Thread: Iraqi woman had 80 women raped then recruited as suicide bombers

Originally Posted by Shek

Certainly some minor stuff will not be reported by fellow soldiers, but leaders in disciplined units don't tolerate this and Iraqis aren't afraid to come forward to make accusations and point out specific soldiers.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N04345828.htm

Originally Posted by Shek

The military justice system has moved in the same direction as the civilian justice system in terms of the death penalty, which is towards where many European countries already are, to include Germany.

Yep. Was just opposing his point, which was that "the most serious crimes are punished by the death penalty". It hasn't been executed in 48 years, and there are barely any soldiers on death row.

Originally Posted by Shek

No, the occupation ended a long while ago and sovereignty handed back over, and so it's not our legal responsibility. Nonetheless, we are still fufilling our moral responsibility.

Always a matter of definition. Sure, the US government has claimed the occupation ended on their side in 2004. No one, including UNO and the Red Cross, supports that opinion.
And to quote Obama: "By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end". With a lot of goodwill, we can define that as the end of active occupation, although of course a 50,000 man "security force" remains.
Technically, as long as the Iraqi government can not unilaterally declare US Forces persona non grata, it's an occupation. Just like Germany was formally occupied until 1994.

One must keep in mind that those security forces were also specifically asked for by the Iraqi government. If their leader is not re-elected then parliment may also change this if I'm not mistaken.

So just in asking your view, Since we still maintain forces in Japan and in Korea and other unspecified areas are they occupiers? Or is that just a term thats keeps the media and any other anti US forces happy?

If we applied the term "liberators" would that not mean that after the country was trashed and their army iradicated we could take our forces home and not have to help rebuild infastructure or to allocate funds for redevelopment or help secure the government or other?

Originally Posted by kato

Yep. Was just opposing his point, which was that "the most serious crimes are punished by the death penalty". It hasn't been executed in 48 years, and there are barely any soldiers on death row.

At least we have the death penalty.

Originally Posted by kato

Always a matter of definition. Sure, the US government has claimed the occupation ended on their side in 2004. No one, including UNO and the Red Cross, supports that opinion.
And to quote Obama: "By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end". With a lot of goodwill, we can define that as the end of active occupation, although of course a 50,000 man "security force" remains.
Technically, as long as the Iraqi government can not unilaterally declare US Forces persona non grata, it's an occupation. Just like Germany was formally occupied until 1994.

When did Germany cease to be "occupied?"

kato,

Thanks to the link on the MHAT IV study - I had forgotten how high the hypothetical non-reporting rates were for some major crimes. However, what's interesting is that even with those rates, the end result is that an incident gets reported with few exceptions. An incident requires that 100% will not report.

In terms of classifying Iraq as an occupation, we are there at the request of the Iraqi government and the publically stated position has been that we would leave if asked (and we've been asked and have the timeline for that). While the legally defined occupation ended three years ago with the installment of an elected Iraqi government serving under their constitution, I'd date an effective sovereignty to being at least a year old to where we weren't dictating moves on the ground (Maliki's bold move into Basra is one example).