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10387 Posts
On January 24 2012 09:10 acker wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 08:59 Anytus wrote:
Presumably the soldiers in question 'snapped' and would not do what they did again, if they had cool heads. If, instead, an Iraqi whose family was killed in this massacre bombs the US years later, can we really say the same about him? Doing something after years of planning seems a little different than having a breakdown and doing something in a moment. What if the terrorist detonates explosives in our consulate in Iraq? Would you still be inclined to say this? Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 08:59 ArvickHero wrote:
wtf does that have to do with what I said Apparently, you are of the opinion that hard times cause people to do irrational things. I completely agree. But I was wondering if you applied the same standards to people who have a harder time out there than the Army.
let's make it clear that I have said/implied that the Marines in question were still responsible for their actions and deserve heavier punishments. I just wanted to give some context to people who think that this is just a simple "omg so bad usa is joke!!"
But both counter-examples given are not very comparable to Marine squad's situation. They were given the order to clear out the houses, and did so in the worst possible way by Wuderich issuing bad orders and ignoring the rules of engagement, because they were still fresh off the traumatizing experience of an explosive wrecking their transport vehicle and the death of a marine comrade. No doubt their adrenaline-fueled minds were far from lucid. Both counter-examples cited would require a greater degree of foresight and planning, which would be ample time to think things clearly.
In all three cases, the biggest fault lies with the higher ups who decided to start the whole mess in the first place :\
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Not sure what kind of discussion we can actually have here. But this isn't so much a discussion thread as a "let's criticize the US again" thread. I'm sure you will get at least one or two Americans who will say something ignorant and bait everyone to argue against them.
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It is so bloody obvious that people would be angry about this decision. Can anyone tell me why the US military is so lenient with this case?
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Honestly reading this thread makes me doubt quite a few things on this planet.
Yes it was a massacre, and yes the military courts covered it up. If you think you can deny that i must ask you how naive you are. They could have matched every single bullet to a specific rifle if they wanted to. Instead they swept it under the rug and let enough time pass that such evidence was not available.
Regarding the: "prove that those marines killed them" it is VERY easy to prove that a specific weapon killed someone, and in the context of soldiers it is basically a done deal.
The court and the military superiors did not want those men convicted it is as simple as that.
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On January 24 2012 09:31 ArvickHero wrote:
But both counter-examples given are not very comparable to Marine squad's situation. They were given the order to clear out the houses, and did so in the worst possible way by Wuderich issuing bad orders and ignoring the rules of engagement, because they were still fresh off the traumatizing experience of an explosive wrecking their transport vehicle and the death of a marine comrade. No doubt their adrenaline-fueled minds were far from lucid. Both counter-examples cited would require a greater degree of foresight and planning, which would be ample time to think things clearly.
In all three cases, the biggest fault lies with the higher ups who decided to start the whole mess in the first place :\
This is your previous post:
On January 24 2012 08:54 ArvickHero wrote:
Yes, its horrific, and they got off a bit too lightly. But .. as one of the people who spoke on the radio had said (some professor who was a former marine), these were young men who, when overseas serving in Iraq/Afghanistan, spend every minute of their waking lives in fear of the very real possibility of being killed (something to that extent). And when you're under such heavy pressure/anxiety, it does mess with the person's head.
Now, we could sit and argue about just how horrible an act must be to interfere with someone's decision making for what amount of time. For example, spending every waking moment of your life in fear for both you and your family might cause more illucidity for longer time than simply living every waking moment of your life in fear. If you lose your family to "collateral damage" on top of that, illucidity might skyrocket. If you lose everything you hold dear in life and live in fear since childhood, you might always be illucid.
But that's completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that traumatic environments cause people to go crazy. And though we can argue about the specifics of just how crazy people get and just what it takes them to get crazy and just how long they stay crazy, it's very clear that, for at least some people in the regions we're so dearly invested in, there's enough trauma to cause them to go crazy and commit atrocities against us in a manner that's scarcely seen outside of the most wartorn regions of Africa.
And when* they do, will you hold them to the same standard you hold our troops?
*I don't think this is a question of "if". If you do think this is a question of "if", not "when", we have fundamental disagreements on Iraq that probably cannot be resolved.
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This is silliness. These troops are placed in a chaotic, unforgiving conditions; how is everyone so surprised by their chaotic and unforgivable behaviour? Here we are scapegoating the Pawns because we cannot go after the King.
This is not to say the marines are not guilty. They are so very guilty for their individual behaviour and they will struggle with this guilt for their entire lives. But I suspect we are trying to feel good about ourselves when majority of us supported the war in Iraq. This is one of the side effects of war. It is never pretty. I won't argue on the necessity. But everyone can agree that it is an extremely ugly business and it better damn be worth it.
So here it is: Was it worth it? Did we avenge the Twin Tower victims? Do we even remember them anymore?
All I ask here is to take one minute. Just one minute to mourn the Twin Tower victims and the Haditha victims. Cool our heads with solemn reflection before we jump into a hot-headed debate.
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On January 24 2012 09:04 zalz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 08:50 Kluey wrote:
And the war on "terrorism" continues! We're protecting the West, right? No, this 'war' is the most fucking pointless shit I've ever seen. USA could be defensive and improve their security but they decide to attack Iraq. Why does no one in the world think that's kind of 'personal matters' for US? The United Nations should punish USA for this and stop the war. I think the Iraqi's that now enjoy small things like freedom of speech and freedom of press wouldn't exactly call it "pointless shit." I also like that they have to stop the war. Not sure if you have been keeping up on recent events but you might have missed that fact that the last US troops already left Iraq. Also, would be kinda strange for the UN to place sanctions on the USA for enaging in a UN sanctioned war. Simple facts are that the Iraqi's now have insanely more freedom then they did under Saddam and they are now reaping their fair share of the oil profits. Oil is now actually going into the pockets of the Iraqi people rather then Saddam, his family and his friends. Saddam was one of the worst dictators in world when he was still alive. He got overthrown, the only sad thing about that was that it didn't happen during the first gulf war. He ran a totalitarian state like no other. Torture, murder and even genocide. The reason we got for going into Iraq might not have been to get rid of this guy but it sure as hell makes up for all of it. Not even 10 year ago an Iraqi citizen and his whole family would have been dragged off to a torture or rape prison if he/she even dared to speak out against the Saddam family. Meanwhile the Saddam family engaged in war after war and plundered the oil profits that belonged to the people. Iraq today is immensely better off then it was under Saddam. Not just in terms of freedom (altough the shift is monumental) but also in future prospects. The economy is on the rise, their democratic system has by all standards been a succes. Iraqi's are free from one of the worst dictators the world had. Now they can vote for whatever they like and say whatever they like. Iraq was a great succes and 20 years down the road people will have to eat their words as it's economy keeps growing, the people have a future, and they will be free to speak their mind and control their own country. America might not have gotten much out of it but the Iraqi people got a future.
This post sort of reminds me of those 'alternate reality' RPs that kind of are based on real-life but the details are really different from the reality.
Just a few days ago, I read a report on how radio broadcasters are being detained for saying things other than essentially worshipping the govt. Big opponent politicians are arrested for being... opposing. Just earlier this month year, Al-Maliki arrested the biggest opposing politician, Al-Hashemi, for being nothing actually proven (there were some bogus charges placed on him to make the arrest) more than being a political threat to his regime. And there's been tons of stories like this even in US media, nevermind in the Iraqi people's own local knowledge of what goes on in their country. There's tons of protests and riots which are just crushed by protesters being shot and killed by security forces, as people are fed up with what's becoming another Hussein, except isn't anywhere near as fervent about improving the country. Just yesterday I read an article about Human Rights Watch condemning the country for crushing free speech, which is what it is in fact doing. Nope, they have very little in ways of freedom of speech and press, not much better compared than before if anything in the most optimistic case. Interestingly, the only monumental political shift is the ruling party is a former Islamic terror group that's somewhat tamed in this regard nowadays rather than a secular group that stamped out Islamic radicalism. No other monumental shift otherwise.
Reading the rest of your post was a bit funny because it is really full of wrong. Iraq was actually a strongly developing country before the sanctions on everything. Think about it. The sanctions dropped GDP some 70+% over a 12 year period. Infrastructure, development, social and educational systems, middle-class, and other things that constitute a developing country that's actually developing went ba bye. You also realize that their HDI was #50 back in 1990, and this is considering it came right after a long war against a rogue Islamist state and leader, and this is considering the fact that even then, the Iraqi HDI was really brought down by the fact it had a formally recognized dictatorship. By 2000, the sanctioning brought it down to about #120. Right now, it's at #132. Look at the top 50 today. It's not bad, and this is assuming Iraq wouldn't have continued to progress. Speaking about corruption, corruption in Iraq today is easily one of the worst in the world and it's so infamous that it often making news, while before it wasn't anything significant in regards to the average developing country.
It's a real shithole, and near where I live there's a big community of Iraqi Christians, mostly from Baghdad. It's always interesting to hear from the people who immigrated (of whom more know English than you would think) in the 70s-80s and they say how things were fine and stuff until the iran-iraq war when they left, and then the ones from the 90s-2000s tell stories like what I hear about Uganda and left because of impoverishment, fear, persecution, no work, relatives dying, etc. A couple I even had to ask for confirmation that they were speaking about Iraq, because it was pretty bad. I've given a fair amount of attention to these matters as a sort of amends since I snapped out of being a terribly indoctrinated hater of Arabs and Muslims. I will say though that media and propaganda are really powerful things.
Also, let's not forget the influence of the US on the UN, particularly in the period after the USSR's collapse. It was practically hegemonic. It was hardly difficult to get the UN's approval for doing things in the 90s. With Russia back in the seat and a rising China, it hasn't been so simple.
The US did get a ton out of it. They've made some engineering and oil companies extremely wealthy and they replaced an independent state with a seemingly submissive regime in a region of extremely high strategic value. Don't underestimate that. That's a huge gain. The only thing they couldn't get was their permanent bases because the people and govt. there would not allow it at all, and for obvious reasons. Good they still have their patriotic spirit and pride. The same can't be said about many of those Arabs (or Europeans).
In any case, idealism and wholesale exaggeration of things is not really needed rofl. Anyone with any common sense can see that the country is in a retardedly fucked up and decadent state, and it will take quite some time to get back to getting back where it was.
Maybe you say these things because you can see 25 years into the future and its GDP's been growing like 15% a year or something, with additional perks like the Shi'a fanatics (originally influenced by Khomeini and continued to be influenced by Iran) and the Kurdish nationalists finally becoming civilized and actually contribute to the country they live in rather than to Iran or to the imaginary state of Kurdistan. Otherwise, I have no idea why you say things almost completely contrary to the reality.
Anyways, to put things in perspective, it's basically on par with countries like Morocco or India. And this is coming from people who exaggerate the positivity of their old country, if anything. (For example, you can't imagine how many Indian-descended people at my university have told me what an great and amazing place India is to live).
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How many dead were there? Just curious.
I don't think you should judge him until you have been to war yourself and watched your friend get blown up by a bomb. I don't think he should be excused of the crime, but shit happens.
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10387 Posts
On January 24 2012 10:08 acker wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 09:31 ArvickHero wrote:
But both counter-examples given are not very comparable to Marine squad's situation. They were given the order to clear out the houses, and did so in the worst possible way by Wuderich issuing bad orders and ignoring the rules of engagement, because they were still fresh off the traumatizing experience of an explosive wrecking their transport vehicle and the death of a marine comrade. No doubt their adrenaline-fueled minds were far from lucid. Both counter-examples cited would require a greater degree of foresight and planning, which would be ample time to think things clearly.
In all three cases, the biggest fault lies with the higher ups who decided to start the whole mess in the first place :\ This is your previous post: Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 08:54 ArvickHero wrote:
Yes, its horrific, and they got off a bit too lightly. But .. as one of the people who spoke on the radio had said (some professor who was a former marine), these were young men who, when overseas serving in Iraq/Afghanistan, spend every minute of their waking lives in fear of the very real possibility of being killed (something to that extent). And when you're under such heavy pressure/anxiety, it does mess with the person's head. Now, we could sit and argue about just how horrible an act must be to interfere with someone's decision making for what amount of time. For example, spending every waking moment of your life in fear for both you and your family might cause more illucidity for longer time than simply living every waking moment of your life in fear. If you lose your family to "collateral damage" on top of that, illucidity might skyrocket. If you lose everything you hold dear in life and live in fear since childhood, you might always be illucid. But that's completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that traumatic environments cause people to go crazy. And though we can argue about the specifics of just how crazy people get and just what it takes them to get crazy and just how long they stay crazy, it's very clear that, for at least some people in the regions we're so dearly invested in, there's enough trauma to cause them to go crazy and commit atrocities against us in a manner that's scarcely seen outside of the most wartorn regions of Africa. And when* they do, will you hold them to the same standard you hold our troops? *I don't think this is a question of "if". If you do think this is a question of "if", not "when", we have fundamental disagreements on Iraq that probably cannot be resolved.
Same standard as in, that they are still held responsible for their actions, but there are also those in power that are to blame for creating such a terrible situation in the first place? Yea, I think my standard is the same for both.
My problem was that people were over-simplifying the problem, so I wanted to chime in some context because things are never as black-and-white as some would make it out to be.
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Wow, this is freaking bs.
That guy should be put to death. =/
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On January 24 2012 10:40 ArvickHero wrote:
Same standard as in, that they are still held responsible for their actions, but there are also those in power that are to blame for creating such a terrible situation in the first place? Yea, I think my standard is the same for both.
Then we are in agreement.
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On January 24 2012 10:02 Tula wrote:
Honestly reading this thread makes me doubt quite a few things on this planet.
Yes it was a massacre, and yes the military courts covered it up. If you think you can deny that i must ask you how naive you are. They could have matched every single bullet to a specific rifle if they wanted to. Instead they swept it under the rug and let enough time pass that such evidence was not available.
Regarding the: "prove that those marines killed them" it is VERY easy to prove that a specific weapon killed someone, and in the context of soldiers it is basically a done deal.
The court and the military superiors did not want those men convicted it is as simple as that.
It's not "prove that those marines killed them". That was already proven and admitted.
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On January 24 2012 07:41 Mohdoo wrote:
Soldiers should be MORE accountable for lives they take, not less. Same goes for any job where someone is given a gun. With great power comes great responsibility. So stupid.
More accountable than who, exactly?
Look, I'm not going to try to justify this crime. Somebody ought to pay a price for what happened as it was a clear step outside the bounds of what's acceptable. Based on what I've read, there could be no room for ambiguity except perhaps in a very paranoid mind -- one that should not be sent to the battlefield to begin with.
But the fact of the matter is this: "When you send a man out with a gun, you create a policymaker. When his ass is on the line, he will do whatever he [believes he] needs to do. And if the implications of that bothers you, the time to do something about it is before you decide to send him out." (David Drake, Mil-SF author.)
Sending a soldier out on the battlefield and then telling him his life is worth less than a civilian in a designated combat zone is a wholly unreasonable expectation -- amoral and unrealistic. Understand, this is not a justification for a soldier to slaughter the innocent without care or to use civilians as a human shield, or anything of that nature; it is a reflection of the reality that a solider has the very same right to live as anybody else and that incidents of collateral damage will happen and that he cannot be held accountable unless there is a clear and unambiguous abuse of power.
This case would definitely appear to be -- based on our perception via media reports (which, unfortunately, are notorious for being less factual than they should be) -- a clear abuse of power. Based on what we know, this sentence is inadequate. I do not see why nobody was given a real sentence. I do not see any reason why any of the guilty parties should still be members of our military, yet they are.
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This just sets up a poor example for the rest of the military. Kill civilians and don't worry uncle Sam will cover your ass.
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On January 24 2012 07:43 Xivsa wrote:
As Donald Rumsfeld eloquently put it, "Stuff happens."
What a naive thing to say. Lets see you say that when your helpless family is brutally murdered for no reason whatsoever.
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On January 24 2012 11:02 SiguR wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 07:43 Xivsa wrote:
As Donald Rumsfeld eloquently put it, "Stuff happens." What a naive thing to say. Lets see you say that when your helpless family is brutally murdered for no reason whatsoever.
I believe he was being sarcastic and was mocking Rumsfeld.
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Since none of you are familiar with Military punishment. That sergeant is the equivalent of a convicted felon for the rest of his life. He'll be bagging groceries until he's 80. That's more of a punishment than life in prison could ever be.
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On January 24 2012 11:42 Ympulse wrote:
Since none of you are familiar with Military punishment. That sergeant is the equivalent of a convicted felon for the rest of his life. He'll be bagging groceries until he's 80. That's more of a punishment than life in prison could ever be.
Totally right. Going on a rampage murdering families should only result in you losing the chance for a decent wage after leaving the army, not any kind of incarceration. Of course.
Since you are not familiar with civil punishment.
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On January 24 2012 11:42 Ympulse wrote:
Since none of you are familiar with Military punishment. That sergeant is the equivalent of a convicted felon for the rest of his life. He'll be bagging groceries until he's 80. That's more of a punishment than life in prison could ever be.
i seriously wonder if those murdered would have lead a had better life in iraq if they had not been killed, compared to the sergeant's life as a grocer in the united states.
cruel world.
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EPT
