Actually, I “latched onto” him 2 years before he enlisted. We broke up 6 months before he even signed the enlistment papers.
But I do agree with you on your second point- which furthers the point that these guys are just doing what’s expected of them by their fellow Marines, their leaders, and even their friends and families back home.
Doesn’t mean I wasn’t surprised though.
I’m as peaceful as they come, but I have worn my country’s uniform and going for the outrageous in march cadences, humour etc. is very much a soldier’s defence mechanism.
Even in the deepest peace, soldiers have to come to grips with the idea that they’re training to face an enemy that’ll try very hard to kill them with everything, including the nastiest crap imaginable, at his disposal. It’s really a pretty disheartening realisation - but you can’t really start pondering the frailty of human life, especially your own. So one way to come to grips is to bolster up your (self-)image as the roughest, toughest, meanest SOB in an outfit of such badasses that the enemy will forever regret even hearing of you. And one way of doing that is to intentionally challenge the limits for decent behaviour, at least as regards words.
Hell, yeah, we dare speak the unspeakable, because we are BAD. Doesn’t mean that there’s any intention behind the words, except that of demonstrating that you’re scared of absolutely nothing and noone. Which is complete BS, of course, but it helps all the same.
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.
I’m pretty peaceful too, but now I’m flashing back on a favorite running cadence in the army to the tune of Music, Music, Music:
*You’ll go back to the USA
But only if you win today
And all you’d ever better be
Is homicidal crazy
So slap another magazine
In your trusty M-16
And all you’re ever gonna see
Is chewed-up, mangled bodies*
I wasn’t bothered by that, and I’m not bothered by this.
Shooting people with AK’s is their job for Chrissake!
Much goodly said.
–Dinsdale
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.
There are plenty of “terribly-repressed-but-freedom-and-democracy-loving brothers” and “mortal enemies” in Iraq. And guess what, they often live in the same cities, villages, neighborhoods, and streets. And you can’t always tell them apart. And you have to deal with that every-day, every time you go out on patrol. They CAN be both, perhaps you need to adopt a less black/white worldview?
The issue is not my black-and-white worldview, the issue is the black-and-white worldview of some of the people over there. The song would be offensive to basically EVERY Iraqi, of whatever political stripe, but the singer, and his supporters, apparently don’t care. As you say, they “can’t tell them apart,” and have stopped bothering to try. Do you think the Iraqis don’t sense this? Do you suppose they would think of the song as evincing anything but a contempt for the Iraqi people generally, and not just the so-called jihadis?
My gripe here is that the argument about “soldiers just blowing off steam” or “indulging in black humor” basically sidesteps the question of why the soldiers need to blow off steam or indulge in black humor in the first place. It’s a vicious circle they’re caught in, and unfortunately, blowing off steam – whether through songs like this or through the highjinks at Abu Ghraib – only tightens the circle.
You really just directly compared Abu Ghraib with an off-color song that the Marine wasn’t even singing to any Iraqis? What on Earth is wrong with you?
Horse hockey.
We’re not there for any high-minded reasons, we’re there overtly to remove a leader, kill his family and occupy the country. Any lip service paid to reconstruction, or imposition of Democracy is not supported by the fact that the majority of the population there simply wants us out. Now. They know of the resistance/insurgency and they still want us out. There is an ulterior motive for the occupation. The Iraqis know that, our soldiers know that, the world knows that. Regurgitating the “freedomeese” of our shamelessly and openly corrupt government doesn’t change the facts: These guys volunteered to be part of the military arm of the United States. To defend freedom. Not to occupy a sovreign nation at the whim of a draft-dodging moron and get picked off 2-by-2 while their own homeland goes to hell in a handbasket. Our guys have their nuts in a vice–they can’t leave, they want to help, and their help is not wanted. At this point the common thought has to be, “What the hell, sing it again! What are we gonna do, piss off the locals?”
Shit…It’s just a song. The context is known, the motive is known, and the culture whence it comes is known. The simple fact is, this guy’s going to burn while Karl Rove is going to get another job. Tell me which is more insulting to Iraq, the USA and the rest of the world?
The only thing wrong with your post is the word “compared.”
:rolleyes:
Mentioning two things in the same breath does not necessarily equivocate them. If I say “Powerful heads of state-- like Abraham Lincoln and Hitler-- have had an undeniably profound effect on history”, am I saying that the two are the same? No. I’m comparing one teeny facet. It’s just a part of this wacky old tonguespeak we call English.
The only problem is Ogre has stopped speaking English and started speaking smileys.
Well, what word should he have used? “Equated”? His description of your post seemed accurate to me. If you want to refute it or say “hell yea, that’s what I meant”, then do so, don’t go sidestepping the issue.
Well this thing has now made it to prime-time British news. They played the second verse, all the words too. They also identified the soldier, who has apologised, saying it was just a bit of fun.
Ponder Stibbons, I’m not so bad a writer as that. If I felt that the song was the equivalent of Abu Ghraib, I would have said so. But of course I didn’t.
Sorry. I was exaggerating since you took offense to “compare”.
You do seem to be comparing the two. And before you take offense again, I must note that comparing two items does not make them the same. But rather, you seem to be listing them as two “sorts of events” that are inevitably the result of the current situation.
Had you explained yourself to Ogre rather than carp on the word “compared” I’d’ve never blinked an eye and long since forgotten this thread.
I feel no real desire to wake from their unholy slumbers the purists of the word “compare.” It’s usually the case that when people say “compare” as **Ogre **did, they’re asserting an equivalence. I meant no equivalence. Abu Ghraib and this video have some common elements – both show disrespect for the Iraqis and their culture, both passed under the guise of “just kidding,” and both accidentally leaked out into the mediasphere – but there are obvious differences of magnitude and importance. They’re both examples, if you will, along a continuum of behavior and time. Neither helps our cause. But as Inigo points out, this video is only a symptom – and a small one – of a much bigger problem.
Pardon me. I’m finished chewing the bones of my enemies now, so I am free to engage in dialogue. You did not explicitly equate Abu Ghraib and the song. You did compare them, however. The comparison was implicit in the fact that you chose these two incidents to single out how you feel the military’s culture is at odds with their stated mission in Iraq. You, of course, did this on purpose. Please note, however, that comparison does not equal or imply equation. In other words, I have no doubt that you think the two incidents are of drastically different intensity, severity, and scope. I also have no doubt that you think they are two symptoms of the same thing. Thus, you compared them.
But they aren’t symptoms of the same thing. At all. For one, no one was hurt by the song. Second, I would only worry that it would be offensive to Iraqis if it had been sung to Iraqis. Third, one incident was the product of the systematic breakdown and corruption of the military chain of command, resulting in what amounted to a Colonel Kurtz syndrome with the prison guards (hey, nobody’s really supervising us. We’re in an absolutely amoral environment (and we’re kinda bastards anyway,) so let’s do whatever we want.) The other was a dude singing a funny ditty with an acoustic guitar. Big deal.