I’m a foreigner too,I’m a Brit and Brit body bags are coming home daily from Iraq and Afghan but I would consider it absurd if Americans professed to worry more about us Brits then they did about their own people,absurd or B.S.
I worry about Brits first and THEN Yanks and Canadians etc.because they are our friends,and no I’m not offended that Canadians worry about their losses before those of the U.K. and you know whatI?I bet the Yanks dont get desperately upset about the Canadians priorities either.
What really pisses me off are drama queens whos closest approach to danger is the danger of running out of booze before the liquor store closes wallowing in self pity and begging for sympathy when it is other people who are risking their lives and doing their duty.
Not getting drunk out of their minds safe and sound back home.
It might be more reasonable but its not human nature.
If your family and your neighbours family are in the same carriage of a train that crashes when you ring up the emergency response line you dont scream out how are the nextdoor neighbours !before you ask about your own kids.
A mate of mine who trained as a journo said there is even a formula for it, dont know it exactly but it equates to a disaster only being newsworthy in your locale if a person is killed locally,so many more within so many miles of your town,quite a few more in a bigger radius and when you get to the other side of the world a hell of a lot more.
My apologies for it being described in skeletal form.
As to worrying equally about ALL lives somebody somewhere on Earth is dying every few minutes in the world from accidents,disease,crime ,suicide,starvation,drowning,hypothermia and old age all day every day so I take with a pinch of salt any sane person who claims to be doing just that.
I think that many well meaning people on this board would be very disappointed if they knew just how much or how little Iraqis pine about the deaths of people outside of their own extended family let alone those of other nations.
And I wouldn’t be stunned with amazement if many of them cheered at the deaths of Westerners who are not in Iraq and whos countries are not involved in Iraq,but who ARE guilty of being Western infidels.
Actually, I worry far more about foreign civilians (and civilians in general), than the American military (and military members in general). I’m even going to go out on a limb and claim that I’m far from alone. Some of us are quite capable of putting ourselves into the shoes of the innocent families in Iraq. In fact, I’m guessin that in some areas, it’s far worse for them than I’m imagining. If you wish to consider that absurd, feel free. If you consider it BS, then bring evidence with the pie.
Again, as I noted above, I have no problem with the publicly stated counts of American lives lost. I just want counts of foreign civilians to enter the picture as well. From the ratio of our servicemen killed to their civilians killed, we are indeed “winning”, but some of us don’t consider this to be a game.
You do realize that you were talking about Americans worrying more about British lives, right? I never said anything about that, but I guess my reply was too subtle.
Yep, we learned the same thing when I studied journalism. It was crap then and still is. I really should start a thread about that, by the by.
Well sir, I agree with you. It is NO game, and using body counts as a means of “keeping score” outside of an arbitrary means to explain a point debases the human lives that were lost.
When I soldiered, I would often put myself into the shoes of a noncombatant…scared, terrified that a heavily armed force from a foreign country is afoot, worried about the danger to my family and property, etc.
That sentiment is one that is shared by the majority of the US Armed forces, and is the reason why soldiers like us train to go to war, hoping we never have to.
Only maniacs kill for joy, bloodlust or the like. True soldiers only kill because their superiors put them in a position where they must kill in order to survive.
Ensign Edison, if your best friend was shot to death, and halfway across the world some soldier in Iraq was also shot to death, and you heard about both of them at the same time, your reaction would really be equal? It wouldn’t be just slightly skewed towards your friend?
The concepts Shagnasty is discussing is just a broader extension of that.
Yes, but it doesn’t mean you can’t be dismayed at who represents you. Racist fuckheads are part of the fabric of America, religious zealots who would rather put children on the streets than allow abortions are part of the fabric of America, and people who care more about a president getting a blowjob than starting a war are part of America, too. Those people represent me to the world, and I’m going to express my dislike and dismay of it. And while I know you weren’t responding to me, telling someone to renounce the lifestyle of what makes them American because of an expression of hatred for other Americans’ actions is not a reasonable suggestion.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t agree with Trihs’s characterization of all American soldiers, but recognize that people can be rightfully outraged at what their countrymen do in the name of the country.
You weren’t the only person who said it, Lust, but to all of the people who did: why do people from your own country matter more to you if they are unknown to you? I get the fact that it’s easier to empathize with their situation and their problems and therefore humanize them more, but is that really all there is? Do you really look at the news and hear about tragedies and have them affect you more if they are from your own country?
I said it upthread, but maybe I didn’t make myself very clear. I’m saddened by the loss of human life, but if it’s not personal to me then it matters as much or as little as any other human life. While the WTC attacks were sad, and while I maybe had some questions about what they meant about certain things in my life, I didn’t know anyone in them. So just the same as when I read or hear about murders or mass killings in other countries, I sleep just as well or as poorly at night as I did before. I was at school on 9/11, someone woke me up to watch the news, I thought to myself, “Damn that sucks. Do I know anyone in NY? Nope, I don’t think so,” and then I went back to bed and slept for another couple hours before my class.
Are there people here who were saddened by 9/11 if they didn’t have any connections to NY? If so, why were you more upset by those attacks than any other attack in the world? Why are people you don’t know important to you simply because they live in the same country? And why is it by country-- why wouldn’t it be physical proximity? Why wouldn’t you, living in New England, be more upset about deaths in Nova Scotia than in Texas?
Yes, one can be dismayed, and outraged. Yes, one can express that outrage and work to change things, or even express it for the hell of it. But when such outrage reaches such a level that you wish for the death of the very Americans that have sworn an oath to protect you and are simply **following orders **in Iraq, and doing their best to achieve their objectives with a minimal amount of innocents lost, you either should do something about it or just shut the fuck up. Otherwise you’re just a pansy hypocrite. And the fact of the matter is that those soldiers represent us all. And everyone who pays taxes has paid for their food, clothing, weapons, and bullets. So if someone—you or that colossal syphillated dick, Der Trihs—have such a HUGE problem with our soldiers and their action, either stop paying taxes or move to another country and renounce your horrible U.S. citizenship. In the meantime, let the big-mouthed coward wear a sandwich board to a VFW hall or some bar with a pool table in rural America. Or a church Bingo tournament filled with little old ladies. Is he man enough for that?
The middle part of your rant above is off topic, so I won’t bother with a response. On second thought, I’ll ask you for a cite indicating that Americans care more about the President getting a blowjob than starting a war. How did you arrive at such an estimation?
Well, I think Americans would have less of a problem killing Iraqis over Swedes because more Americans have Swedish ancestry.
I think we can’t just reduce it to the commonly-heard trope of “they’re just brown people so our government is OK with killing them.” I mean, we did hit Belgrade with cruise missiles in 1999.
I think the reason why Americans would rather that American soldiers live and Iraqi soldiers die is because the American soldiers are their sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, and friends, not because they’re racist against the Iraqis.
Oaths are worth less than the lives they are taking, and ruining. They aren’t protecting me, or anyone. Following orders isn’t an excuse. And they are NOT doing their best to minimize casualties.
The idea that I have to take responsibility for people who do things I oppose with money I don’t control is your bugaboo, not mine. So is the idea that I have to be fond of or loyal to the country I happen to be living in.
You know, I learned as a child that when people use a phrase like “be a man” or “are you man enough for it”, they are trying to shame me into doing something moronic. That didn’t work on me in the fourth grade, and it doesn’t work on me at 40.
To answer for BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed, Clinton was impeached, Bush wasn’t. Duh.
You do know that the Army and Marines have huge numbers of black, Hispanic and Asian people in Iraq, as well as whites?
Hell I reckon there might even be a few Arabs in our military. And somehow I think their parents would rather that they come home alive instead of being killed in Iraq.
I really am not buying this racist argument at all. Sorry. I think you’re going to need to elaborate it more, as well as give some specific examples. Do you have friends who are in Iraq? I do. Do you have friends who have kids in the military? Do you know anyone who’s lost a son or daughter at war?