LinkBack URL
About LinkBacksIt sounds to me like the guardian took it fairly seriously, from that second article. I'm not really sure you can ridicule them on that basis, they dealt with that in what looks like a professional, honest, and serious manner.
It sounds to me like the guardian took it fairly seriously, from that second article. I'm not really sure you can ridicule them on that basis, they dealt with that in what looks like a professional, honest, and serious manner.
Here is a link to the article on Monbiot's site, complete with references. Care to discredit this one too, TheAnimus?
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005...without-rules/
If you want to start a thread about newspaper bias, you are free to do so, but please stay on topic and either post a critique of the thread and/or article or do not post at all. Ta.
"All our beliefs are being challenged now, and rightfully so, they're stupid." - Bill Hicks
i'm failing to find anything of the sort. links would be appreciated.Originally Posted by TheAnimus
what i AM finding is that they hired a member of some extremist (legal, nonviolent) islamist supremacist group. then fired him when they found out.
The flaws are that they are stereotypical and unfunny. How obvious do I have to make it?
you just insult my intelegence. I'm so tempted to be hypocrytical.Right, well if that isn't an insult to the intelligence of Guardian readers I don't know what is. I'm afraid the hypocrisy train has left the station.
Yes, yes, now stop bickering about the Guardian and TheAnimus. It has very little to do with the actual topic of this thread.
Hey, I never even claimed my hatread of the gardian is fair, neither is my view of the sun, news of the world, or mirror.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/5fc7a7b4-56...0abe49a01.html
a somewhat differen't perspective.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Erm, how is that a different perspective? It documents exactly the same fact as the Guardian and Independent articles...
"All our beliefs are being challenged now, and rightfully so, they're stupid." - Bill Hicks
Okay i don't know how we can't see eye to eye on this.
One is titled "War Without Rules"
another
"Phosphorus 'may have killed' in Iraq"
Spot the emotive one?
A newspaper takes facts and presents them in an way designed to engage the reader, 'el reg, the inq all use humor in the vast majority of their articals.
The mirror, daily mail, gardian etc. Are all very emotive (imo). I prefer to be given the fact, with clear analysis, that isn't designed to proove why i should read it whilst your actually reading it. I belive journalists call this engaging their readers.
This is why i have such a strong distane for a lot of newspapers, as they have to blow things out of proportion to engage their readers.
First off, I dislike the term chemical weapon imensly, as it fails to describe what exactly is going on. (as you could define a bullet as a chemical weapon, ever seen a powder burn of someone shot at close range (i completely failed to get off with a girl training to be pathologist before you think gun wounds just happen to rock my boat)).
White Phosphorous is a much better term, as if you don't understand it you should get an explaination of in the artical (which in the ft one i linked you do. Please note ft isn't my paper of choice, i don't really have one).
Now, the gardian also describes the chemical weapon as a phosphorus bomb, this term is incorrect, but then media often call apcs tanks. Its an example of the fact analysis which is poor. Why use the word bomb, most people understand the word munition, but then again the gardian tends to not like words i can't spell. Shell to complicated word?
Now as for legal issues the yanks have little in the way of restrictions what with not been in geneva. They also seam to completely disgregard the fact these people are at war. You have a munition which can only be used as a screen, yet when your ass is on the line, you might get more creative about where you need your screen. It might sound strange but in ccq its often the case of shoot suspect to kill, area is secure, medic's for that person you've just shot. Some soilders belive that its not fair because your prolonging their agony needlessly, and will shoot to kill, and conferm the kill before even considering allowing medical attention. Others have been known to try n shoot humainly but these often die for obvious reasons. I'd have to say that the Monbiot dosen't seam to like the idea that the troops were there to take control of an area, killing anyone who disagrees. He presents compounded speculation in an emotive manner that could be interpreted as fact by a casual reader.
What i find most intresting is how he relates the hypocracy of using firebombs and phosphorous to the invation of iraq in the first place. That sickens me, there is a marked difference between using phosphorous even as an offensive wepon compaired too the incident with the kurdish people (who we let down anyway). But the point is if they are using it as a flushing wepon, all its going to be doing is saving lives, most likely the lives of the colalition troops, they are either scared to surender (fear of been shot as by colalition), unable to surrender (because their pressganged), or dedicated to the course. Now the reason WP shouldn't be used as a wepon is to prevent un-nesicerry suffering. The fact is why would troops be targetting civs, enless they hadn't identified themself as such (same reasons as above perhaps) in which case, they are gonna be killed, and they will have a choice between slow painful WP death, or the speed of the bullet.
That isn't nice, but its in no way as bad as gasing a minority, and the gardian reportor likening it as such, seriously pisses me off, as it debases a much bigger (imo, just on the scale of numbers) problem. That is in essense what anoys me about that paper, and why, my sterotypes are formed as such.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
So why did the Americans lie about the use of WP chemical weapons in the first place? Yes, they are chemical weapons. They burn until deprived of oxygen - sounds like chemicals to me. They do not cause injury due to a shock wave and/or shrapnel as normal ordnance does, hence the distinction.
Well done TheAnimus, you have managed single handedly to ruin an intresting and important thread, pat yourself on the back mate, then go make a thread whining about the guardian.
no specofdust, i've completely failed to try and get the point across, and i think it know why, my farther was a gunner (army), and as such i've been brought up knowing some facts since before i can remeber.
War is terrorism. (people die [needlessly?], how can that not be terror?)
One man's terrorist is another mans freedom fighter is another mans liberator.
All I'm trying to say is what is the fuss about? There is no evidence to sugest that WP was been used to target civis. Which is sort of what the documentry claims. People are going to die in nasty nasty ways during conflict, thats a given. People will have tools like WP (which is a really effective smoke screen to most scanning methods) and when your ass is on the line, i'd like to see you not use it as a slightly more offensive smoke screen.
Meanwhile, at the pentagon. They don't really know what a single squad is doing exactly, reports come in, but their normally written by the people who've been commiting these acts. Hardly going to say "shelled a family of sick crippled kids who were too ill to evac with WP" are they? This is my objection to the Gaurdian artical, as its mostly blowing smoke.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
TheAnimus, serious question, are you dyslexic?
"All our beliefs are being challenged now, and rightfully so, they're stupid." - Bill Hicks
incredibly badly dislexic. I'm 20, a comp sci & cyb student, I spell at the 12th percentile acording to latest test (thou i think its more like the 18th of the one before, i was having a bad head day). Yet i'm able to read at 70th % (+/- 5, ever since i was 15, yet the spelling has jumped around a lot, i think it depends how much writing, rather than code, i've done that week).
and my favourate colour is blue.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Men women and children are dying horribly and painfully. Not worth making a fuss over?
War is horrible. It happens. It has happened throughout human history. It will be a VERY long time before there is no such thing as war, if it ever happens. Get over it, people are totally awful to each other, but Charles Darwin once had a theory that the fittest of the species survive and if the fittest of the species are those that can produce the most efficient killing machines, then so be it.
Right, well, I've not actually said what I think about the actual subject of this thread. The truth is....I can't get that excited about the use of Willy Pete in Fallujah. I watched the news every day for the three weeks that the US forces gave the citizens to leave before they attacked....and IMO, anyone who didn't pack their stuff and get out in three weeks knew they were taking a deadly risk. Someone may be able to correct me, but AFAIK anyone who did leave in those three weeks was given a place to stay (albeit probably a tent) and was looked after by the US forces. This was by no means an unprovoked assault on a previously peaceful city. Anyone who was still in Fallujah after those three weeks were up can (IMO) be reasonably assumed to be an insurgent.
The real meat of the story as far as I'm concerned is thus:
1) that the justification given by the US (and UK) government for intervention in Iraq was that Saddam had chemical weapons that he was prepared to use....and yet the coalition forces used chemical weapons in prosecuting the war. Hypocrisy much?
2)that it was revealed, as a result of the interest in WP, that the US forces had dropped Mark 77 bombs in the earlier phases of the war. "Hey, it's not napalm, it's made with kerosene not petrol".
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote