what a full-scale invasion of the mainland would have cost in human lives on both sides (civilian, too - the indoctrination of the Japanese civilians being the main problem here). Consider what happened on various island invastions (Okinawa, etc) and multiply it by a couple thousand.

Anyway, all that having been said, I don't believe it's SOP for U.S. military personnel to target civilians. This is not to say that civilians don't die - they do, and it's a damn shame. Unfortunately, that's the way of war.

In Iraq, the civilian population was targeted directly and indirectly. The idea behind it was to cause such unrest in the Iraqi population that they would rise up and overthrow Hussein, or that - at the very least - Iraq would have to surrender or have its people killed systematically.

This is a perfectly 'legitimate' strategy of war; the intimidation and destruction of civilians. To pretend it doesn't exist, and that the US doesn't do it is to shame the US generals and tacticians in charge.

One of the main targets in the Gulf War (and subsequent bombings) was Iraq's water infrastructure. With its destruction, the civilian population would be slowly poisoned. Madeleine Albright - in 1996 60 Minutes interview - unhappily admitted that the death of more than half a million Iraqi children was a high, but necessary price to pay.

Selected army intelligence quotations:

"Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease."

"Infectious disease prevalence in major Iraqi urban areas targeted by coalition bombing (Baghdad, Basrah) undoubtedly has increased since the beginning of Desert Storm. . . . Current public health problems are attributable to the reduction of normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification and distribution, electricity, and the decreased ability to control disease outbreaks."

""most likely diseases during next sixty-ninety days (descending order): diarrheal diseases (particularly children); acute respiratory illnesses (colds and influenza); typhoid; hepatitis A (particularly children); measles, diphtheria, and pertussis (particularly children); meningitis, including meningococcal (particularly children); cholera (possible, but less likely)."

"Conditions in Baghdad remain favorable for communicable disease outbreaks."

"Cholera and measles have emerged at refugee camps. Further infectious diseases will spread due to inadequate water treatment and poor sanitation."

"Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)"

Links:
<a href="http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950901/950901_511rept_91.html">Military document</a> outlining Iraq's water infrastructure, described further <a href="http://www.progressive.org/0801issue/nagy0901.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.fair.org/extra/0111/iraq.html">here</a>.

Good Lord, no, the US (and its allies, including Canada and the UK, let's make no mistake here) would never knowingly and directly target civilians. From a certain point of view, a nuclear bomb is a direct, relatively clean, quick, and painless death for a lot of people. Committing near-genocide through targeted disease and poverty is another thing altogether.


X.

PS: Tangential, but related to the 'targeting civilians' issue: Luckily the US would never knowingly use biochem weapons on its own people, <a href="http://www.local6.com/orlpn/news/stories/news-171044620021009-071023.html">right</a>? <a href="http://www.healthnewsnet.com/humanexperiments.html">Right</a>?

Unfortunately, no. :( I wish I could honestly say that the U.S. doesn't have anything to be ashamed of in its past, but those things certainly exist.

The figure of half a million Iraqi children was never substantiated. It was made up out of whole cloth.

Yes, infrastructure is targeted during war. Kind of hard to make a war without killing your enemies and destroying their stuff... that's pretty much what war is all about.

No, it was a UNICEF study. Mind you, it's well-known that Iraq did fake quite a lot of children deaths (empty coffin parades, etc). The relevant point what the Albright didn't even bother to question the number. She ignored it, and accepted that children's deaths (like the difference between 50k and 500k would have mattered to her at that point) were the price to pay.

Pay attention to the thread's core issue of contention: that civilians were specifically targeted. The destruction of certain key infrastructures was meant to cause mass havoc within the population, as seen by the detailed army and DIA studies. As I already said above, this is standard procedure in any war.

Its existence was being disputed, thus the whole discussion. The numbers in the UNICEF study were exaggerated, mostly because they took children death from the Iran-Iraq biochem war into account, and because Iraq tried to sway world opinion with fake funerals. However, many deaths will now only start occurring, as tumors, disease side-effects etc. from the Gulf War are expected to come into full effect about a decade after the actual war.

X.

She should have been fired.

Xugumad, because our leaders deny that it happens, even though they know that it does, this makes it morally okay.

Therefore, if we target civilians, it's morally justified (we didn't mean it!). But if somone else does it (and for god's sake, especially if they don't actually control land), it's terrorism.

The targeting of civilians is always wrong, but sadly in war sometimes it's a necessary evil, all the more reason to try and stay away from war.

If it is truely a legitimate strategy of war for us, then it is also a legitimate strategy of war for our enemies. Further if preemtive strikes are legitimate for us then they are also legitimate for our enemies. Preemtive strikes are best done as suprizes. Given this philosophy Bin Ladin's attack on us is legitimate. We are hung by our own rope I think.

Again if it is permissible for us to target "key infrastructure" of the enemy then the enemy is also permitted to target our key infrastructure such as centers of economic activity -World Trade Center, or command and control centers - Pentagon. If it is legitimate for us to kill civilians to accomplish the destruction of infrastructure, then again it is legitimate for the enemy to do so.

Preemptive strikes against Iraq would come after we warned him to disarm. Bin Ladin attacked us without any official warning. The US on the other hand has gone to the UN and asked that Saddam be forced to disarm. That is a major difference.

We have never initiated conflict by attacking citizens. The Pentagon may be considered a military installation and therefore could be considered vulnerable to a first strike. The World Trade Center on the other hand was targeted without prior conflict, or even warning, with the sole intention of killing as many civilians as possible.

Remember Wounded Knee
 

Bin Laden had been saying he was going to attack america for a loooong time. Its just that noone took him seriously.

I never said he never claimed he was going to attack America, he never announced it through any official channels.

I disagree that the difference is that major. We won't anounce our targets to Iraqi citizens and those that are in or near the targets will be maimed and killed just like those in the trade towers. Many more will die later as direct and indirect results of infrastructure destruction. The government didn't anounce the attack on Lybia or the one on Sudan. Sure, in this case, we went to the UN and said basicily, "If you don't do things our way the hell with you." The purpose of the UN was to foster debate and compromise instead of war not to rubber stamp America's wars. In anycase the government has to keep up appearances in certain instances, Bin Ladin doesn't.

That is not true, for example, in addition to Lybia and the Sudan, many civilians were killed when we invaded Panama to get Noriagia and Panama had not even threatened attack on the US. There hasn't been a single forgien war, with the possible exception of WWII, that we haven't joined or started with lies about threats and deception concern actions on the part of potential targeted peoples. Most of these wars and interventions were fought for the benifit of certain companies, United Fruit, or industries, Oil. I'd like to know how you know that the "sole intention" of bombing the trade towers was to kill civilians, and had nothing to do with the disruption of the US and World capitalist economy? Do you have some inside information from Al Quaida?

FAIR on weapons inspection
 

Sometimes FAIR isn't but check out this page. pulled out or expelled