Your mistake is in portraying the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan as wars.
That is completely irrelevant.
when the factual behavior of demons is made public that is hardly demonizing
but that you find it so certainly explains some administrative actions
Your mistake is in portraying the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan as wars.
What on earth are you going on about.
That is completely irrelevant.
certainly so, but i would argue there are still extenuating circumstances for some kills that turn out to be illigetimate. often you don't have a clear good-guy-bad-guy dichotomy available to you in the second and a half that you have to make a decision; and after the noise is over, you've got a body. the natural impulse is to highlight the reasons why the man was guilty and why the decision to shoot was the right one. we blew an elderly man to bits in front of his entire family. why? because he accelerated a bongo truck at us after we tried to get him to stop and slow down, and it simply wasn't worth the risk that he was an SVBIED. that doesn't make him any less ultimately innocent, or any less dead. and yeah, we threw out flags and popped some smoke afterwards and Everyone Agreed that we had gone through the Entire Official Order ROE Procedure (magically, in the 3 seconds that we had after he hit the accelerator before it would have been too late) rather than simply waved a hand, a flag, and shot the grill of his vehicle.
even the man's family said that they didn't hold us responsible. of course, we were all holding big guns and we had just blown apart their grandad, so they may have been telling us what they thought we wanted to hear. i guess i'm just trying to point out that - as obviously insanely evil as this looks - that sometimes these things can become so befuddled and grey as to defy simple analysis. I can think offhand of several Iraqi's that i know to be responsible for the deaths of good men that I would willingly murder given the ability and opportunity.
i think the bit was a bit over the top in trying to ascribe negative or conspiratorial motives to trying to keep those photos off of the internet. there is nothing wrong with not wishing to inflame the situation further. as the trial progresses, their actions will become public knowledge, so it's not like anything is being hidden; we are simply denying the enemy an IO weapon.
.. and posed with their dead bodies.
Afghan Abu Ghraib ... except worse :/
Wouldn't blame Afghans if they got violent against the Soldiers. Some of the photos are just horrible and just imagine ... there was 4,000 found.
I'm not even going to post the photos. It should be in the link.
The 'Kill Team' Images: US Army Apologizes for Horrific Photos from Afghanistan - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
I don't know which bit is the worst part. The idea the photos were attempted to be hidden by the US or the apology only came when they got leaked :doh
Edit: Please merge if a thread has already been made on it. Couldn't see it on BN
I'm not going to let this anger or hurt me. Because that's what they want.
I wonder if he notices the first person to defend the military and the US in this was...a liberal.
I have always wondered how Americans can commit this kind of atrocity.
Alkaloids have effects on behavior other than the immediate effects of the drugs themselves while they are in a person's system.Pretty sure heroin abuse does not cause the taker to become violent or psychopathic. I very much doubt opiate abuse is a factor. Amphetamines, perhaps.
.. and posed with their dead bodies.
Afghan Abu Ghraib ... except worse :/
Wouldn't blame Afghans if they got violent against the Soldiers. Some of the photos are just horrible and just imagine ... there was 4,000 found.
I'm not even going to post the photos. It should be in the link.
The 'Kill Team' Images: US Army Apologizes for Horrific Photos from Afghanistan - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
I don't know which bit is the worst part. The idea the photos were attempted to be hidden by the US or the apology only came when they got leaked :doh
Edit: Please merge if a thread has already been made on it. Couldn't see it on BN
Admitting guilt doesn't lead me to believe that the circumstances of the events are very exculpatory.But circumstances rendering we are still missing the other side of the story or if we arent I have not read it.
All humans are capable of atrocity. It's in our genes.
Civilians always die in war. "Way back in the old days", killing villagers and destroying the whole village to deny the enemy santuary was a legitimate war tactic.
We as a military in modern warfare traditionally avoid civilian casualties as much as possible. Especially in this theater we understand that killing civilians does not enhance our mission...it inhibits it. We arent trying to kill as many people as we can. We arent trying just to defeat an enemy. The war against Iraq and Afghanistan ended a long time ago. We arent at war with either country. We are attempting to work with their governments, police forces, and military to help train them to do the job so that we wont have to. Killing civilians...especially intentionally targeting civilians is more than repugnant and wrong...its also bad business. Every act...every photograph...puts good soldiers in greater harm. If these people are convicted I would strip them of their uniforms and turn them directly over to the people of Afghanistan.
I have always wondered how Americans can commit this kind of atrocity.
Heh, the genetic argument.
We also have the capacity for great goodness. Whichever side we decide to nurture becomes dominant. You can't blame savagery on our genes, but our choices.
So, let me get this straight. You send people somewhere for the sole purpose of killing people, then you're angry when they kill people outside of your preferred manner of killing, and when they kill the people you haven't designated okay to kill. This all comes from a society that says killing is wrong...
I have always wondered how Americans can commit this kind of atrocity. .
Now imagine how often this happens. People that do nasty/tricky things are good at not getting caught. How many more deaths have come from the hands of someone that wants to rack up their kill count using civs? Why are THEY terrorists but WE aren't when our people do this? Are Arabs so non-human that we have to enable situations that can allow this? How can anyone argue that we are in Afgan for the greater good? Its just full of kids with really, really big and dangerous toys.
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