After the fact how? This is not like Viet Nam or World War II. Today, we are talking about an all volunteer military force consisting of people who, in most cases, knew exactly where they were going to be sent and who they were going to kill, yet signed up anyway. Therefore, they are either murderers or accomplices to murder.
How would they know if they were going to Iraq or Afghanistan? The fact is we were attacked and many people felt a genuine compulsion to defend the country.
Because we have been at war with either of those two countries for nearly a decade, spidergoat. Therefore, everyone who has joined over that period of time has (1) known who we are at war with and (2) knew that they were making themselves available to be sent over to those locations to kill people or to facilitate the killing in some way. There is no genuine compulsion at work here. The opportunities to engage in killing and destruction are primarily what attract people to military service. Denying that fact makes no difference. It's akin to the people who join the police force after they get out of the military...because they wish to continue living a violent lifestyle with impunity. Trying to substantiate that kind of primitive barbarism, with grandiose claims of being "patriotic" or "wanting to serve," is an insult to the intelligence of every peaceful and rational human being. If they disagreed with the foreign policy of the government (as many claim to) then they would not be carrying out the orders they know to be immoral. If they were truly principled, then they would not have signed up at all.
You are incorrect, people are attracted to the military for: 1. Patriotism 2. A job Maybe a tiny percentage just want to kill people, but most soldiers are not like that. Even you acknowledge that WWII was a necessary war. So, being a soldier is not a dishonorable profession. The problem is with our leaders who take us to war for reasons other than defense of ourselves or an ally. Being a soldier is not primitive or barbaric, because without them, we would be living in a fascist dictatorship, and I would be dead. In the Iraq war, even many of our own politicians were fooled by claims of WMDs. The insurgents were killing people, their own people, and these days things are better in Iraq. Assuming we already invaded Iraq, it was not necessarily immoral to try and end the insurgency and bring peace to the country. I knew that once we invaded, we would be obligated to finish the task. So, the question of morality is not at all clear. If these people had been armed insurgents, they could have been responsible for killing people. These soldiers in the helicopter made a mistake, but it would not have been immoral for them to kill genuine insurgents. The only reason we are seeing this is because it was not successful. Secondly, it would not be immoral to take part in the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban really did assist Al Quida in their attacks on the US and our allies.
Uh, take a look back at that combination of phrases. Our military is not to blame for what, exactly? The consequences of its complicity in implementing corrupt and abhorrent economic and political agenda? training regimen? strategical choices? tactical choices? consistent and documented patterns of behavior? It's concealment of these complicities and consequences, often by means of direct and indirects attacks on its critics? No, they didn't. No evidence of any such help has ever been made public. Say what? There is also a problem with signing on to support such leaders, and in particular killing people by the tens of thousands in their support. Without them, you would have no fear of fascistic dictatorships - soldiers are their major support.
Not to blame for given the task of overthrowing Saddam's government. That's a matter of opinion, the military is obligated under law to carry out the legal orders of the congress as implemented by the president. Perhaps there is some blame for poor training, but to my untrained eye, the camera could be mistaken for a weapon. No, they are not to blame for our strategy of flying around killing people with guns. No, I don't think they are to blame for tactical choices, which seem to have been smart and generally well implemented. What does that mean? War is hell, and mistakes are made, it's a chaotic situation full of death and destruction, which is why we cannot take the decision to go to war lightly. Yes, sometimes they do conceal their actions. I'm thinking of Pat Tilman. But are they under any obligation to reveal them? They are ideologically identical and occupied the same land. Al Quida could not exist in Afghanistan without the consent of the Taliban. That's enough for me to declare them both enemies. You don't know why any particular individual signed on, and anyway, your assumption that the war in Afghanistan is immoral is not shared by most Republican and Democratic leaders, including Obama. There is not a damn thing wrong with joining a military tasked with defending our nation, even if it means you might kill people. Even if it means you might accidentally kill the wrong person. I meant our military, not theirs.
Hilarious, but I can see how it could be inappropriate. Entertaining. On the other hand, it is this kind of bullshit that breeds what I call, "The G.I. Jackass." They are the biggest assholes, period. They are so gung-ho about how much they do for the country and how much the country owes them and how they're sacrificing this and going off to die for that and how civilians are all staying at home smoking weed and sitting on their asses and talking shit, I would love to shove their firearms up their asses until they die from internal hemmorhaging. I'm glad we're using them as cannon fodder because they're intolerable! Seriously, what are they being trained to do? Annoy the enemy to death? The other stuff is cool. WillNever, quit being sanctimonious and annoying. Seriously, you just gave me this incredibly painful migraine.
They shoot Reuters journalists in vans because Congress told them to? We are talking about the military, right? Yes, they are to blame for all that. It's their strategy, their tactics, their responsibility entirely. Choices of bad training, strategy, and tactic are mistakes which incur blame. We are under no obligation to believe liars who conceal things from us by policy. Nor are we encouraged to agree with exonerations of their behavior that rest on their lies and misinformation. No, they aren't and don't. They are ideologically and ethnically and culturally quite distinct. And your judgment in this matter is beginning to look a bit strange.
Better how? Take a good look at the results of the invasion. Have we "saved" the Iraqis yet..? We've been fighting this illegal war for longer than we fought the Germans and the Japanese during World War II. Iraq has been destroyed, their culture is being butchered, they have been in a full-scale religious civil war, and Al Qaeda -- who never used to be present when Iraq was controlled by Hussein -- have moved in and are asserting their own sick agenda in the region. Iraq hasn't been saved... it's been ruined, and the terrorists we supposedly sought to destroy are still at large. Way to go, US soldiers..! I honestly don't wanna hear about "humanitarian reasons" or "liberation goals" from you either. It ain't happening. That song and dance has been played way too many times in order to justify this war which has helped to pulverize our OWN country into political and economic pebbles. If any of that bullshit were true, then where was the USA during the tyrannical reign of Idi Amin during the 1970's..? Where was the USA during the incomprehensible butchery between the tribes of Rwanda and Zaire during the 1980's and early 1990's..? Where is the USA in Dharfur..? Why aren't we in Ghana, preventing them from committing routine atrocities upon the vaginas of screaming little girls (genital infibulation without anesthesia -- look it up). Why aren't we in Thailand, rescuing thousands and thousands of very young women from the clutches of pimps and sex slave traders..? I don't think I need to list anymore human rights abuses.... it's too horrible to think about. The reason we have never invaded any of those countries -- regions where there have been a long history of FAR worse atrocities and slaughter than in Iraq-- is because their major exports are dates, figs and venereal disease -- not petroleum. No profits to be made from saving those poor human beings -- so we've never bothered to rescue them, and the horror continues unabated in those places to this very day. That is the sick, unvarnished truth. The military has long been a bunch of twisted, profiteering liars and unintelligent pawns who no longer deserve support, and there is no reason to believe otherwise.
SAM does not really care about the deaths of anyone. If she did, she'd be equally upset at the insurgents who killed civilians in the same time period, 2007, when fighting was at its worst. She doesn't give a shit about the civilians dead at their hands though. All SAM cares about is exploiting the deaths of civilians iin a way that lets her condemn the U.S. She's a selfish bitch who uses their tragic deaths to feed her own sense of moral superiority, what a wonderful legacy for them. The truth is that these deaths seem to have been a tragic, but understandable consequence of war. War is Hell. War is a place where people die and how many civilians die based on the ROE is a function of just how much you risk you are willing to expose your troops to. In the case of the U.S., the answer is: our troops bear a lot of risk for the sake of preventing civilian casualties. Evidence? We could very easily level any city that has insurgents it it. We don't, instead we engage in risky street by steet and door to door fighting. If we were the monsters SAM likes to pretend we are there would be no video, because we would simply have firebombed the neighborhood from high above. In real war, there isn't time for a careful evaluation of each target that springs up, and mistakes are made. The is the worst actual complaints SAM has are that (1) War is dangerous and people die and (2) that Americans are not perfect and so sometimes the wrong people die. She then blows that out of all proportion and completely ignores any factors that influence the situattion in our favor, like the nature of the enemy and the risk posed to anyone stupid enough not to fire when the ROE tells you to. Still SAM is gleeful at these deaths as they let her self-righteous screed bubble up once again with the same dull droning sound. She's sick.
This is the first time I've seen you lose it. You must feel very strongly about the video. It would be interesting to know what you really think of those civilians being slaughtered like that.
I watched the 40-minute version and thought that the shootings looked justified in light of the circumstances. The investigation reached the right conclusion. The deaths were regretable, but legal. If I have lost it, it's because when I saw your name and the thread title I knew 100% for sure that you were not condemning any real murderers, just soldiers, and I knew their nationality. No need to read the thread to figure that out. With any real murderers or terrorists, you almost seem to have a "Never is heard a discouraging word" policy.
Not to put too fine a point on things, but when you are flying around shooting civilians and journalists from helicopters, the question of who the "terrorists" are gets kinda ambiguous, don't you think?
If the shooting looked justified to you, you obviously live on a different planet than I do. So its hardly surprising that seeing the video would have different reactions. Still, I thought your reaction was pretty interesting. I never thought to see that kind of reaction from you. You're usually pretty good at focusing on the post rather than the poster.
US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times. (link)
If true (and Salon is not much of a source), then they should be punished, for lying and concealing evidence. Not murder. SAM and this sort of crap are the reasons people become that afraid after a mistake is made, and try to hide it, because there are enemies of the US (SAM included, unfortunately) who will use any mistake to tar and feather them, and feel smug about doing so. Again, if the U.S. military wanted civilians dead, we could could already kill them by the hundreds of millions. We don't, which is why we have soldiers in easy bullet and RPG range of hostile forces. If we were cavalier about it it, even, you'd think we'd err onm the side of protecting our own. Instead, we put them in harms way with some ROE and a lot of training to bang into their heads what the ROE requires. All this hand wringing for those civilians is a farce. People feign outrage only because it provides an opportunity to wag a finger at the U.S., all while secretly smiling behind a fake mask of sadness. No one here feels 1/100th as badly about those deaths as the soldiers involved. And I'd contend that the people at Salon feel no true sadness at all. If anything, they are probably glad that the incident occurred, for the same reason SAM is, because it makes them feel superior to tell condemn the US. It's sick, but it's also human nature. Conservatives are glad when Obama fails, even if people get hurt. Enemies of the U.S. are glad when the U.S. makes mistakes, even if people die. So long as it's someone they don't know personally, it's all just an opportunity.
There is a difference between being merely wicked and being irreparably evil. You have to work at being wicked, being evil requires being indifferent to the consequences of your wicked actions. Whatever justifications people make for Americans signing up voluntarily to kill people in other countries for no good reason whatsoever, it shouldn't be up to the same troops to decide what their actions mean. Let everyone see for themselves what they do, and reach their own independent conclusions. The odd whistleblower is the exception, not the rule. The rule is apathy and indifference and complicity in making real an oppressive and exploitative foreign policy with global repercussions. Good intentions pave the road to hell. They mean nothing when you are neck deep in other peoples suffering, not giving a damn for anything other than appearances
Just so no one is confused, I am not a foreigner to America. I'm a citizen here, born and raised. And unlike most of you, I can even trace my family back to some of my direct ancestors on my mother's Scottish side who fought the British in the American revolutionary war. You see, unlike today's all volunteer military force, they didn't fight because it was a career or because they wanted money from the government. Nope, my direct ancestors didn't need to be bribed to fight at Bunker hill. They did so because they were principled. That fact makes me all the more angrier when I see that much nobler legacy being tainted by the actions of today's American military-for-hire.
Can't get nobler than fighting a civil war overseas Sorry, I just find all this "noble" warfare a big joke. War is carnage, it is blood and body parts, fear and sweat. There is no nobility in killing.
The problem is that you have no good intentions here. Your posts are not really about the victims. You play at caring about them sometimes, but you don't. This is solely about feeding your sense of moral superiority. This is a thread where you milk the tragic deaths of real people for narcissistic benefit. If tapes of US operations flooded the internet, you'd evaluate 99.9% of them as signs of abuse every time a civilian dies accidentally. Granted, that you would also condemn 100% of the incidents where a civilian dies at the hands of the U.S. unlawfully, and those incidents occur too (but, no, they are not the norm). And yet, if tapes of insurgent operations flooded the net at the same time, you'd continue to assiduously avoid condemning them for civilian deaths caused, even if intentional. Why? Because theat doesn't suit your emotional needs. The U.S. does self-investigate, they just don't share your bias for declaring every incident a "murder," nor do they assume guilt and then shift the burden of proof to the accused in the way that you do. Face it, you are to U.S. military conduct what the birthers are to Obama.
