IEDs in Iraq being marked with label reading "against occupation forces only"

[sabra]

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/03/ied-marked-for.html

On Monday, an Iraqi Army battalion Division stopped a car in the Al Bakir neighborhood in Mosul, Iraq. After searching the car, the Iraqi Army found six improvised explosive devices (IEDs or roadside bombs.) The Long War Journal's Bill Roggio was there, and he's got a slideshow of what they found.

[LynnTheDem]

1. That's what Freedom Fighters do...attack their invaders.

I would.

Wouldn't most of us?

[KansDem]

2. Warning labels?

CAUTION: IEDs MAY BE HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH. Use against occupation forces only.

[sabra]

3. please consult with your doctor if you are feeling....

:sarcasm:

[I work for workers]

4. What's the ratio of Iraqi civilians to coalition forces killed by IEDs?

I suspect the bomb makers really couldn't give a damn who they kill.

[Beausoleil]

5. "I suspect the bomb makers really couldn't give a damn who they kill"

Now THAT could be said about either side.

What's the ratio of Iraqi civilians to "insurgents" killed by American bombs and bullets? It's got to be at least 20-1, and that's only if 50,000 insurgents have been killed.

[I work for workers]

6. Hard to say I guess.

Last I heard a definitive sounding number, it was 20k dead insurgents between Coalition and Iraqi forces. Compare that to the numbers on civilian deaths, somewhere around 80-150k. Even if every dead civilian was the product of American/British handiwork, that still only comes out at 1: 7.5 tops. That number doesn't factor that the majority of deaths are caused by insurgent groups or militias, not coalition forces.

I shouldn't have to spell this out, but there is a huge difference between Coalition and insurgent goals and methods. The former has the goal of stabilizing the nation, the latter wants to keep it falling apart. Coalition forces are going out of their way to avoid civilian deaths. The insurgency is going out of its way to cause them.

[NNN0LHI]

7. Every Iraqi we have killed is a war crime

From the very first bases full of Iraqi conscripts we turned into pink mist and everyone cheered to the ten year old girl who caught an American bullet today they were all innocent.

Remember it was all a big mistake? Saddam wasn't really going to send his Drones Of Death over here to gas us or turn NY city into a mushroom cloud like Bushco claimed. It was all BS.

According to international agreements our country signed our occupying force is responsible for everything that happens in Iraq. We don't get to take credit for the schools we painted and not the deaths we caused by turning Iraq into a scene from a Mad Max movie.

Pretty simple actually.

Don

[Ravachol]

10. Keep on listening to FAUX, seriously...

Most insurgents are of the nationalist type. They're resisting the occupying forces 'cause they feel they should leave. When you lose one of your family members due to "collateral damage" done by these very forces that, you claim, are trying to "stabilize the nation", let me tell you that sending online petitions isn't your prefered form of activism. Not when you lost your job and pretty much everything you've known as life in the past.

Complete bullshit that Coalition Forces (in fact, american forces) are going out of their way to avoid civilian deaths. You don't bomb modern cities if you want to avoid civilian deaths. Was Fallujah going out of their way to avoid civilian deaths?

Reading that kind of stuff... on DU no less...

[alfredo]

11. You also have to figure in how many are being killed by US funded

militias. How may have been killed by Iraq National Police. Last I hear, the Iraqis fear their own police more than US troops and the insurgents.

Iraq is a failed state. Saddam was like Tito, a brutal strongman who held together an artificial country of rival factions. When Tito died, Yugoslavia died. When Saddam died, Iraq died. Nothing we can do will put humpty Iragi back together again. They will revert back to their tribal boundaries. it will be very bloody, but it will have to happen. We can stay there and destroy our military and drain our treasury, or we can surrender to the inevitable by letting the Iraqis sort this out for themselves.

[malaise]

15. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Iraq was the most secular state in the Middle East before the invaders bombed it back to the dark ages. Please check those numbers - over one million Iraqis are dead, four million plus have fled their homes.

George Bush destroyed a country. Stabilize my ass -he went to steal their oil and make his cronies rich.

[I work for workers]

17. The Lancet study is a statistical laughing stock.

It's the anti-war equivalent to those fundy "gays X times more likely to molest children" studies.

150k dead Iraqis is enough of a disaster. We just make ourselves look foolish when we cite bad research.

[coalition_unwilling]

16. "The latter [Iraqi Resistance] wants to keep it falling apart" - man, you are in

serious need of some education. "Coalition forces are going out of their way to avoid civilian deaths". Whatever you have to tell yourself.

[catnhatnh]

8. Ok, I'll call propaganda bullshit on this one....

they have to improvise the actual bombs, but they have a production print shop silk screening self adhesive two color warning labels complete with international warning graphics????

[TheWraith]

9. To be clear, this is on the detonator, not the bombs themselves.

Still weird.

[Javaman]

13. Are we actually sure that's what it reads to begin with or is that what

the "officials" are telling us.

For all we know it could read, "do not rip, staple or spindle".

[TheWraith]

14. According to Wired, other people have looked at it.

They say a better translation is "Device for use against occupation forces only."

Upon thinking about it some more, my first guess would be that somebody in the Iraqi insurgency has a perverse sense of humor.

[Vickers]

12. Wow, that's pretty professional looking for an IED...

:eyes: