Well, the counter argument is that by this logic nobody can talk about human rights. Until very recently in human history the Europeans brutally conquered half the world and effectively turned the "savage people" that were unlucky enough to survive the raping and the pillaging into slaves. Listening to anyone who points out legitimate human rights violations is better than listening to no one who points out legitimate human rights violations. It's just more constructive this way.

Killing ten Iraqis to save an American soldier is not justifiable, any which way you look at it.

This is rhetoric, and isn't an interesting statement about what happened in this video, how it was handled by the military, or how it was marketed and leaked by wikileaks. What possible constructive purpose could this statement serve?

It wasn't just the Europeans. This is the story of conquerors.

Well, the counter argument is that by this logic nobody can talk about human rights... All I was saying was that when you don't practice what you preach, your credibility suffers.

This is rhetoric, and isn't an interesting statement about what happened in this video... Isn't this exactly what is happening on the ground, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? Do you read any local news (easily available on the internet) from those countries?

I don't think many people understand the magnitude of suffering in those countries. Do the math, Iraq is a tenth of the size of the US. Work out the per-capita "suffering".

That's not what you said. You said Americans don't have the right to discuss human rights.

>...what gives America the moral right to talk about human rights...

Yep, but it seems at least the Europeans have evolved from that point.

How many of the Iraqi causalities were Iraqi or foreign insurgents killing Iraqi civilians?

Nobody seems to care less about those numbers. The biggest threat to an Iraqi citizens life (back then) were insurgents and criminals. That is who the gunner thought he was firing on.

"Killing ten Iraqis to save an American soldier is not justifiable, any which way you look at it."

No, but surely any solider in the world would kill 100 enemy combatants to save his friend.

This incident and this war do not make any other tragedy, such as Tiananmen, any more or less terrible.

It'll be much better if the strategy continues to play out as it has been. The country is largely stabilized. More people were murdered in Baltimore last year, than US troops were killed in Iraq. In Iraq in 2009 there were 150 total military fatalities, 149 of which were US troops. In Baltimore, there were 238 homicides. Of those military fatalities, I count 75 combat deaths.

Further, Iraq has become richer and more free. Their bonds are on par with California's. If in the end, we come in get rid of the assholes that were running the place, rebuild and modernize their infrastructure, stabilize their country, make them rich, and withdraw, the Great Satan probably won't seem too bad. If this can be done in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the people in the surrounding scum-hole countries should start to wonder if they wouldn't be better off a little more like the guy next door.

How about "Not going there in the first place" ?

As messed up as it may sound to you, I'd rather my friends make it home. As far as I'm concerned, the blood is on the hands of the people who started and continued the war; not the ones who have to actually fight it.

The reason why the rest of the world refuses to accept the situation in Iraq as a liberation and in stead perceives it as a cynical battle for control over resources is that:

  1) the invaders are not prepared to suffer losses on par
     with their 'enemies'

  2) more people have died under the 'liberators' than 
     would have died in many years of previous occupation

  3) the situation in Iraq is still viewed through the 
     terms of lives lost by the invaders instead of lives
     lost by those 'liberated'

  4) there would not be as much or more accent on 
     protecting Iraqs oil resources as there has been 
     on saving Iraqi lives

If you liberate someone you place yourself in a position of sacrifice, you're willing to go the distance in order to protect those you liberate. A hostage rescue team goes in knowing full well they're going to try to protect the lives of the hostages at all cost. A hostage team that would go in to protect their own lives at significant extra risk to the lives of the hostages would not get much recognition, even if they would save the occasional hostage.

These are the people who authorized, and continue to authorize, having troops there?

Do you not hold the government ultimately culpable for this? Claiming Bill Kristol et al started the war is just asinine.

I didn't say that.

>Do you not hold the government ultimately culpable for this?

Of course the government is ultimately culpable.

> Claiming Bill Kristol et al started the war is just asinine.

Bill Kristol et al created the meme for invading Iraq.

Good thing that none of my friends went, your friends do not have to go either.

wow...if you delete your post, i promise i'll delete my quoting you to remove the evidence of your ignorance.

ignorance is not the same as factually incorrect. if i said to an obese woman "you are looking fat today," though correct, i would either be behaving purposely mean or ignorant to social norms.

similarly, someone telling another person [the people you love who have chosen to defend your country in war have done so needlessly] is ignorant to social norms.

since you are not american is it safe to assume you personally know zero american soldiers at war right now?

> not the ones who have to actually fight it.

The nazis probably said the same.

I think it's laughable to try to draw a comparison between soldiers messing[0] up and causing collateral damage and the Holocaust.

[0] edit: unnecessarily foul language

That's not what you said. You said...

> the blood is on the hands of the people who started and continued the war > not the ones who have to actually fight it.

I disagree with that statement. With the same argument, one can justify all war killings. Even the act of Nazis. We don't bring in Godwins law when discussing and comparing war and killings.

You can certainly make an argument that they're the same, but I think there's a pretty clear practical distinction between the two.

I don't find people do much discriminating between different groups of Nazis. The infantry perpetuated violence and death just as much as the death-camp members. After all, what do you think they did to the newly-conquered populations those polite infantrymen rounded up?

There's also a difference between the world 100 years ago and today. We live in a more civilized, more peaceful time. The violence in Iraq is some of the broadest and most destructive of our day.

The whole point of this video is about killing of innocent man, women and children by shooters who wanted to kill. Not soldiers killing soldiers. Whether they were rounded up or not, or put on a train or not shifts the focus.

The discussion is not about does this resembles the Nazis or not. It's about: are we looking for a justification for this killing by falling so low on the morality ground, that the same logic can even be used by the Nazis for justifying their killings.

Because you're making a generalization and treating "America" as a single entity. It's not. It's government allows its individual citizens to pick and choose what they support.

It's very likely the "human rights" people also oppose the war in Iraq.

As far as the government goes, it then amplifies the voices of its individual citizens so that it may seem like "America" is contradicting itself, but it's not.

It's ideas you should be targeting, not the concept of "America" or "westerners."

So what you should ask is "What gives human rights activist warhawks the moral right to talk about human rights when the Iraqi death toll exceeds well over one hundred thousand?" When you find such a person, you should ask him/her.