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+ Show Spoiler +i wrote this up early this morning. i've been torn about actually posting this on an international community generally populated by liberal-minded people. day9 has said that a strength of starcraft players is their decision making... i find that humorous considering how neurotic i can be sometimes. after an hour flirting with the 'post blog' button, i've decided to send this. i'm going to lace my veins with caffeine and train all day on sc2 now. merry christmas.
It's a given that 'war is hell.' Everybody knows this cliche. If somebody who has absolutely no idea what war is like, or its effects on humanity and civilizations (whether in the grand scheme of things or on a personal/cultural level), they at least know that 'war is hell.'
What exactly does that entail? I believe the entire Iraq situation is hell. If hell exists and could have been brought to earth, then the cradle of civilization is where it happened. You could say that the genocides in Africa and southeast Asia in recent memory are better examples of this, but I didn't get to experience those.
Iraq should have never happened. Everybody knows this, down to pretty much every single person that I served with (there are some who lie to themselves to justify the continued killing of people. I can at once relate and be disgusted at this notion... I could talk about the lust for blood among us for a good while, but I'll spare you guys that rant for your alls' sake). The decision to invade and occupy Iraq alone was completely immoral and fucking wrong, beginning with the propaganda perpetuated by the United States government and American media. During the initial invasion, I was just finishing up middle school... a mosquito taking a shit on the moon had more significance to my self-absorbed self than what was happening in bumfuck Middle East. It wasn't until I shipped out after enlisting that I realized how incredibly pointless and destructive the Iraq conflict was.
I'll keep away from much of the large-scale politics and focus on the military experience side of things, in particular one. The unit I was with touts itself as the most elite light-infantry fighting force on the planet. We were (are) a bunch of highly-motivated, in shape and very capable group fighting men. Most of us were in the 18-25 age range, so you can imagine to yourself the amount of testosterone that was in the atmosphere. Our sole existence in life was to blow shit up and kill assholes, so you can imagine the amount of excitement deployments have for us. I was not spared from these sentiments; it's true, I joined the army to jump out of airplanes and shoot people in the face. The prospects of graduating college and being stuck in an office, combined with the monotonous pace that schoolwork in college entailed, pushed my nerdy self to completely alter the path i had in life. What better way to actualize this than to join the army and kill (supposed) terrorists, people out to surreptitiously invade America and eventually take over the world? I had the idealistic notion that I was going to become a freedom fighter. lol.
Things didn't quite turn out that way. The first firefight I was in was when our platoon was near ambushed. We were walking along a road to our target compound when my team leader, the point man (the guy who guides the entire platoon along our prescribed route) saw a man creeping out of a house with an AK-47 towards us. He initiated the contact, and the enemy reciprocated it. Firefight commenced.
There was more than the single man creeping out of his house towards us. There was a fucking belt-fed machine gun on top of the roof (similar to the american M240 if you know of it) and a few other people positioned around the house as well with AK's. Half of our platoon maneuvered themselves into a canal next to the road, and the other half (the half i was in) took cover behind farm equipment next to the house. Our yearn to kill and hard training paid then as it did countless times in future deployments, and we silenced them very quickly with precision small arms fire.
We weren't about to assume that the target was completely neutralized, however. You learn quite early that when people truly want you dead, they will do everything in their power to make sure they take you out before they assume the Freddy Mercury pose (dead people tend to buck their teeth out. The first thing i thought when i saw my first Arab corpse was that they look exactly like Freddy Mercury). We weren't going to take unnecessary risks with that reaper of a machine gun on the roof, so we fell back and dumped 40mm high explosive rounds with our 203's (grenade launchers) into the windows to kill anybody in the house.
After all was said and done and we began the searching of corpses, we came to find out that three little girls were killed in the fray, probably from the 40mm. I honestly don't remember the other casualty tallies; there were people fleeing in the fields that were killed ("sometimes they dress as women!" is what one of our team leaders yelled before he picked them off) that were never searched, and I was only a private at the time and didn't have a radio ("only worry about yourself and not fucking up," was the advice dispensed to the new guys). I recall clearly only a handful of things at the time: how close one of the armed men was to me (he had a clear shot at me if he reacted right), all the fucking dust that obscured a lot of vision, how gratifying it felt to shoot my grenade launcher through the windows like a fucking champ, and the cracking of rounds around us.
We had an informal debrief of the girls killed after the mission was over. It more or less was dismissal of collateral damage under the pretense that 'shit happens.' At the time, I wasn't too worried about it. If your family allowed a machine gun to be nested on your roof to try and kill coalition forces and you end up dying because of daddy and his buddies, then your parents fucking failed you. End of story. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
This last paragraph alone merits the cliched 'war is hell' phrase. Here we were, a group of thrill-seeking and bloodthirsty young men out to earn our paychecks and assume our livelihood, which is to kill assholes who are out to kill you. Our primal and visceral urges culminated in the ending of a few arab lives, to include innocent children, and not a single fuck was given that night. When the sun came up as we were rehashing our equipment for the next mission, we were all high on the success of the firefight and the crisp execution of what we trained for (this happened the first week of the deployment). It actualized the legitimacy of our platoon as a fighting force (in my feeble and young mind, anyway. During the entire training cycle back in the states, you train hard and work hard and yet in the very back of your mind, you wonder about how things actually happen when shit goes down) at that point and set the tone for the rest of the deployment. A barbaric disaster in any first world nation, but just another day in Iraq.
 
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I don't know what to say. I've met a lot of people who were over there and they all have disagreed with you entirely (about the necessity of being over there). You didn't get into it, so I won't, but I do think you've definitely overstated the popularity of your own opinion. And none of them were "lying so they could justify their urge to kill stuff" either... so I don't know.
On the story, well, I guess I have to ask why you feel like that makes the war or your effort in it worthless? I don't know how terrible it is to kill, but how much worse is it to do nothing? I mean, as you said, "shit happens". You didn't put those kids in that house, the American government didn't put those kids in that house, and no one could have taken them out of that house. If those kids shouldn't be in that house, isn't that why we're there? So those kids don't have to be in that house anymore? We could argue all day about why we went, what we've accomplished, etc. But at the end of the day, I am convinced that we made the right move by going in, and are making the wrong move by unilaterally pulling out.
It's hard, man, it really is. But keep your head up, and don't be hard on yourself. From everything you've said, there was no choice. It was a job. It may sound like a horrible attitude, but the fact is, you did your job, you did it well, and that's all that matters. God Bless you, and Merry Christmas.
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Thank you for posting this. By far the most interesting blog I've read on here in a long time. The Freddie Mercury observation is kind of hilarious, in it's own morbid way. Are you going to post more stories from your deployment? I think it's important for people to know about the reality of war regardless of their political view.
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Really weird what some people think when they go in. I think that's why a lot of people in the infantry bitch and complain 24/7. I can only assume you were a Ranger..
From someone who has been there, shit does happen. You sound like another person who signed up for the wrong reasons, and watched too many war movies before you were in.
Hope everything is good with you though, and I don't mean to be 100% negative. Happy holidays 
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One of my proudest accomplishments in my life was working in the VA Hospital with veterans like you. You guys are legitimate heroes to me. I was surprised by how many veterans are pacifists like you (really almost 100% of them).
Take good care of yourself. If you are having any signs of PTSD I would make sure to talk to family/friends about this. The VA Hospitals range from tolerable to dangerous in terms of medical care, but they all seem to have great social and psychological support compared to what the average American has access to.
You seem to be adjusting very well, and I agree with everything you said. Hopefully we will be leaving Iraq for good soon and may it be a long time before we take it upon ourselves to "save" another nation with bombs and bullets. You did everything right, and went to Iraq with the best of intentions. In the end of the day you were risking your life to keep my and my family safe, and I deeply appreciate this. Your feelings in combat were exactly what you were trained to feel, and you don't need to feel guilty in any way for what you did. Thanks for your blog and I wish you all the best.
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On December 26 2011 03:08 Hypertension wrote:
One of my proudest accomplishments in my life was working in the VA Hospital with veterans like you. You guys are legitimate heroes to me. I was surprised by how many veterans are pacifists like you (really almost 100% of them).
In the end of the day you were risking your life to keep my and my family safe, and I deeply appreciate this. Your feelings in combat were exactly what you were trained to feel, and you don't need to feel guilty in any way for what you did. Thanks for your blog and I wish you all the best.
He shot a bunch of people in combat and you call him a pacifist? I don't think that word means what you think it means. After reading the OP, I get the impression that while he does think war in general is a very awful thing, he's still going "HELL YEA BRAH HIFIVE" after combat. This is not heroic, at all.
Does his fighting in Iraq really improve the safety of anyone in the US? It's not like they are fighting in "Terrorism Land" and if they win the war then asymmetric warfare ceases to exist.
If this is what they are trained to feel in the US military, I genuinely think it needs to change. War might be a necessary evil but it is gruesome and not really something to be excited about. If you get thrilled about killing people, you probably should not be someone who can make them die.
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I think you should try to volunteer in a VA Hospital to see what I mean. The military takes a lot of advantage of these men when they are teenagers, and it is silly to be angry at the veterans for what they did. The unofficial motto of the marines is basically "kill, kill, kill". Soldiers are trained to be violent. Look up military hazing rituals sometime.
Then these people come back the the US, and a lot of them have suffered psychological damage. A lot of them turn to drugs, and alcohol. They know that its killing them, but they feel so guilty about what they did that a slow suicide seems reasonable. For some reason people don't like to hire veterans (probably because of the reputation for psychological damage and drug abuse aren't the best selling points in this economy), so they end up homeless.
And the bottom line is they really are great people. They will put up with almost any amount of BS with no complaint. they will let resident's and another barely trained medical staff stick them with giant needles with almost no complaints. They have gunshot wounds, horrible chronic pain, nightmares, being homeless, est.
As a country we need to figure out how to treat our veterans much better.
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Maybe there is justifiable wars or maybe there isn't.. pretty clear to anyone with a semblance of a brain is that the invasion of iraq was not one of those. Hope you are alright and live a good life in the future and thanks alot for sharing this story it was really touching.
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+ Show Spoiler +On December 26 2011 04:18 Hypertension wrote:
I think you should try to volunteer in a VA Hospital to see what I mean. The military takes a lot of advantage of these men when they are teenagers, and it is silly to be angry at the veterans for what they did. The unofficial motto of the marines is basically "kill, kill, kill". Soldiers are trained to be violent. Look up military hazing rituals sometime.
Then these people come back the the US, and a lot of them have suffered psychological damage. A lot of them turn to drugs, and alcohol. They know that its killing them, but they feel so guilty about what they did that a slow suicide seems reasonable. For some reason people don't like to hire veterans (probably because of the reputation for psychological damage and drug abuse aren't the best selling points in this economy), so they end up homeless.
And the bottom line is they really are great people. They will put up with almost any amount of BS with no complaint. they will let resident's and another barely trained medical staff stick them with giant needles with almost no complaints. They have gunshot wounds, horrible chronic pain, nightmares, being homeless, est.
As a country we need to figure out how to treat our veterans much better.
I don't live in the US so I don't think that is an option for me. I'm not angry at the veterans, I just don't think what they do is commendable. If the general majority view is that the Iraq war is pretty much bullshit, why do the soldiers who fight in it get excused entirely? The US doesn't use a conscription army so all military service is voluntary, they decided to enlist and had the choice of not getting involved.
As for treating the veterans better, I do agree. The military/government really lets them down afterwards but this isn't really anything new. At least as far back as the Vietnam war, there already was the stereotype of PTSD vets not being able to live a normal life after service.
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On December 26 2011 02:59 luckylefty wrote:Really weird what some people think when they go in. I think that's why a lot of people in the infantry bitch and complain 24/7. I can only assume you were a Ranger.. From someone who has been there, shit does happen. You sound like another person who signed up for the wrong reasons, and watched too many war movies before you were in. Hope everything is good with you though, and I don't mean to be 100% negative. Happy holidays
this exactly. War isnt glamorous. People get into war to kill people. Thats the intention. they want to take the life of someone else, for whatever various reasons they have.
On December 26 2011 02:19 MasterBlasterCaster wrote:
I don't know what to say. I've met a lot of people who were over there and they all have disagreed with you entirely (about the necessity of being over there). You didn't get into it, so I won't, but I do think you've definitely overstated the popularity of your own opinion. And none of them were "lying so they could justify their urge to kill stuff" either... so I don't know.
On the story, well, I guess I have to ask why you feel like that makes the war or your effort in it worthless? I don't know how terrible it is to kill, but how much worse is it to do nothing? I mean, as you said, "shit happens". You didn't put those kids in that house, the American government didn't put those kids in that house, and no one could have taken them out of that house. If those kids shouldn't be in that house, isn't that why we're there? So those kids don't have to be in that house anymore? We could argue all day about why we went, what we've accomplished, etc. But at the end of the day, I am convinced that we made the right move by going in, and are making the wrong move by unilaterally pulling out.
It's hard, man, it really is. But keep your head up, and don't be hard on yourself. From everything you've said, there was no choice. It was a job. It may sound like a horrible attitude, but the fact is, you did your job, you did it well, and that's all that matters. God Bless you, and Merry Christmas.
true enough, those kids shouldn't have to have been in a warzone, so take the warzone to their house and kill them so they don't have to have a warzone outside their house killing them. Do you see the circular logic? This is another way to rationalize war, and not a very good one. You can just as easily say that the deadly position they are in is because americans invade their land to kill people.
What was the reason to make war on saddam again? Was it nukes never found? Was it Iraqi freedom after the Nuke propaganda failed? Was it to get rid of terrorists, only to have all terrorists converge in Iraq to fight US forces (which btw means they're not attacking the US directly). All it means is that people have the sentiment thatit is better Iraqi innocents die than americans.
How about them death squads too? People killing civilians and then planting guns on them for fun. You guys think Vietnam wouldn't be a repeat sending over a bunch of barely trained teens to be vetted under the command of sociopathic murderers who joined the army to kill people legally? What kind of mind do you think the army generally attracts? Idealists who figure out its not what they thought, people with reasonable moral compasses who realize war should never exist, young people who still hold onto the black and white ideology and use that as a reasonable excuse to "play war", only this time instead of being around neighborhood kids and pretend shooting each other, taking real lives and regretting that they had a desire to kill, and then sociopaths; thrill seekers and people who give less than two shits about the lives of others, sometimes even wanting to kill other people but unable to do it unless they sign up for the army. Did you know that your teenage daughter is more likely to be molested by police than a random stranger? Power to be granted the ability to abuse others and be protected by a government system from any moral repercussions attracts minds who want to abuse others.
We can state for a fact that many people in the army in iraq have killed children, killed innocents willfully for fun, raped women, and possible kids, and generally living out their immoral fantasies they cant legally here. Its simply a fact.
War is exploitation. There's never a reason to start one when it can be avoided, and there was no pressing need for war with Iraq. It was all smoke and mirrors. I'm glad the OP feels the way he does, if more people felt like the OP, noone would war.
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@humanfails
There were many reasons why we went to war with Saddam. I won't go into it here, because that's not what this thread is about, but you can go read Congress' rationale with a simple Google search of "Authorization of Military Force in Iraq". They list a couple of different reasons, only some of which were WMDs or the nuclear program. The media jumped all over the WMDs which is why most people think it was all over that, and then when we didn't find them... well, you know the story.
I reject and condemn your stereotyping the military and those who join it. First, you are basing those stereotypes on misinformation and common misconceptions about who joins the military and who doesn't. You cite no facts, sources, studies, or anything at all. A couple of different quotes illustrate this:
How about them death squads too? People killing civilians and then planting guns on them for fun.
????
What kind of mind do you think the army generally attracts?
Generally, I have found that they attract idealists, cynics and ne'er-do-wells. Funny thing is, and you probably don't know this, the military has a higher average IQ than the general population. Some of the men and women who serve are "slow" and probably will never set the intellectual world on fire, but then again, they are probably much better at what they do than you are at what you do. Is a guy who can hit a moving target over a mile away with a sniper rifle a genius? I don't know, but I know he's a lot more impressive than almost anyone else on Earth.
Did you know that your teenage daughter is more likely to be molested by police than a random stranger?
This is more of the same: you throwing out random, irrelevant, un-sourced "facts" and making conclusions about unrelated topics based on them.
We can state for a fact that many people in the army in iraq have killed children, killed innocents willfully for fun, raped women, and possible kids, and generally living out their immoral fantasies they cant legally here. Its simply a fact.
What is simply a fact? That there are bad people in every single organization on earth? Well, yeah, that's certainly true. Is there any more prevalence of this than in the general population? I doubt it. If you don't doubt it, and if it's such a "fact" than it should be easy for you to prove it.
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To say "random facts dont connect" is to ignore the connection.
power is a concept. Authority is a concept. military is authority. positions of "authority" attract "successful" sociopaths. successful in the sense that they do something society condones and don't become a random murderer.
Those death squads were not isolated ot afghan, they were in iraq too, men and women who torture and kill civilians for fun, then plant guns on them to justify the murders in the reports. They cut the body parts of them as trophies of their kills. I you know so much about the Iraq war as you're implying, you should know these doings were exposed 1 week before bin laden was coincidentally killed. I suppose im not surprised you didn't hear of the death squads then. I mean, it would've been all over he news for a month, perhaps, and turned public opinion violently against the wars, but then the prize of a dead bin laden instantly dropped in our laps (when it is international law that he would be taken to trial). imagine the sense of urgency for Obama to get bin ladens corpse immediately so the whole invasion thing doesn't spiral into Vietnam era US protests due to the death squads.
You are clearly not very well informed about what goes on there at all.
there is more prevalence in organizations that give people the power to commit abuse and get away with it. Because in all other organizations these people are jailed or thrown out. It's simply good thinking. "I want to kill people for the fun of it, I want to be able to molest females and get away with it, as a "peace" officer or military man, I can do this and get away with it".
My sister was drugged and gang raped, as a marine within the corps, by people in the corps. Any discipline taken? nope. Standard procedure. You can have all the respect in the world for these people since they can kill someone from a mile away, however. Apparently that's your juice.
true enough, those kids shouldn't have to have been in a warzone, so take the warzone to their house and kill them so they don't have to have a warzone outside their house killing them. Do you see the circular logic? This is another way to rationalize war, and not a very good one. You can just as easily say that the deadly position they are in is because americans invade their land to kill people.
yes, Im requoting something I wrote above, simply to reiterate a basic logical reality:
When the Tao is used to govern the world,
then evil will lose its power to harm the people.
Not that evil will no longer exist,
but only because it has lost its power.
Just as evil can lose its ability to harm,
the Master shuns the use of violence.
If you give evil nothing to oppose,
then virtue will return by itself.
Let's say you are right that little kids shouldnt have a machine gun nest on their roof and their parents shouldn't have allowed it.
1. Their parents could've been threatened with death.
2. Their parents could've believed that the Americans were invading their country and wanted to kill them, and well, they were proved right weren't they?
3. That machine gun nest would go useless and rust if Americans didn't go attack. As Lao Tzu also says "To overcome something, give way to it like water". You know that Bruce Lee, martial artist, practiced Taoism as a fundamental aspect of not only his art (martial) but in his personal life, since rigorous practice of ideals tend to invade all of your psyche and life.
I'll leave you with one more quote.
When the people become rebellious,
the government has become too intrusive.
When people begin to view death lightly,
the wealthy have too much
which causes others to starve.
Only those who do not cling to their life can save it.
I tried to make the connection of the individual quoted lines to the sentences below, with numbers, so that it is easier for you to see the connection. Without the numbers, it seems you cannot.
1. The U.S.; illegal wiretaps, Patriot act, airport scanners, indefinite holding on "terrorists". All so similar to the japanese concentration camps in america, but with the advantage of "terrorist" being anyone and everyone, so not a race that is singled out and thus incites cries of human decency from a passive population.
2. The OWS movements. Originally about the disappearing middle class, the localization of all wealth into the hands of a very few people, etc. and the abuses of power these wealthy instutions commit, harming the quality of life of the poor classes.
3. America thoroughly divided among its population, passive through lack of solidarity, infighting, and general disagreement. Most people think "Just let us have our TV (and Xbox/PS3) and sit in our living room and leave us alone" (quote, Network, the movie). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death . People want to hide. Wheres the activism and participation in political process? Plug our ears, cling to our lives as they are, because we're not prepared to lose any of these comforts to make things better in the long run. Let the country and even the world decay around as long as there's parties and personal entertainments to keep us high.
Kind of like how Russia was with people who still had money after the fall of the USSR. How did Russia do during those years up til now?
If you still cant see links between anything posted here and it looks random, well,I can link these seemingly random things myself because all mental constructs of reality are concepts and concepts that are the same connect even if they superficially look different or are 1000000 miles away. I also have tested and proven IQ of 140, so maybe there's another reason I can understand connections.
Edit; on thinking about your argument over the nukes vs all the "valid" reasons to attack Iraq;
1. Bush Senior failed to oust Saddam, so there's a personal reason for Bush Junior to go back and do it. Wouldn't be surprised is his dad encouraged it.
2. The public media is owned by large corporations that have their hands in the pockets of government. They're going to run the most sensational story that the government wants to be run. Thats the reason "NUKE!" was plastered on the news as the reason for going to war. And it worked. All those other reasons weren't good enough, or perhaps only the threat of nuclear weaponry was the only reason necessary for the general population. Whether you believe it or not, it was this representation that got the population on board with the war, so in essence it was a lie used so the population would support it. What you're essentially saying by disagreeing is that the government knows better and has a better moral compass, so it doesn't matter that people were mislead to support it.
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Thanks for the good read. Wish there were more blogs like this one.
Gotta say, I'm genuinely surprised that there are still people trying to justify the war in Iraq. Oo
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On December 26 2011 05:02 Humanfails wrote:
To say "random facts dont connect" is to ignore the connection.
power is a concept. Authority is a concept. military is authority. positions of "authority" attract "successful" sociopaths. successful in the sense that they do something society condones and don't become a random murderer.
You keep saying this, but it's exactly what I said it was: pure speculation on your part. As far as I can tell, baseless speculation at that. I don't know how to respond to it because of that. Are sociopaths going to end up in the military? Yes, but they will also end up as teachers, bus drivers and doctors so I don't know why you bring it up. Perhaps you think they do more damage in the military than they do in those positions, but that is entirely off-topic and I don't think we should drag the blog that far away from it's original point.
On December 26 2011 05:02 Humanfails wrote:
Those death squads were not isolated ot afghan, they were in iraq too, men and women who torture and kill civilians for fun, then plant guns on them to justify the murders in the reports. They cut the body parts of them as trophies of their kills. I you know so much about the Iraq war as you're implying, you should know these doings were exposed 1 week before bin laden was coincidentally killed.
I don't know what you're trying to imply here, but I highly doubt that killing Bin Laden had anything at all to do with "death squads". Once again though, I will have to answer all of your accusations with a simple: if it exists than you should have no problem giving me a legitimate source that says it exists. You'll excuse me if I don't just take your word for it, I hope.
On December 26 2011 05:02 Humanfails wrote:
You are clearly not very well informed about what goes on there at all.
I would like to think I'm relatively informed, but no, I am not very well informed. I don't see why you feel the need to point this out or what it has to do with anything.
On December 26 2011 05:02 Humanfails wrote:
there is more prevalence in organizations that give people the power to commit abuse and get away with it. Because in all other organizations these people are jailed or thrown out. It's simply good thinking. "I want to kill people for the fun of it, I want to be able to molest females and get away with it, as a "peace" officer or military man, I can do this and get away with it".
My sister was drugged and gang raped, as a marine within the corps, by people in the corps. Any discipline taken? nope. Standard procedure. You can have all the respect in the world for these people since they can kill someone from a mile away, however. Apparently that's your juice.
For the first part, I will once again ask you why you feel that simply throwing out these random assertions is going to convince me of anything. If you want to make your point, especially that point, you need to have some form of evidence beyond: "This is what I think and it's true."
As to the second, if that story is true; it's horrible and I'm sorry, but it's anecdotal. One instance (that seems highly unlikely to have actually occured in the manner you are saying it did) of cruelty is not enough to brand it as "standard procedure". I have respect for anyone who can do something that is very difficult. That you tried to tie my claim about being impressed with snipers to your sister allegedly being raped is entirely dishonest and, frankly, offensive. I will ask you to either clarify next time or just refrain. I think I've been pretty reasonable so far, so I don't think I deserve that kind of behavior.
When the Tao is used to govern the world,
then evil will lose its power to harm the people.
Not that evil will no longer exist,
but only because it has lost its power.
Just as evil can lose its ability to harm,
the Master shuns the use of violence.
If you give evil nothing to oppose,
then virtue will return by itself.
I don't see how this is exactly relevant to what we're discussing, but I will say that I highly disagree with it. Ignoring evil will not make it go away. Evil desires to be unopposed and then it desires acceptance.
On December 26 2011 05:02 Humanfails wrote:
Let's say you are right that little kids shouldnt have a machine gun nest on their roof and their parents shouldn't have allowed it.
1. Their parents could've been threatened with death.
2. Their parents could've believed that the Americans were invading their country and wanted to kill them, and well, they were proved right weren't they?
3. That machine gun nest would go useless and rust if Americans didn't go attack. As Lao Tzu also says "To overcome something, give way to it like water". You know that Bruce Lee, martial artist, practiced Taoism as a fundamental aspect of not only his art (martial) but in his personal life, since rigorous practice of ideals tend to invade all of your psyche and life.
I didn't blame the little kids for the machine gun...
As to the list:
(1) Being threatened with death is no excuse to open fire on American soldiers who are simply doing their job. Not only is that an incredibly dangerous and stupid thing to do, but it is also horrible, especially when you have children in the house.
(2)This is a tough one to answer because I don't really want to get into the rationale behind the war. I feel like you keep on dragging us toward that direction, but I am not going to do it. Suffice it to say, I don't care how you feel about Americans being in Iraq. Don't shoot at American soldiers. They are highly-trained and firing on them is very, very, very dangerous and will almost certainly result in your death. Also, your logic is horribly flawed here. You can't say: "Oh this person is going to kill me if I shoot at them, I better shoot at them because I don't want to die!" That makes no sense at all, and actually, according to the OP, the soldiers DIDN'T want to kill them, but had to.
(3) Not true. They just wouldn't be using it on people who can respond. More likely than not they would have used it on civilians who couldn't defend themselves.
On December 26 2011 05:02 Humanfails wrote:I'll leave you with one more quote. Show nested quote +When the people become rebellious,
the government has become too intrusive.
When people begin to view death lightly,
the wealthy have too much
which causes others to starve.
Only those who do not cling to their life can save it.
I cannot describe how much I disagree with this sentiment.
On December 26 2011 05:02 Humanfails wrote:The U.S.; illegal wiretaps, Patriot act, airport scanners, indefinite holding on "terrorists". All so similar to the japanese concentration camps in america, but with the advantage of "terrorist" being anyone and everyone, so not a race that is singled out and thus incites cries of human decency from a passive population. The OWS movements. Originally about the disappearing middle class, the localization of all wealth into the hands of a very few people, etc. and the abuses of power these wealthy instutions commit, harming the quality of life of the poor classes. America thoroughly divided among its population, passive through lack of solidarity, infighting, and general disagreement. Most people think "Just let us have our TV (and Xbox/PS3) and sit in our living room and leave us alone" (quote, Network, the movie). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death . People want to hide. Wheres the activism and participation in political process? Plug our ears, cling to our lives as they are, because we're not prepared to lose any of these comforts to make things better in the long run. Let the country and even the world decay around as long as there's parties and personal entertainments to keep us high. Kind of like how Russia was with people who still had money after the fall of the USSR. How did Russia do during those years up til now?
I'm sorry but I have to say one more time: This is irrelevant rambling. It has no actual bearing upon what you and I were discussing. You are basically copy/paste a whole bunch of different slogans and acting as if there is a connection so obvious that you don't even have to go through the process of actually connecting them.
On December 26 2011 05:02 Humanfails wrote:
If you still cant see links between anything posted here and it looks random, well,I can link these seemingly random things myself because all mental constructs of reality are concepts and concepts that are the same connect even if they superficially look different or are 1000000 miles away. I also have tested and proven IQ of 140, so maybe there's another reason I can understand connections.
It's not that it "looks random". It is random and more importantly, off-topic. There is also no need to give me your IQ: I am not impressed and I don't see what it has to do with anything at all.
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On December 26 2011 04:06 ozeake wrote:
If this is what they are trained to feel in the US military, I genuinely think it needs to change. War might be a necessary evil but it is gruesome and not really something to be excited about. If you get thrilled about killing people, you probably should not be someone who can make them die.
Anyone thrilled about killing people needs to be locked up in an insane asylum, and yeah, most soldiers I've met are batshit insane like that, but they're mostly cowards, so the tough talk is amusing at least.
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On December 26 2011 05:52 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 04:06 ozeake wrote:
If this is what they are trained to feel in the US military, I genuinely think it needs to change. War might be a necessary evil but it is gruesome and not really something to be excited about. If you get thrilled about killing people, you probably should not be someone who can make them die. Anyone thrilled about killing people needs to be locked up in an insane asylum, and yeah, most soldiers I've met are batshit insane like that, but they're mostly cowards, so the tough talk is amusing at least.
Irony
5/5 Really good read. I don't have anything to add since I've never experienced anything so intense (and ridiculous). The part with the little girls sounded like something that came out of Catch-22.
Quick (possibly dumb) question though: if you could go back in time, would you have enlisted in the military again, knowing what would transpire?
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On December 26 2011 09:08 Newbistic wrote:
Irony
What is, the fact that people who want to kill other people seek places where they get to do so with impunity? It's the same as politics: those who most desire power should really not have it.
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On December 26 2011 10:01 ozeake wrote:What is, the fact that people who want to kill other people seek places where they get to do so with impunity? It's the same as politics: those who most desire power should really not have it.
No, the irony is from calling soldiers who potentially fight front-line battles cowards and being amused by "tough talk" while hiding behind his own computer doing his own "tough talk".
While your point may have some philosophical truth, it's pragmatically irrelevant. People who desire something will work to earn it. Those who work the most towards their desires will have the highest chance of obtaining what they desire. Whether or not these people "should have it" does not factor into the equation since there's no real way to determine who else is better qualified.
Also, think about the motivations of these people. They're not all insane psychopaths who just wish to kill anybody with impunity as you seem to be implying. They wish to do something for their country, and that something happens to involve killing the enemies of their country. Most accounts I've read of soldiers describe how they become transformed through the horrors of warfare and realizing how they underestimated what they signed up for. This is just their difficult path to adulthood.
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Mmm....William Tecumseh Sherman, I believe it was (and I'm right, yay for US History...)
Ah well...it happens  and when it happens, we should mitigate it.
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EPT
