# Marine singing a song about killing Iraqi civilians **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 14, 2006, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-singing-a-song-about-killing-iraqi-civilians/360665 "2006-06-14T11:04:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-singing-a-song-about-killing-iraqi-civilians/360665/41 "2006-06-15T21:56:33Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s usually the case that when people say “compare” as Ogre did, they’re asserting an equivalence. I meant no equivalence. That’s just bizarre. “Compare” does not imply equivalence. I never used it in such a manner. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-singing-a-song-about-killing-iraqi-civilians/360665/42 "2006-06-15T22:24:39Z")
[QUOTE=Ogre] I also have no doubt that you think they are two symptoms of the same thing. Thus, you compared them. [/QUOTE] So why the bitching and the rolleyes? Your initial post (no. 29) was quite inconsistent with your second-to-last post, much of which I agree with. I’ll only say, in reference to your saying that “no one was hurt by the song,” that I never claimed the song hurt anyone – not physically, anyway. I only meant that it impairs our ability to climb out of the hole that Abu Ghraib and other incidents put us into, credibility-wise. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-singing-a-song-about-killing-iraqi-civilians/360665/43 "2006-06-15T22:50:51Z")
Because I see no basis for comparison at all. Simple. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-singing-a-song-about-killing-iraqi-civilians/360665/44 "2006-06-15T22:57:19Z")
[QUOTE=NinjaChick] Uh, what? I’ve never heard anything about it being a military theme. I know it’s not a perfect cite, but Wikipedia says the Spanish version was first released in 1993 as (basically) a [pop song.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macarena_%28song%29) With regards to the “Haji Girl”, I think the issue isn’t what effect it’s going to have on the troops over there. If they’re joking about murder, then there is a serious problem. And sure, I understand it’s a rough job and they have to let off steam somehow and all that. But decent human beings don’t make light of soldiers murdering civilians. To me, this is just one more sign that something’s gone really, really wrong with America’s soldiers. [/QUOTE] I disagree. Black comedy is very old and fairly mainstream, as well. Some of the most mainstream shows out in America today cross this line and many others every single night on television. If something is wrong with our soldiers, then it is wrong with this country as well. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-singing-a-song-about-killing-iraqi-civilians/360665/45 "2006-06-15T23:02:06Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] I listened to it, and think the song is disrespectful, but completely understandable. It’s exaggeration for humorous reasons. I don’t like the acts expressed, but it’s only a song. I sing violent songs in public too, in the Irish folk tradition, usually about killing British soldiers, that are sometimes humorous and sometimes not, and nobody objects - unless they don’t like my voice/folk music/both. [/QUOTE] Listen to some of the songs that have been on Family Guy or American Dad. I just don’t think that this type of humor is something that is even “across the line” in mainstream American culture today. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-singing-a-song-about-killing-iraqi-civilians/360665/46 "2006-06-15T23:05:23Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] Hence the objection. You all are like, “This is just what soldiers _do_!”, which is a perfect reminder of why I’m opposed to militarism, and militaristic jaunts like Iraq, in the first place. Try reconciling the Marine’s lyrics – even if they’re joking – with the high-minded reasons we supposedly went to Iraq in the first place. You can’t. Either the Iraqi people are our mortal enemies or they’re the terribly-repressed-but-freedom-and-democracy-loving brothers posited by George Bush. They can’t be both. I know you’ll say that the song is not about the Iraqi people, as indeed it’s not – but what Iraqi is going to be okay with “Dirka dirka Muhammed jihad, shurpa shurpa bakala”? (Quoted from the lyrics on the site linked to above.) The song is massively offensive to the people we’re purporting to save. And we wonder why we’re in such shit there. [/QUOTE] You can be opposed to militarism all you want, but we live in a world in which militaries must exist. That isn’t something you can argue about one way or another, it’s a fact. And since we live in a world where militaries must exist, we have to train soldiers, even if it is just a modern form of militia. And when these men are actually forced into the situation of having to fight for their lives they have absolutely no interest in overall strategy, high minded principles or anything else. Their interest lies in getting through one day, then the next, then the next, until eventually they can go home. A lot of them will find “dark humor” in the form of inappropriate cadences helpful in keeping their mind off that sickening fear that lies in their stomach almost all the time, and will even sometimes make them forget it is even there. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-singing-a-song-about-killing-iraqi-civilians/360665/47 "2006-06-16T00:57:45Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] I know you’ll say that the song is not about the Iraqi people, as indeed it’s not – but what Iraqi is going to be okay with “Dirka dirka Muhammed jihad, shurpa shurpa bakala”? (Quoted from the lyrics on the site linked to above.) The song is massively offensive to the people we’re purporting to save. And we wonder why we’re in such shit there. [/QUOTE] A) It wasn’t written for Iraqis. B) “Dirka Dirka Muhammad Jihad” is a VERBATIM line from “Team America: World Police”, so don’t give the songwriter credit for coming up with that one. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-singing-a-song-about-killing-iraqi-civilians/360665/48 "2006-06-16T13:38:26Z")
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug] There’s something in society that sort of _requires_ a man to shock and disgust those around him every so often – or else we come not to think of him as quite a man. [/QUOTE] Most days, that happens after a trip to Taco Bell. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-singing-a-song-about-killing-iraqi-civilians/360665.md?page=2)