Jump to content

Talk:The Heroes of Desert Storm

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why not have a Muslim whatever-you-call-it give the funeral rights for the Iraqis?

[edit]

We can't find one Muslim holy person in the whole darned military to say the prayers for the Iraqi dead on the Highway of Death? Don't any Muslims enlist in the military? I am sure they do. I'm just a Christian (Baptist) but I'd understand how important it is for someone else to have the right holy man say the prayers. Chris-marsh-usa (talk) 07:41, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

small edit regading the nature of this fictionlised account of the U.S. attack on defencless Iraqi people.

[edit]

This is a silly and historically ridiculous propaganda film that has been reviewed without any understanding whatsoever of the totally unreal depiction of contemporary history that this film represents. The blatant and extreme racism and 'orientalism' in the wikipedia review of this movie is shameful. As any historian will know, the representation of this particular rendering of political, social and military history bears little if any relation to actual events. What is particularly offensive in this wikipedia review, apart from the overt racist xenophobic tones and historical innacuracy is the way in which the fascist American 'stormtrooper' patriot forces, who attacked the retreating poorly armed Iraqi soldiers and civilian refugees is the way the heavily armed U.S troops were 'reconfigured' as heroes. This particular perspective, of the extreme cowardice of the U.S attack, is generally held by most academics, historians - not to mention a vast majority of the worlds' population. Clearly wikipedia needs to provide a more critical and balanced review of this movie that glorifies cowardly war crimes by the United States. It is relevant to note that a wide body of the most respected North American academics have conceded that if the standards by which the Nazi regime was judged in the Nerenburg trials, all U.S presidents in the 20th and current century would have been sentenced to death for 'crimes against humanity'. A plethora of respected expert academic testimony upon the above facts can be provide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.92.128.177 (talk) 13:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

reply

[edit]

I will concede the program seems oversimplified for the American public. Every educated person, soldier, veteran, or neither, knows that there is no such thing as a missile without civilian causalties, only the relative minimization of civilian causalties. I will also concede that we were so quick to defend the Persian Gulf oil but so slow to save the lives of Muslims in Bosnia subsequently when there was no oil. It is my opinion that we had better get used to wars like this until we decide to substitute solar, wind, and nuclear for oil and ultimately develop alternatives to the necessary capacity (and/or substitute American natural gas for oil to buy time for alternatives as T. Boone Pickens has suggested). Peak Oil hit the United States in 1970: it means America's oil reserves were at maximum output, but that oil output is not subject to our control, and that America's oil output has diminished steadily (Hubbert's curve) in the 40 years since. Now we import half our petroleum and look what we have to show for it: the Arab Oil Embargoes of 1973 and 1979, the Tehran embassy hostage crisis, steadily increasing terrorism starting with the first U.S. airline hijacking in 1970 (PFLP) and many more since the 1980s and coming ever closer to home, finally 9/11 in 2001, military involvement in the Iran-Iraq War (Operation Preying Mantis), two wars against Iraq, and a war in Afghanistan allegedly related to a proposed pipeline: and maybe worse to come. The status quo does not fight terrorism, it enables it with all that petro money going abroad, and the status quo is too costly in terms of blood (everybody's). Given the gripes of some of our terrorist enemies, why don't we isolate them and let them keep their dirty oil?Chris-marsh-usa (talk) 07:30, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why not? Because we don't have the national will to do it. My graduate school professor once said you eat an elephant one bite at a time.Chris-marsh-usa (talk) 07:33, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Attacks on refugees?

[edit]

I don't think the attacks on civilians were intentional, if they happened at all.

Could Saddam's losing troops have tried to pass for refugees? Seems those cowards were capable of anything, including attacking Kuwaiti civilians. Would the Iraqis have even tried to fabricate an incident? Possible, maybe even likely. Look, I wasn't there. I'm not sure I would have been the same person if I had. The military changes people, war changes veterans. Thank God we have people who will rise to the occasion even at the expense of things they deserve like troop rotation.Chris-marsh-usa (talk) 07:52, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]