It's fun to shoot people.

The BBQ Pit
61

What the fuck is this about?!!!

Some obscene majority percentage of the American people support this, and several other wars. The American people just reelected the man who started it. Our elected representatives have said next to nothing outside of head bobbing support for it. How is this one soldier’s honest admission less disgusting and horrifying than the political crap that caused, and supports it?

If you didn’t find the war itself disgusting, and insensitive Then shut the fuck up! What the fuck did you think was happening in Iraq? Kids get their limbs blown off their bodies, and women get sliced up by shrapnel while they try to comfort their dying children. People starve to death, and die of disease slowly because of the infrastructure we destroyed. War is death, destruction, mayhem, and we have raised up our bloody hands, each and every one of us and said, “Yes, I like it too! Dead burnt bodies, and veins hanging out of my teeth! I love America! Let’s go kill us some furriners!” We will call it bringing them freedom, and that will make it look better in the papers.

You, personally are more responsible for the deaths of babies, and fleeing refugees than an honest soldier who want to kill his enemies. Why? Because you instantly forgive his leader for lying about why, how, and when the war will be fought. You let your congress pretend that it is not the actual power that decides when war will happen. You pretend that objection to any level of mechanized inhumanity is somehow disloyal to our nation. Well, guess what? You like killing your enemies too, fuckwads! And you lie about it too.

Tris

62

…those that are defending the General’s comments are REALLY missing the point.

People have dedicated their careers to killing people and breaking things? Check. Expect a Marine to be eager for a fight? Check. Marines are trained to be the best-trained military in the world? Okay. The primary focus is to kill, and to love killing? Well, if you insist.

…there were no qualifiers in the General’s statements-there is no difference in what he said, and when an insurgent claims that all US troops are rapists and murderers.

…and unfortunately the General’s comments weren’t just released to posters on this message board-or just to people in the United States-they were released worldwide. If anyone believes that in Afghanistan they yelled out to the people they were shooting and said “are you a Taliban and did you beat your wife?” before enjoying the kill, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Many of those involved in combat against Coalition Troops were drafted-some fought against their will, some fought because they wanted to, some beat their wives, and many probably didn’t. They died just the same.

…because from our perspective-everything the General said can be justified. Rationalised. Because from where we live-what they have to put up with is hell.

But over in Afghanistan, and over in Iraq-there are sons and daughters and cousins and uncles of those that the General “enjoyed” killing. And from their perspective, with flattened houses, next to no electricity, no regular flowing water, arrogant US troops and “security contractors” hogging the road and controlling their lives, those sons and daughters come to a point where they need to make a choice in their lives. And with The US troops and administration taking over the palaces that Sadamm once ruled with fear, tyrany and an iron fist, they have replaced it with hypocrisy, stupidity, and chaos. These sons and daughters have watched their countries assets sold, watched concrete factories sit idle while tonnes of concrete are imported from overseas, they have seen their fellow Iraqi’s shot, then watched as the Americans cheered…

…so when a General makes a statement like the one he did, and the only punishment he gets is a slap on the wrist, then it makes the choice of the sons and daughters only that much easier. Support the Coalition and the newly elected government? Or stand against them-and fight with the insurgency. Hearts and minds are the key to winning the battle in Iraq-it was at the start of the conflict and it is even more important now. The fact that the US keep blowing it, and that people keep excusing it, will only make the conflict last longer, and keep the US death toll keep rising…

63

So who do you blame? The general, or the people who ordered him to go there?

64

Provide a single, credible cite which conclusively links playing Doom, or any other first-person shooter, with an increase in real-life violent tendecies. Then, and only then, will that “quote” be apropos.

Otherwise, you’re full of shit and a ignorant fucking dumbass.

I played Doom, Doom2, and Doom3, among others, and in real-life I’m essentially a pacifist. In fact, I’ve become more of a pacifist in my thinking since I started playing those games. I abhor guns, and I haven’t gotten into a fist fight since middle school: over 20 years ago. The actions of so many in our military make me sick to my stomach, as does the whole “damn fool” Iraq war in general.

Fuck off, indeed.

65

As anyone who has read my posts knows, I’m as against the Iraq war as anyone–perhaps even more than most. But I’m kind of having a hard time getting outraged about this. It was bad PR, sure, but the guy’s a Marine. What do you expect?

Yes, there are people who like to shoot people. Those people should be put on a short leash, taught iron discipline, and controlled by a wise civillian government. In this case, the “wise civilian government” is clearly lacking, but otherwise, the system seems to be working.

Public service announcement: if you really like shooting people, or think you might really like shooting people, join the fucking Army.

66

No, actually the Marines. And you’d better be damn fucking good at it too! :smiley:

(btw, prior army, never killed anyone)

67

…from a grunt, I could have expected these comments. In fact-in fact, I’ve heard them say it, on message boards, and in candid moments on television. But really, this was a Lt General, leading a Marine divison in Iraq. In case you forgot-he said this:

There is no difference from this and the bullshit rhetoric coming out from the insurgents…

Now tell me-your’re a youth in Iraq at the moment-your not being bombarded with the daily propoganda that CNN dishes out, but being bombarded with an entirely different slant of propoganda. A US General comes out and says its fun to kill people-having no manhood and all…whose message do you listen to? Whose message looks right? There is no excuse for a General to say something as generalised, as utterly pathetic, as this. This isn’t a football game-when people die they stay dead. That the other nations with troops in Iraq can get away with not saying stupid stuff, with not gaining the same reputation for arrogance as the US troops, without breaking into cheers everytime they blow something up-says a lot doesn’t it? Does the “he’s a marine, what do you expect?” only apply to US Marines?

68

Pretty much :stuck_out_tongue:

69

Ooops. You slipped up there, Chefguy. You’re now equating military personell to serial killers. Your liberal buddies have to acknowledge that that’s the mainstream left-wing view of soldiers.
Or did you mean something else? (Taking bets on when the backtracking starts.)

70

We don’t often agree on stuff ivylass (or maybe we do and I don’t remember shrug), but I’m lock-step with you on this one.

Anyone here care to defend a man that was allowed to beat the shit out of his wife with government approval? I’d shoot the fucker as well.

71

Form a line. :smiley:

72

You want to kill someone because he might have beaten his wife? You’ll shoot him with no evidence, no judge and no jury? There’s not even an accusation, merely a supposition that because he lives in a country that has different values to your own he must beat his wife. And you’ll just blow his brains out? For what? Fun?

Sick fucker.

73

Former Army guy here. Green pickle suit. Marching. Must … kill … kill … redrum … redrum …

Nope, don’t feel the urge. :rolleyes:

74

no, he’s equating people who say it’s fun to kill people to serial killers.

Oh, and you may want to avoid using such intellectually dishonest tactics as poisoning the well when accusing others of intellectual dishonesty. Makes you look a little like a hyporite. wouldn’t want that.

75

I think his comments are fine. He didn’t simply say he likes killing people. He said he likes killing fucktard bastards who deserve it, which is a wholly different thing. There have definitely been times in my life when, for instance, i’ve seen a man hit a woman and I wanted to walk over and kick the ever loving shit out of him. I suppose that if that man was shooting women it’d be equally appropriate for me to want to shove the gun up his ass and pull the trigger (and feel at least some mediocre satsifcation from having done a good thing).

Aside from that, after you kill one person you are going to experience dissonance, and if you don’t protect your ego in some way you aren’t going to be able to continue killing people. We pay our good marines to be good killers, and a good killer needs a proper killer mindset.

76

And to the OP specifically, you gotta’ read between the lines on this one. The guy wasn’t “rebuked” as stated in the BBC article, which quoted the general a little bit out of context. The full quote was

From my military experience I can tell you that this means he pretty much agreed with the guy’s statement and was doing what he had to do to appease the public. We don’t want any whimps in our marine corps!

77

…please explain, my friend duffer, or anyone else, for that matter, how, in a combat situation, you can tell whether or not the enemy you are shooting is a wife beater? Isn’t it more likely the good Lt General is just making a generalisation, so that saying its “fun to shoot them” can be justified? How does that differ from an insurgent saying its good to kill Americans because they are rapists and torturers? Is that statement not also true, in the context of the Generals remarks?

78

You know from the day you step into the military you are trained to kill. Period. You can put any spin on it you want, but thats what you are trained for. This man has been doing that for years, it is hardly suprising that he views such things as a matter of course, and not taboo.

I am not offended or shocked he said something like that. He is a soldier, thats his job. I dont mind talking about my job, why should he?

79

…ummm, because it doesn’t help the battle for hearts and minds? Because he’s a General, and because what he said could be seen as an official statement to those who heard it? Because those comments could lead to people joining the insurgency? Because the comments were a stupid generalisation-and there is no way of knowing if the people he “enjoyed” killing were wife beaters or not? Because in war, killing is an unfortunate nessicity, something that needs to be done, and anybody who kills for fun is a sick bastard?

80

Shodan: *But if someone is going to lie about what he said, it doesn’t particularly matter what he said. He wasn’t talking about Iraqis, he was talking about the Taliban. […]
If he says, “I always did everything I could to be sure I was shooting only the bad guys” […] *

But he didn’t. Surely you understand my point? The more shocking and hostile-sounding his comments are, the more easily they can be convincingly twisted into anti-American propaganda about American attitudes in Iraq.

If he were saying something righteous and commendable like “I always did everything I could to be sure I was shooting only the bad guys”, of course terrorists could still pretend he said that he wanted to eat Muslim guts. But reasonable people would be much less likely to believe them.

When he says things like “it’s fun to shoot people”, though, he sounds much more like a bad and bloodthirsty person, and he projects an image of the military that’s much easier to smear for propaganda purposes. Which is why it’s stupid for military personnel, when speaking in public and on the record, to say things that sound bad and bloodthirsty. Duh!

Any PR guy with a lick of sense knows that you don’t say things like “When puppies are rabid and about to attack innocent toddlers, then I enjoy stomping on the heads of puppies.” The main clause is what people will remember—and be horrified by—while the modifying clause will be passed over.

You’re supposed to say things like “Stomping on puppies is a deplorable necessity, but we cannot shirk it when it’s required for the safety of the people we’re here to protect.” Anybody who doesn’t understand that, frankly, is too dumb to be a high-ranking officer.

ivylass: He’s talking about shooting abusive men. Where’s NOW when you need them?

In case anybody actually thought this made sense, the National Organization of Women does not in fact advocate the punitive murder of wife-beaters. (At most, NOW condones attacks by women against abusers when they’re in immediate and serious danger from them as justifiable self-defense, or argues for the recognition of “battered women’s syndrome” as a mitigating circumstance in crimes committed by abused women. NOW does not, however, claim that the soldiers of an invading army ought to shoot men whom they have arbitrarily identified as “abusive”.)