Wars are not fought by holding the sword in one hand and the Ten Commandments in the other. An ineradicable law of war is that its prolongation increases its brutality in 'geometrical' proportions and hence its casualties in civilians and the military. The action in Fallujah had the strategic goal to shorten the war. Fallujah was the hornet's nest of foreign and local jihadists who were not only manufacturing the lethal car bombs but also sending their suicidal fanatic warriors in other cities of Iraq. The collateral civilian casualties, not in the huge fictional figures presented by the writer of the article, were inevitable in a war that the enemy uses civilians, and, indeed, members of his own family and relatives,. as a shield. And the question arises who is the real moral culprit and war criminal in such a case. It's obvious, however, that the writer of the piece has no propensity to even deal with this question, least of all answer it.

http://kotzabasis1australiaagainst.blogspot.com

What is not factored here is, some 700,000 Iraqi corpses were unearthered by the coalition, all of which occured within the last 15 years of Sadaam's 25 year reign of terror.

When there is a clear suspicion such a regime was contemplating nukes [after already possessing WMD used upon the Kurds] - backed by 17 UN Resolutions and virtually the entire world community [including all states in Europe] - it would have been criminally liable not to invade and cleanse the region of a potential mass murderer. Australia & USA should be honoured here - and all those who did not support the war against Sadaam should be shamed. Freedom fighters start at home - which means there were no such things in this region.

I fail to see the relevance of IamJoseph's claimed figures of Hussein's past atrocities. Is he trying to suggest that past atrocities by Saddam Hussein give the US occupation forces a blank cheque to do as they please?

In any case, I would be interested to know the source of IamJoseph's figures. My impression is that whatever we agree the figure to be, the majority of the deaths occurred largely in the context of armed conflicts up to the 1991 Gulf War and the number of deaths since 1991 have been far fewer.

Hence, the number of lives that would have been lost through any continued violation of human rights by Hussein's regime would have been vastly less than the numbers who have been killed as a result of the US invasion, that is, at least several hundred thousand.

Furthermore, many human rights violations that did occur up to 1991 occurred with the collusion of the US government.

The evidence that the invasion was nothing more than a grab for Iraq's oil wealth which is now being privatised against the wishes of the Iraqi people, is overwhelming. It had little to do with concern for the human rights of Iraqis. Indeed, today the occupation authorities have refused to repeal Hussein's anti-union laws lest the oil workers stand in the way of the planned theft by Western oil companies of Iraq's oil.

In any case, Hussein's human rights violations was not even the official pretext for the invasion, as IamJoseph should well know.

The pretext was the claimed existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

As UN inspectors were, at the time, scouring Iraq with the effective cooperation of the Iraqi Government - that is, unless we accept the ludicrous claims of the Murdoch Press at the time that the failure of the weapons inspectors to find the non-existent WMD's was 'proof' of the non-cooperation of the Hussein regime as well as its extreme deviousness - there was no justification whatsoever for the invasion.

Yup, brutal street to street and house to house fighting... Any civilian (or anybody else) who voluntarily stays to experience that is somewhat dim or dedicated to a cause. If they claim to have done so in order to avoid being arrested and questioned by the other side, one has to ask serious questions about what, exactly, they were/are involved in.

Unfortunately this is the reality of what happens when irregular forces shelter behind women and children in built up areas, when the other side decides enough is enough. The solution (or the one which would save so many civilian lives), irregular forces should not hide amongst civilians (UN actually prohibits them doing so).

The civilians were advised what was coming and advised (strongly) to leave. They chose to stay and were deemed to be supporting the irregular forces they were protecting, so be it.

As to WP being a chemical weapon, it is an incendiary/marker/smoke round that has been widely used by all armies during/since WWII. It is particularly useful against prepared positions and snipers (they either move or they burn). It is not subject to the restrictions/bans upon the use of Chemical Weapons and is not defined as such. As to the horror of its use, it is an artillery round, the alternative is to be dismembered/disembowelled with large, razor sharp shards of steel which have been propelled in a wide arc by explosives. Frankly, I'd hate to choose between the two, neither is going to make your day.

As to 'Command Responsibility', a commander is not responsible for the criminal act(s) of individuals under their command, unless it is proven that they were at least intending that the same should happen or had ordered the same. The author cites no evidence even suggesting that to be the case.

Steel,

It’s funny how you never seem able to quote a reputable source, like a major newspaper, to back up your fantasies. I followed your link to the ream of articles by the “Global Research” centre, which is actually a socialist organization, and they were RUBBISH.

White phosphorus is NOT a chemical weapon. The US were stupid and lied about the fact that they used it, but they rapidly rescinded this claim. Haganah bet is right, there really is very little to chose between being eviscerated by 105mm artillery shrapnel, or burned by white phosphorus.

There may well have been isolated incidents of war crimes in Fallujah, but they are certainly not the responsibility of General Molan. And to seek to tarnish the whole operation with the actions of a few is contemptible. There never has been a policy to shoot surrendering insurgents. Those insurgents who don’t surrender are definitely shot on sight, however. That’s war.

People who have no idea what war is like will always come up with these sorts of stupid and irrelevant comments.

Daggett,

How on earth can you suggest with a straight face that the Iraqis were effective[ly] cooperat[ing] with the Inspectors. Haven’t you read any of the inspectors accounts? Saddam was as obstructive as possible. It was one of the reasons people thought he had something to hide.

How do you know that the oil privatization is against the wishes of the Iraqi people? Or are you just assuming everyone is naturally a socialist? The Iraqi gov’t is the elected gov’t of the people. They have the right to make those types of decisions.

The vast majority of deaths is Iraq have been caused by Sunni-Shia-Kurd violence, not by the Coalition. To insinuate that this is somehow the fault of the coalition is to exceed the boundaries of reality. Saddam was the one who put the three groups at one another’s throats. But the people themselves must take their measure of responsibility for their actions as well.

Paul.L,

It seems that you have not properly read my post.

I pointed out that the non-discovery of the non-existent WMD's was illogically held up by the Murdoch newsmedia as 'proof' that the Hussein regime was not cooperating with the weapons inspectors. They could not lose either way, could they? Had weapons been uncovered, the US would no doubt have been used as a pretext for immediate invasion, and as they weren't, this was held up as proof that the Iraqis were not cooperating.

As for the UN weapons inspectors' alleged complaints about the failure of Iraqi government to help them uncover non-existent WMD's, you are surely not ignorant of the fact that the inspectors asked for the inspections to continue and opposed the invasion? Hans Blix the head of the weapons inspectors opposed the invasion and has reaffirmed this stance repeatedly since.

Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector and a former US Marine sworn to die, if necessary, to defend his country, stated in the 1990's that no WMD's existed and for that clashed with Richard Butler the then head of the UN weapons inspectors. Scott Ritter's adamant stance has since has since been totaly vindicated.

Nearly all the intelligence agencies knew that the evidence of WMD's was non-existent. The evidence for the existence of WMD's presented by Colin Powell to the UN was fraudulent and this was seen at the time as such by informed commentators.

If we accept that the leaders of Australia, the US and the UK were not complete fools, they must known that their case for invasion was a lie.

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No, I don't have at fingertips evidence that the Iraqi people are not falling over themselves to hand across ownership and control of their nation's oil to Exxon, Total, Shell, BP et al, but I would suggest to you that is as likely that they are in favouras it is likely that the people of NSW want to hand across their electricity assets to private corporations.

More information on the oil companies' efforts to steal Iraq's oil can be found at http://www.handsoffiraqioil.org/