Caltrops - Operation: Hammer Time





	[quote name="Lizard_King"][quote name="Bill Dungsroman"] How about killing <I>just</I> them? How easy is/was that?[/quote] Are you saying it is the death of the bodyguards that is upsetting you? I am not sure what you are getting at. [quote][quote name="Lizard_King"]As for 'real world', I would say the last few thousand years of recorded history disagree with you.[/quote] You're changing your argument, and it's contradicting your old one. "The last few thousand years of recorded history" are full of large scale wars over commerce/religion/land/whathaveyou, with millions of unnecessary deaths. WTF are you getting at?[/quote] No, I'm not. You're just missing the point of all those large scale wars. The most effective way to end them was for one side to kill or neutralize key individuals on the other side. Plenty of civilians died? Of course, given strategy and technology of whatever war, but that becomes parenthetical in the current discussion over Iraq given the relatively minor civilian casualties. [quote][quote name="Lizard_King"]As for humane, well...it really depends on the situation.[/quote] No, it doesn't. [quote name="Lizard_King"]Killing (relatively) few Iraqis now proportionately saves a lot of lives due to the absence of the regime, so I don't know how much of an objective standard humaneness is.[/quote] Here's a hint: death isn't very humane. Also, how the hell do you know we're saving lives in the future with this regime change? I'd argue we're possibly not. There are a lot of dead Iraqis now that wouldn't have been dead without the war. [/quote] Now you're just being ridiculous. There are plenty of situations where death is a humane solution in and of itself (euthanasia, etc). A lot of dead Iraqis? Jesus H. Christ, look at the last 20 years of the regime's killings; even if you don't count the Iran-Iraq war and the last decade of famine as a result of a combination of Saddam's actions leading to sanctions and what food did enter being used exclusively for military purposes. The entire death toll of this war doesn't even match the Shiite dead after their Bay Of Pigs-like uprising after Gulf War 1. There is absolutely no reason to think the pattern would have changed at all, especially when you factor in the increasing pressure that Saddam was likely to feel had the war not happened. [quote][quote name="Lizard_King"]Killing Baathists and their allies is "genocide"? Give me a fucking break. [/quote] Nice of you to marginalize your argument to try to get out of it. You didn't say "Baathists," you said "people we don't like and think are a problem." Or don't genocides start on that basic principle? No breaks for you.[/quote] What I said was "What I see is a subset of Middle Easterners who are simply problems; you start by killing off the worst of them, and the others will either fall into line or get their turn.". In Iraq, only a cretin would infer that I meant the entire Arab race in the area. In Iraq, that pretty obviously means the remaining Baathists and their fedayeen etc allies, who must be killed, captured, or brought into line depending on what is most efficient. Genocide:The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, <b>political</b>, or ethnic group. You brandish it like a campus activist does the OIIIIIIIL argument, but I'll play along. I am therefore advocating genocide, of the specific political group seeking to bring back by violent means the previous regime or at the very least prevent the creation of a stable polity in the postwar period. Am I supposed to be blown away by your willingness to demean important words? I am sure a million Armenians in Turkey circa WWI, or 8 million Jews in Germany WWII, or Shiites in Saddam's regime would be more than pleased to explain to you what actual genocide is all about. No doubt you think the prior regime to be the "humane" solution for Iraq. No doubt you expect the 101st Airborne to risk further casualties beyond those incurred in the first attempt to capture U and Q rather than simply take them out. You likely find it preferable that the guerrilla movement against the American occupation continue unimpeded, so you can shake your head knowledgeably and talk in hushed tones about this Vietnam-like quagmire. But some of us would just as soon see the whole thing over and done with, successfully, as soon as possible. [/quote]