busetibi wrote:didnt they jail a soldier in Isreal a couple of months ago cause he wouldnt force those settlers out?
yeah, i'm talking bout US tho.. but I wouldn't be surprised although it was a direct order for him and all his troops and I'm not sure if Isreal has a all volunteer army as the states does...
Ryoki, was talking about incidents where a commander tells you to shoot a civilian or such things, if a direct order like take baghdad is a command coming from the government which you can't really get out of other then being a conciencious objector which then unfortunately takes 6 to 12 months to file through the right channels... and you sit in the brink, mowing lawns, yardwork, picking up trash, etc until it goes through.
Dek wrote:
Oh yes, if someone in your chain of command gives you a command that's immoral or unlawful you can disobey, no problem what so ever. You may get reprimanded on the spot by that person, but you can then take it to the next chain in the command, and so on. If you can't get it straightened out at their level, you take it one steop above, if they can't relieve the situation, you take another step above, etc.. usually this would take care of almost any issue so nobody will get a big head and someone is always responsible, of course shit happens like abu gherib and cancels this whole thing out, since so many didn't care.. but from my experience has never had or taken place around my wife or myself during our time in the military.
It's good that you name Abu Graib, since that is a nice example of fucked up responsability: some idiot privates and the general in charge get jailed and/or demoted when in fact spooks and civillian contractors told them exactly what to do. Noone has held them accountable, whilst they had far more to say about what went down there than anyone else.
It's an alright system i guess, except when the people at the top want you to do immoral things - which is very much how it appears to be.
Dek wrote:"According to the HDI, an Iraqi born in 1987 could expect to live 65 years while citizens in bordering Jordan had a life expectancy of 67 years. By 1998 an Iraqi was expected to live only 63.8 years while a Jordanian saw an increase in life expectancy 70.4 years in 1998. Compared to Jordan, where the literacy rate rose from 75 percent in 1985 to 88.6 percent in 1998, Iraq’s had dropped from 89 percent to 73.5 percent. In 1990, Iraq ranked three places above Jordan on the HDI. In 2000, Iraq placed 34 below Jordan."
weird - inconsistent data - in your second link it says that it used to be 89%.
gonna try to find pilger's or Rao Singh's email to see if they can clear things up.
Dek wrote:"According to the HDI, an Iraqi born in 1987 could expect to live 65 years while citizens in bordering Jordan had a life expectancy of 67 years. By 1998 an Iraqi was expected to live only 63.8 years while a Jordanian saw an increase in life expectancy 70.4 years in 1998. Compared to Jordan, where the literacy rate rose from 75 percent in 1985 to 88.6 percent in 1998, Iraq’s had dropped from 89 percent to 73.5 percent. In 1990, Iraq ranked three places above Jordan on the HDI. In 2000, Iraq placed 34 below Jordan."
weird - inconsistent data - in your second link it says that it used to be 89%.
gonna try to find pilger's or Rao Singh's email to see if they can clear things up.
Yes, in 1998 (which I hadn't placed figures before)
Notice.. Compared to Jordan, where the literacy rate rose from 75 percent in 1985 to 88.6 percent in 1998, Iraq’s had dropped from 89 percent to 73.5 percent.
Comprehension is your friend. They look to be judging from 85-98.
My point was to show you no where have I found any statistics quoting those figures the guy said... "IN HIS ESTIMATE" which makes everything after that opinion and speculation not fact based. You can contact Pilger for anything you want except for facts on this number they pulled out of their asses.
They also don't explain where they get their data whether they only queried the northern iraqis, etc.. Again, you take the left and take the right, and the truth is some where in the middle.
stop being so paranoid - i was actually agreeing with you in my post
i understood what they were saying here with regards to iraq vs. jordan - it's just that 89% seems way high compared to all the other official figures you and I have tried to find, even for 1985
