REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

U.S. Marines urinate on Taliban corpses (not PN)

POSTED BY: OLDENGLANDDRY
UPDATED: Monday, January 16, 2012 13:30
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 3708
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Thursday, January 12, 2012 12:36 PM

OLDENGLANDDRY

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 12:48 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Yes I saw that on the news. I wonder whether pissing on them is considered worse than killing them.

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 1:19 PM

BYTEMITE


Male territorialism, posthumous punitive humiliation, and shock factor, I'm guessing.

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 1:43 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Yes I saw that on the news. I wonder whether pissing on them is considered worse than killing them.



I know! Seems to me there are some folks who have their priorities a bit out of whack. Stupid ? Yeah, but they KILLED these guys. The guys who were trying to kill them! It's kinda a war, folks... things like this, hate to say it, happen.

It's sure as hell kid's play compared to the stuff the Taliban and al-Qaeda have done to our troops, and civilians, and put on DVD / the internet.

They should be punished for videoing themselves, but not for the act.



"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. - Someone.

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 1:46 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Well no, they should be punished for the act as well. I think the US military still has a few rules of conduct for their soldiers.

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 1:56 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


It sounds like they're enjoying the taking of life too much. Sometimes it has to happen, especially in war, but it isn't something to crow about or what have you. Plus that's kind of grotty, behave like people please. They might get in some trouble for not following regulation.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 2:06 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Oh, I agree. We should be civil and respectful when taking the life of the enemy. Absolutely.

But it seems this IS out of frustration. Once again, we've sent our troops over to a foreign land to die, but not actually WIN.



"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. - Someone.

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 2:10 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


Raptor, I'm not saying that you can fight a war without killing, killing is necessary and part of it, a big part of it, but it is childish and too Lord of the Flies to piss on corpses. If they want to do it in secret that's their business, but videotaping it and being proud of it is rather vulger.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 2:10 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


I think its more about these soldiers not being the brightest sparks in the universe.

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 2:13 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I think its more about these soldiers not being the brightest sparks in the universe.



There is probably some truth in that.


" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 3:53 PM

HERO


Sometimes you just gotta take a leak, and there just are not that many bushes in that country.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I agree with Hero." Niki2, 2011.

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 4:14 PM

DREAMTROVE


Quote:

The guys who were trying to kill them!


We have any proof of that? Maybe it was a little girl in a yellow dress.

We're pretty fucked up at this point.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Thursday, January 12, 2012 4:30 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Quote:

The guys who were trying to kill them!


We have any proof of that? Maybe it was a little girl in a yellow dress.

We're pretty fucked up at this point.



Proof of what ? That those specific dead guys were trying to kill the very same members of the US military shown on the video ? No, I have no 'proof' of that. What's your point ?

Missing the girl in the yellow dress reference. Sorry.


" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Friday, January 13, 2012 3:39 AM

JONGSSTRAW


Maybe they were using fake dicks like dopers use to pass drug tests. Hey, if the dick don't fit, you must acquit.






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Friday, January 13, 2012 3:44 AM

DREAMTROVE


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Missing the girl in the yellow dress reference. Sorry.


That would be the heart of the problem. If you were on top of the situation, you would not have missed it. It's all of this focus on the behavior of the enemy that gets you hating the enemy, when you're not paying any attention to the behavior of our guys. Do a little intelligence work, like, use the internet. But not just for this, as part of your job. If you knew as much about the behavior of our own men as you do about theirs, you might not think jihadists were all that abnormal, or our mission all that holy. Eventually, you would find yourself with serious doubts.


That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 5:44 AM

CAVETROLL


This is another instance of "You can't have your cake and eat it, too." The Taliban do not follow the rules of war, they are not protected by the rules of war. This is well documented in military law.

It is unfortunate that this happened. But long established precedents exist that have not been punished under military law. For example, the practice of some US combat troops in Vietnam severing ears from dead Viet Cong fighters and wearing them as necklaces. Another example would be Japanese combat troops in WW2 practicing cannibalism, and in one case vivisection. German troops in Stalingrad were also reported to have practiced cannibalism. That was spurred by lack of supply, but it is well documented. American troops in the Pacific frequently decorated their encampments and areas of operation with Japanese skulls. General Douglas MacArthur prosecuted disciplinary actions against servicemen found with enemy remains in their possession. But these were not criminal prosecutions did not deter the practice.

But this is not of itself an atrocity. The Geneva conventions only recognize wounded and sick on land; wounded, sick, and shipwrecked at sea; POWs; and civilians. On the issue of conduct toward the dead the Hague, Geneva and Ottowa conventions are silent.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 5:56 AM

BYTEMITE


Oh, I'd agree it's not a war crime, but it's a damn stupid thing to do when we're trying to win hearts and minds.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 6:24 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Incredibly stupid thing to do IN FRONT OF A CAMERA especially. Who filmed it I wonder? I wonder if they were well compensated for the footage? Well, no I don't actually. Maybe they split the money from the cnn exclusive?
HIstory of war has a lot of worse instances of what survivors do to their dead victims - just look at North American Indians and their trophies...hair scalps weren't the worst of it. If you train people to feel ok, even good about killing, then it's likely they have had to cross off a few other taboos along the way.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Friday, January 13, 2012 6:28 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


I can't believe the lack of condemnation I see here. I should have expected Rap to defend them, but nobody else seems to take it very seriously either. I think it's sick, disgusting, abu-grabish, does irreperable harm to our efforts to deal with the Afghan people. So that's who we are now, eh? It's fine to behave like the enemy we so despise...I get it. Heck, 'cuz they do X, it's okay for us to do Y...got news for you; if you condone your soldiers behaving like the enemy, you are no better than the enemy, and you have no right to complain when the enemy does terrible things to YOUR soldiers.

And don't give me the lack of comparison, Rap; chopping off heads is NOTHING LIKE having the dead pissed on, to their culture. What they did is far worse, in the eyes of any Muslim, enemy or not. I know you'd defend ANY act by the Good Old U.S. of A. no matter what, but that just shows how sick you are. The rest of you...? I'm surprised.



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Friday, January 13, 2012 8:45 AM

STORYMARK


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
They should be punished for videoing themselves, but not for the act.




Once again, Rappy proves what a worthless excuse for a human he is.

In his fucked up world, misconduct is okay - getting caught is all that's bad.

Sums him up pretty well.

"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

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Friday, January 13, 2012 9:02 AM

BYTEMITE


Whoa now Niki, just saying it's not technically a crime doesn't mean we aren't condemning.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 9:06 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Uh, Pizmo, the taking of scalps wasn't an idea the Native Americans came up with, just to clarify. It was around since the time of the Visigoths, if not earlier. And Native Americans, while they pacticed scalping of their enemies previously, had the practice widely encouraged by the Europeans:
Quote:

It is believed that contact with Europeans widened the practice of scalping among Native Americans, since some Euro-American governments encouraged the practice among their Native American allies during times of war. For example, in the American Revolutionary War, Henry Hamilton, the British Lieutenant-Governor of Canada, was known by American Patriots as the "hair-buyer general" because it was believed he encouraged and paid his Native American allies to scalp American settlers. When Hamilton was captured in the war by the Americans, he was treated as a war criminal instead of a prisoner of war because of this. However, both Native Americans and American frontiersmen frequently scalped their victims in this era. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070613064727AATvNge AMERICANS did it too, not just the Indians. On that point:
Quote:

As monuments go, the one depicting Colonial heroine Hannah Dustin looks like any other, with one crucial exception: In her left hand she holds a fistful of human scalps.

The inscription underneath tells of her 1697 capture in an Indian raid, and how she slew her captors as they slept - 10 women and children. Later she returned for their scalps, having remembered they could fetch a bounty.

The idea of a settler scalping Indians might seem like a historical quirk. Most Americans assume that if there was any scalping going on in Colonial times, the Indians were doing it, not the English.

But the truth, it turns out, is more complex. In an era where Indian-nicknamed teams are under fire and even the meaning of Thanksgiving is being re-evaluated by Native Americans, the very word "scalp" has become culturally loaded - and the origins of the practice increasingly controversial. If one thing is certain, however, it's that Hannah Dustin was no fluke. "

Americans certainly scalped Indians during the Revolution and after," says Colin Calloway, who teaches history at Dartmouth College. "They also stripped Indian corpses of skin."

Then in 1990, the federal government passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which mandated the return of sacred Indian artifacts and of remains. As museums combed through their collections, they found scalps that were clearly Indian. Some even had documentation identifying the scalp-takers as colonists.

Historical records confirm that Colonial authorities offered a bounty on Indian scalps. Hannah Dustin, for example, collected a monetary reward and a pewter tankard. In Salem, redeemed scalps were hung along the walls of the town courthouse, in full view of the public, until the building was torn down in 1785. http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/ScholarsForum/MMD2263.html we're not the "good guys" where that's concerned, either.

Re: Your question about why they took pictures and videoed what they did is explained in one of the links I posted in another thread. It talks about
Quote:

disturbing videos and pictures of the victims taken by the men - one shows a hand with a missing finger, another depicts a severed head on a stick and others show blown up legs.

In two cases soldiers pose over the bodies of their victims as if they are hunting trophies.
The men also made videos including one which was filmed on Sept 12, 2009.
It shows infra-red camera footage of two Afghans putting what could have been an improvised explosive device in the ground ahead of the soldiers.

Regardless of whether or not it is an IED, filming at such a time is a clear breach of Army rules.
They also edited it down, added a soundtrack and gave it a chilling name - ‘Death Zone’.
In a further breach of regulations the soldiers videoed themselves in combat in Afghanistan and passed around the footage to each other on USB sticks.

Rolling Stone has for the first time published the videos which were supposedly passed around by the men of 5th Stryker Combat Brigade as they carried out their executions in Kandahar province.
In the first clip the men can clearly be heard joking: ‘They’re going to f****** die’ and ‘You don’t f*** with us’.

As the airstrike starts so does the song ‘En Vie’ by Apocalyptica, a cello rock band from Helsinki.
One of the men is killed instantly but the second runs off and is caught by another volley of explosions - as the men whoop and cheer ‘F*** yeah!’

A title card called ‘Aftermath’ comes on screen followed by close-up colour images of the men’s bloodied bodies with horrific close-ups on their injuries.
The credits then roll explaining how ‘Shadow PLT’ was behind the picture and that a Sergeant Michael Schweitzer did the editing.

According to Rolling Stone the men would pass the gruesome videos around on USB sticks and hard drives.
They would file them on their personal computers alongside clips of TV shows, Ultimate Fighting fights and films such as Iron Man 2.

A second video released by the magazine shows a separate incident in which two Afghans on a motorcycle are gunned down. The video was taken on patrol with a helmet-mounted camera; at one point, the soldier shooting the images can be heard boasting: "I got it all on camera". http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370758/Shocking-video-shows-U
-S-troops-cheering-airstrike-blows-Afghan-civilians.html#ixzz1jMoLVwe1

In other words, they did it for their own enjoyment. The Pentagon went to great lengths to hid the pictures and videos, but they came out despite that.

I do wholeheartedly agree with your statement that
Quote:

If you train people to feel ok, even good about killing, then are they likely to have had to cross off a few other taboos along the way.
Which is in part why our soldiers have done terrible things in war and I see little difference between what our enemies have done and what SOME of our soldiers have done, so don't understand how people like Rap can keep claiming what our guys did is different and therefore acceptable. Well, yes, I DO understand, but it's just a sign of his sickness, not a legitimate argument.


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Friday, January 13, 2012 9:16 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


I know, Byte, it's the lack of condemnation of the disgusting acts, legal or otherwise, which I found surprising. In my opinion, the pertinent pointis that the act itself should be condemned for exactly what it is: Barbariasm.



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Friday, January 13, 2012 9:27 AM

CAVETROLL


I don't really see this as anything more than an incident deserving of unit discipline. It was incredibly stupid to allow themselves to be videoed doing this. But I can understand young men getting caught up in the moment with a camera present and wanting to immortalize themselves living on the edge.

So, what is the consensus on appropriate punishment? Execution by firing squad? Courts Martial? Stern talking to and a letter in their personnel jacket?

By the way, if you want a feel for what US troops face everyday in Afghanistan, look up G4 TV's Bomb Patrol, Afghanistan. It's reality TV following a Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. This is the real stuff and since IEDs are the favorite tool of the Taliban forces in Afghanistan, they see plenty of action. Not for the faint of heart.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 10:08 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

I don't really see this as anything more than an incident deserving of unit discipline


Since we'll never know whether these really were Taliban fighters and can only take the word of the peeing soldiers for that, that's pretty much what I expect to happen.

Though considering the soldiers felt validated in acting this way, it makes me doubt their commanding officers as well - a disciplined and professional unit means a disciplined and professional commander. It's entirely possible their CO thinks this kind of thing is funny too. If so I have cause to wonder whether they will ever be disciplined, and even if they are, it'll only be because they got caught.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 10:11 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


To me, Troll, it puts the lie to the oft-expressed "holier than thou" position by some that we are the "good guys" who never target civilians, never do anything reprehensible to our enemies, etc. These things happen in wars, they always have. To insist that WE don't do them disgusts me, and is on a par with "god on our side". If we took the heroism and beyond-reproach attitude out of wars, maybe there would be fewer of them. Probably not, but people would be less able to portray "our" side as purely good guys and the other sie as all the ugly things some choose to portray them as. That's why stuff like this is important to me, to recognize the GREYS in the world, and not perpetuate black-and-white thinking.

What punishment? I don't think anything severe, except to DEFINITELY make it impossible for them to ever serve in the armed forces again. I think that would be sufficient...a dishonorable discharge. Being young and idiotic is no excuse whatsoever; soldiers should be responsible for their actions. If they can't be, they have no right to be soldiers. If that's truly the country we say we are.



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Friday, January 13, 2012 11:24 AM

HKCAVALIER


I think it goes to the double-think we have about war. We train these kids to be brutal, strip all normal human squeamishness and restraint from 'em so they can go kill total strangers on some near-stranger's say-so, and then expect them to pull back from behaving barbarically in their free time. That's not how humans work. Not filming it would imply that they had access to shame and knew right from wrong. Maybe a couple of 'em do, but as a group they know they have to stow that girlie stuff down a deep hole somewhere till after the war.

It's inane to expect better of anyone's troops. It's a fancy, dressed-up lie that "we're better than that." We're not. We might be better than that if we didn't engage in wars of choice and torture-on-demand. But we do. This is just conseqences. I don't condemn these fucked-up kids for doing fucked-up things. To my mind, that's blaming the victim. It's a rare victimizer indeed who wasn't at some point a victim. When we gonna end it?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 11:25 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Uh, Pizmo, the taking of scalps wasn't an idea the Native Americans came up with, just to clarify. It was around since the time of the Visigoths, if not earlier. And Native Americans, while they pacticed scalping of their enemies previously, had the practice widely encouraged by the Europeans:
"It is believed that contact with Europeans widened the practice of scalping among Native Americans, since some Euro-American governments encouraged the practice among their Native American allies during times of war. For example, in the American Revolutionary War, Henry Hamilton, the British Lieutenant-Governor of Canada, was known by American Patriots as the "hair-buyer general" because it was believed he encouraged and paid his Native American allies to scalp American settlers. When Hamilton was captured in the war by the Americans, he was treated as a war criminal instead of a prisoner of war because of this. However, both Native Americans and American frontiersmen frequently scalped their victims in this era. "



I did not know that Europeans did that - interesting, and still way more barbaric than peeing on someone imho. If anything this act shows the level of immaturity of these guys - like, Really?? This gets you guys off??
I get it though, maybe that's why I have no sense of outrage, I expect this kind of thing when you put young guys in a war zone in a foreign land with high power weapons and lots of stress - let's not act surprised shall we? I think it's more MSM fodder anyway. My main point is there are/were much worse things that have happened to presumably much more innocent people, so why pick this one out?


Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Friday, January 13, 2012 11:28 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
I know, Byte, it's the lack of condemnation of the disgusting acts, legal or otherwise, which I found surprising. In my opinion, the pertinent pointis that the act itself should be condemned for exactly what it is: Barbariasm.




Niki I do find this act horrific, but I guess I have this view that war is barbaric and the people who conduct it have been trained to dehumanise other people. Horrible, but not surprising. You take a load of underpriveledged youngsters, train them the kill, dump them down in a foreign country of which they have not one whit of understanding and you get shit like this happening.

edit - I should have scrolled down. I see others have pretty much said the same.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 11:32 AM

CAVETROLL


A dishonorable discharge is basically the equivalent of a felony. Do you think these men deserve to have their whole life trashed because of one incidence of stupidity? Let's face facts. This was disrespectful, but not injurious in any way. The dead are beyond caring.

Unit punishments can extend up to a year. You can be assigned a year of extra duty, loss of rank, loss of pay, loss of privileges. More than sufficient. So much so that beyond a certain point, a serviceman or woman would be considered not eligible for combat duty if they were under and extreme level of punishment.

God doesn't take sides in war. And wartime propaganda always portrays our side and our allies as the good guys. It has to. People will not support bad guys.

If you dig around, and not very deep, you'll find atrocities committed by all participants in WW2. I'm not even talking about indiscriminate bombing of cities, which was accepted practice in WW2. Everybody committed them. They happen. When you put people under extremes of stress they will act in a way that violates societal norms. I've already stated that this is not an atrocity. It is absolutely out of societal norms. The only way to stop these incidents from happening is to stop war.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 12:16 PM

BYTEMITE


Quote:


I did not know that Europeans did that



Pizmo: There's good reason to believe Native Americans only started scalping white settlers because they were responding to the fact that the US Government had a bounty out on Indian scalps.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 12:56 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Niki

You can't believe the lack of condemnation, and I can't believe this story has been hyper actively blown unbelievably out of proportion.

Did the Marines do wrong ? Yep. Was it stupid and juvenile ? Yep.

But guess what... it's war. I GET why they did it, even if I don't approve. But in the scope of all that's gone on over there, not that big a deal. Really.


" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Friday, January 13, 2012 2:35 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by CaveTroll:death

God doesn't take sides in war. And wartime propaganda always portrays our side and our allies as the good guys. It has to. People will not support bad guys.

If you dig around, and not very deep, you'll find atrocities committed by all participants in WW2. I'm not even talking about indiscriminate bombing of cities, which was accepted practice in WW2. Everybody committed them. They happen. When you put people under extremes of stress they will act in a way that violates societal norms. I've already stated that this is not an atrocity. It is absolutely out of societal norms. The only way to stop these incidents from happening is to stop war.



WW2 changed a lot of modern war conventions, in that countries waged total war against citizens. That is, not just citizens as collatoral damage, but delibteratly targeting them 'blitzkrieg' to demoralise an ally. Not something that one would have hoped would happen again. Having rules of engagement in war IS important, it's just that US troops are notoriously ill disciplined.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 3:54 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Niki

You can't believe the lack of condemnation, and I can't believe this story has been hyper actively blown unbelievably out of proportion.

Did the Marines do wrong ? Yep. Was it stupid and juvenile ? Yep.

But guess what... it's war. I GET why they did it, even if I don't approve. But in the scope of all that's gone on over there, not that big a deal. Really.




Would you say that if it were Taliban fighters doing this to U.S. soldiers? Would you say that if it were Iraqis doing this to American contractors? How did you feel about the contractors that were stripped and hung from a bridge in Baghdad? Was it a desecration, or was it no big deal because they were already dead?

This behavior shows that our fighters are really no different than theirs. We pretend we're the "good guys" and they're pure evil, but time and again we show that our guys are just as capable of evil.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Friday, January 13, 2012 3:58 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by CaveTroll:
A dishonorable discharge is basically the equivalent of a felony. Do you think these men deserve to have their whole life trashed because of one incidence of stupidity? Let's face facts. This was disrespectful, but not injurious in any way. The dead are beyond caring.



Bullshit. A dishonorable discharge does not cost you your right to vote, or to own a firearm. Do they deserve to have their whole life trashed because of one incidence of stupidity? Ask Charles Manson. Would you grant him the same leeway?

Quote:


Unit punishments can extend up to a year. You can be assigned a year of extra duty, loss of rank, loss of pay, loss of privileges. More than sufficient. So much so that beyond a certain point, a serviceman or woman would be considered not eligible for combat duty if they were under and extreme level of punishment.

God doesn't take sides in war. And wartime propaganda always portrays our side and our allies as the good guys. It has to. People will not support bad guys.



So should we not tell the truth about the actions of our soldiers since it means we might lose support for an immoral war?

Quote:


If you dig around, and not very deep, you'll find atrocities committed by all participants in WW2. I'm not even talking about indiscriminate bombing of cities, which was accepted practice in WW2. Everybody committed them. They happen. When you put people under extremes of stress they will act in a way that violates societal norms. I've already stated that this is not an atrocity. It is absolutely out of societal norms. The only way to stop these incidents from happening is to stop war.



Thank you for reinforcing my point that our soldiers are no better than anyone else.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Friday, January 13, 2012 4:06 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:

This behavior shows that our fighters are really no different than theirs. We pretend we're the "good guys" and they're pure evil, but time and again we show that our guys are just as capable of evil.



This is nothing compared to what they do to our guys, and innocent civilians.

We are the good guys,and they are pure evil. Never forget that.


" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Friday, January 13, 2012 4:11 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:


This is nothing compared to what they do to our guys, and innocent civilians.

We are the good guys,and they are pure evil. Never forget that.




I think the idea of any particular group of people being either pure good or pure evil is nonsense.

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Friday, January 13, 2012 4:27 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:

This behavior shows that our fighters are really no different than theirs. We pretend we're the "good guys" and they're pure evil, but time and again we show that our guys are just as capable of evil.



This is nothing compared to what they do to our guys, and innocent civilians.



So have our troops killed no innocent civilians?

Quote:


We are the good guys,and they are pure evil. Never forget that.



You have an interesting idea of "good", then, if you think what these guys did is "good".

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Friday, January 13, 2012 5:03 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:
You have an interesting idea of "good", then, if you think what these guys did is "good".



Having already stated that I think what these guys did, in particular, was wrong, it's yet another disingenuous twist by you to paint me and my views in a false light.

Seems you still suffer from the same handicap as you had before you were sick. Pity.



" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Friday, January 13, 2012 7:40 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by HKCavalier:
I think it goes to the double-think we have about war. We train these kids to be brutal, strip all normal human squeamishness and restraint from 'em so they can go kill total strangers on some near-stranger's say-so, and then expect them to pull back from behaving barbarically in their free time. That's not how humans work. Not filming it would imply that they had access to shame and knew right from wrong. Maybe a couple of 'em do, but as a group they know they have to stow that girlie stuff down a deep hole somewhere till after the war.

It's inane to expect better of anyone's troops. It's a fancy, dressed-up lie that "we're better than that." We're not. We might be better than that if we didn't engage in wars of choice and torture-on-demand. But we do. This is just conseqences. I don't condemn these fucked-up kids for doing fucked-up things. To my mind, that's blaming the victim. It's a rare victimizer indeed who wasn't at some point a victim. When we gonna end it?


Beat me to the punch here, I was gonna say that, but less nicely.

-F

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Saturday, January 14, 2012 1:55 AM

CAVETROLL


Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:

Originally posted by CaveTroll:
A dishonorable discharge is basically the equivalent of a felony. Do you think these men deserve to have their whole life trashed because of one incidence of stupidity? Let's face facts. This was disrespectful, but not injurious in any way. The dead are beyond caring.



Bullshit. A dishonorable discharge does not cost you your right to vote, or to own a firearm. Do they deserve to have their whole life trashed because of one incidence of stupidity? Ask Charles Manson. Would you grant him the same leeway?




Kwicko, while I am interested in hearing your point of view, I will kindly ask you to keep your language clean. I hear enough garbage talk in my daily life that I don't enjoy, nor do I wish to invite that sort of language into my home. A simple statement that you disagree with my assertion would have been sufficient.

To your point about a dishonorable discharge invalidating; All persons purchasing a firearm from a FFL must fill out ATF form 4473. Question 11G on the ATF form 4473 asks: "Have you been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions?" An affirmative answer to any of the questions under 11B-L is an automatic disqualifier. Here's the link to the ATF form.

http://www.atf.gov/forms/download/atf-f-4473-1.pdf

And, for what it is worth, Wikipedia has this entry on dishonorable discharges;
Quote:

A dishonorable discharge (DD), like a BCD, is a punitive discharge rather than an administrative discharge. It can only be handed down to an enlisted member by a general court-martial. Dishonorable discharges are handed down for what the military considers the most reprehensible conduct. This type of discharge may be rendered only by conviction at a general court-martial for serious offenses (e.g., desertion, sexual assault, murder, etc.) that call for dishonorable discharge as part of the sentence.
With this characterization of service, all veterans' benefits are lost, regardless of any past honorable service. This type of discharge is regarded as shameful in the military. In many states a dishonorable discharge is deemed the equivalent of a felony conviction, with attendant loss of civil rights.[5] Additionally, US federal law prohibits ownership of firearms by those who have been discharged under dishonorable conditions[6] per the Gun Control Act of 1968.


I'm not certain of which states consider dishonorable discharges a franchise stripping finding. Wikipedia lists Oregon, but of course there may be others

.

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Saturday, January 14, 2012 2:18 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


I had to read kwicko's post a couple of times to see what the hightly offensive language was....still looking

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Saturday, January 14, 2012 3:21 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I had to read kwicko's post a couple of times to see what the hightly offensive language was....still looking



Today's word is: Bullshit

CaveTroll - you may as well ask the sun not to shine. You should know that this part of FFF.net, RWED, has a history of no holds barred, colorful discussion format, and is oddly proud of that fact. I would say that you have happened upon this place during an extremely civil time/lull though.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Saturday, January 14, 2012 3:38 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by Bytemite:
Quote:


I did not know that Europeans did that



Pizmo: There's good reason to believe Native Americans only started scalping white settlers because they were responding to the fact that the US Government had a bounty out on Indian scalps.



I guess it depends on who you believe or what you believe - I'm not finding your hypothesis when I search. What I find says both sides did do this, but it also looks like it was a practice started by NAs. I don't think it matters in this context - people do nasty stuff when they are in a murdering mood, that stuff seems to come from their cultural upbringing.

http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/1998/scalping.html

"Scalping, of course, predated the mid-eighteenth century. Historical records, archaeology, and other sciences strongly indicate the practice originated among certain Native American tribes.1 A French soldier, identified by the initials J. C. B., related in his memoirs that "this horrible custom was practiced by these savages alone, and sprang from their own barbarism, for it seems never to have existed in any other nation, not even among nations, who, like them, have never received any idea of civilized life."2

This soldier also described how the act was executed. "When a war party has captured one or more prisoners that cannot be taken away, it is the usual custom to kill them by breaking their heads with the blows of a tomahawk . . . When he has struck two or three blows, the savage quickly seizes his knife, and makes an incision around the hair from the upper part of the forehead to the back of the neck. Then he puts his foot on the shoulder of the victim, whom he has turned over face down, and pulls the hair off with both hands, from back to front . . . This hasty operation is no sooner finished than the savage fastens the scalp to his belt and goes on his way. This method is only used when the prisoner cannot follow his captor; or when the Indian is pursued . . . He quickly takes the scalp, gives the deathcry, and flees at top speed. Savages always announce their valor by a deathcry, when they have taken a scalp . . . When a savage has taken a scalp, and is not afraid he is be ing pursued, he stops and scrapes the skin to remove the blood and fibres on it. He makes a hoop of green wood, stretches the skin over it like a tambourine, and puts it in the sun to dry a little. The skin is painted red, and the hair on the outside combed. When prepared, the scalp is fastened to the end of a long stick, and carried on his shoulder in triumph to the village or place where he wants to put it. But as he nears each place on his way, he gives as many cries as he has scalps to announce his arrival and show his bravery. Sometimes as many as 15 scalps are fastened on the same stick. When there are too many for one stick, they decorate several sticks with the scalps."3"

(internet source, take with a grain of salt)

Damn! Maybe peeing on a corpse is a sign of civilized murderers?
Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Saturday, January 14, 2012 6:24 AM

BYTEMITE


Only started scalping WHITE settlers. Yes, it was well known they scalped members from enemy tribes. Depending on how much hate there was, sometimes they'd scalp the person instead of killing them outright, as a form of torture.

But yes, also take that entry with a grain of salt. European explorers liked to send back exaggerations and sometimes outright lies about the horrible practices of those "savages".

Such as the idea that any of the Caribbean natives practiced cannibalism (none of them did).

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Saturday, January 14, 2012 6:35 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

This is nothing compared to what they do to our guys, and innocent civilians... Never forget that.
You're right- we're worse. We've killed, maimed, wounded and desecrated far more than they have. Never forget that.

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Saturday, January 14, 2012 8:23 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by Bytemite:
European explorers liked to send back exaggerations and sometimes outright lies about the horrible practices of those "savages".



That's still going on today - the US is a great spectacle for the rest of the world - "those savages."

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Saturday, January 14, 2012 9:51 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:

This is nothing compared to what they do to our guys, and innocent civilians... Never forget that.
You're right- we're worse. We've killed, maimed, wounded and desecrated far more than they have. Never forget that.



You literally could not be more wrong, more bass ackwards on this point if you tried.

By YOUR logic, the NAZIS were saving the Jews, not slaughtering them.




" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Saturday, January 14, 2012 11:51 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

By YOUR logic, the NAZIS were saving the Jews, not slaughtering them.
Who killed more peeps? Us or al Qaida?

This kind of makes me think of the film that Duchess or York just made, surreptitiously filming disabled children in a Turkish orphanage. Well, Turkey charged Fergie with violating the childrens' privacy... heck, you KNOW they're more concerned with having been exposed than with privacy... but the back-and-forth was kind of interesting. There was a number of people from Turkey and the area saying that the film was just so much hypocrisy, and yanno what? They're right. The British have probably killed more children than all the Turkish orphanages combined. So while it's a good thing that the orphanages have been exposed, there is nothing for the Brits to feel particularly superior about

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Saturday, January 14, 2012 12:02 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:

By YOUR logic, the NAZIS were saving the Jews, not slaughtering them.
Who killed more peeps? Us or al Qaida?



Why confine deaths to just al Qaeda ? Why not include ALL radical Islamic extremists, around the world, to make it a legitimate question ?

The answer ? Islam, no question.



"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. - Someone.

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