"Blair heralds election victory"

[Architorture]

okay, well i guess i misread your intentions with bringing up the sniper issue... i was under the impression you were implying it was somehow a matter of policy that snipers were attacking women and children... but i guess you are just claiming snipers are doing it 'for fun'

which actually makes me doubt it even more... snipers are the only military personel who know with absolute certainty that they will be killed if they are captured... i don't think snipers in general would be taking the chance of targetting non-targets, ultimately putting themselves in more danger... its not like they have a huge force around them in fallujah to protect them...the US does not control the city...so for a sniper to go about exposing themselves 'for fun' doesn't seem very rational at all...

...granted, i can admit it is possible that there could be a sniper who is having fun shooting women and children, but it is not a matter of policy it is a matter of some messed up individual... who should be found and punished

the rashomon comment was more related to the concept of many divergent conceptions of truth that every side of the story has some truth and some lack of truth that can only be found else where....

i'm very willing to admit i do not know everything that is going on... but i'm also not going to accept some other view with out thinking about it rationally first... such as the case with the snipers targetting women and children...it just doesn't make sense

[Richard Haut]

the respose to Kofi Annan (and previously to senior British military) I very much regret to say indicates that attacking civilian targets is policy.

an isolated incident we can all understand may happen - the "rotten apple" theory - however in the case of Abu Ghraib it has been clearly shown that a significant part of that conduct was policy (and from a very senior level - and involving the British). (the notion of "fun" was used as a defence by a soldier on trial).

I agree that it is pointless, and perhaps worse than pointless in that it will turn Iraqis against the troops.

an example: a British Officer found some of his men kicking an Iraqi (not a fighter just an ordinary Iraqi) to death. He said "I didn't see anything", and then added "get rid of it".

had it been two or three decades ago I might have been called up - and have been that officer. It is beyond my understanding that a British Officer could behave in such a way. But he did. There is no possible excuse, least of all "orders" from higher up.

sniping civilians is bad enough - but prepare yourself for worse if it is policy.

the British public are becoming increasingly angry at Blair because the troops remain in Iraq and are put at unnecessary risk. Attacks like the one on Fallujah (and many more cities to come apparently) will ensure that the insurgents become the only people whom the Iraqis will trust.

I do not believe that Bush is a real Republican any more than I believe that Blair is a true member of the British Labour Party. Both work to a different agenda and in neither case does it indicate loyalty to their own people.

[Architorture]

we probably won't truly know what happened in abu graib for some time to come...in terms of how high up the ladder it went as a policy to torture people...

as for the sniping i can't imagine it going much beyond the bad apple theory...in that it is just such a stupid thing to do...even at the individual level... at least in abu graib those soldiers weren't putting themselves in significant danger by doing what they did...

for a sniper to go about sniping people for no particular reason is irrational in and of itself... which might actually point more to it being a policy issue since you would think no individual would be so reckless... but for it to be a policy issue you would think it would have some stategic value, which it does not... which brings us back to the bad apple theory as being the only reasonable explaination at this point...

so if snipings of women and children is going on who ever is responsible needs to be removed...but i imagine that is extremely difficult if you look at the way in which snipers operate, especially in fallujah, they probably don't have more than 1 other person with them that would be intimately aware of what exactly they were doing day to day...

i guess i didn't really further the discussion at all there...but oh well

[Richard Haut]

I think that you have pointed to the central problem. Sniping or torturing civilians.

you, Americans, are better than that. We, the British, are better than that. Sure there can be the "bad apples", but the uniform of the United States is a proud one. The uniforms and battle-honours of the British army go back hundreds of years.

Individuals can be wrong, even policies may be misguided, but the reason that American and Britain see themselves as being representative of civilisation and standards is because - allowing for the exceptions - they are decent and civilised nations.

Or are they ?

I wish that this was the media over-playing individual incidents. It is clear that it isn't. America had no need to lie the the United Nations (backed up by Britain). America (again backed up by Britain) has no need to raze a city like Fallujah to the ground. And - sadly - the snipers are the minor part of it.

We can all be lied to, and may even be fooled for a while - but being betrayed is a very bitter pill.

The reason that I object to Bush - and even more vehemently to Blair - is that they are simply of inadequate standard to have power in countries like the US and Britain.

Just remember than when Britain's Bomber Command proposed bombing German cities - the civilian areas - in WWII the USAF objected very strongly indeed. Why ? Because they were Americans. Vietnam was a mistake like, although bigger than, Suez. Nearly half a cenruty later there is no excuse.

[Richard Haut]

I couldn't care less about the "draft".

Bush got back into the White House - and very few people in the world care whether he did it honestly or not. He now indeed represents the American people, and now they share the responsibility for his conduct. It is the penalty of a democracy.

You wanted four more years - and now you've got it.

You have a problem with that ? It's what you wanted.