QFT.
We were, just a few decades ago. My dad was in the Navy in WWII, in the Pacific, and I remember him telling me as a boy how we treated prisoners of war versus how our enemies did. It was a source of pride for him, and rubbed off on me.
That’s why now I’m pretty intolerant of the torture of prisoners in our possession, and of being dismissive of criticisms of our own troops’ bad behavior. When our troops do something wrong, fix it; don’t dismiss it.
How do you suggest pronouncing this? Eeee-heee? Aaaay-haaay? ay-ya? What’s it mean?
I think that if we had the same level of video from WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam we would find plenty of attacks that we would wonder about in the light of day. I do not buy the hypothesis that we used to engage in clean, orderly, and civil warfare in the past. As soon as we dig a little into the history, we start finding problems in every era.
He came right after what must have been a visible attack from a helicopter. I’m not going to blame the guy for allegedly trying to help out a wounded fellow Iraqi, but if I had been him, I would be trying to get the hell away from the Americans and their gunfire, especially if I had my little kids in the car with me. Shit, depending on how bad the fighting was, I wouldn’t ever leave the house with them.
So you ask for more info and when given you use as confirmation bias. Says more about you and the rest of the American “apoligentsia” than it does about what’s being “debated” here.
Not that it surprises me, thus the “lying scum” label I gave those witnesses beforehand.
Which would be true, regardless. You and I, being sane, would not take such a risk even if we burned with hatred for the Americans and craved nothing in this world more than a chance to do them harm. His inexplicable disregard for those children tells us very little.
I agree, and we’ll never know.
Just as soon not know, to be frank. In my opinion, Abraham’s answer to God should have been “Fuck you! You kill him if you want it so bad!”
I read the cite, it had some interesting interviews, some misunderstood information, and confirmation from a second source that at least two of the men gunned down were armed. Since one of the questions was whether or not they were armed at all, that appeared to settle that particular point.
I will state again - I would happily bring all of our troops home and let the world die on its own without our assistance. I see no payoff in bleeding our nation, and I happily walked away from a potential military career. However, once you send boys to war, bad things will happen. Read Vonnegut’s descriptions of Dresden. Visit Hiroshima. Study the history of every single war and you will find what we call atrocities committed by both sides.
Will we ever know the truth? No - because one side of the story can not be told as they are all dead. We are left with some gun camera film, a few eyewitnesses on the ground, and the testimony of the men in the Apache. That is not a lot to go on, and it all happened in the fog of war.
If you don’t want to see bad things happen in war, then you will have to stop sending our boys to war. I will support you in that.
In this case, an investigation was held and they did not find a need to go further. If you don’t like that, change the US Code of Military Justice. But when you do, be sure to be ready for the unintended consequences of the changes in the rules.
If you change the rules of engagement, you get the nonsense like my father in law not having a gun in Vietnam, because he was a doctor. The guards at his hospital could not chamber a round without going to the brig. My father could not shoot back at NVA anti-aircraft fire when it came from the rooftops of the hospital.
If you are going to war, you go to war. If not, stay home and let the locals die.
Frank, I agree with you on this 100%.
True, but it does gloss over some incidents.
But I think the most important point is that WWII was not just “a few” decades ago, it was *many *decades ago. Vietnam and Grenada were “a few” decades ago, by my lights.
Oh, don’t get me started!
The van didn’t appear until about two minutes after the shooting stopped. He probably didn’t see a damn thing. Take a few turns on some city blocks for a couple minutes and see if the scenery where you end up matches the scenery where you started. You really think that when you’re in the center of a city you can see some people getting shot up a handful of blocks over, or a gunship that’s hovering low on the horizon a mile away? Your vision is obscured by the buildings you’re surrounded by.
The guy turned a corner, saw a guy lying in a pool of his own blood, and stopped to help. Oh, sorry, allegedly help. Maybe he was going to harvest his organs? The helicopter was far enough away that he probably never even saw the machine that killed him.
It was not fighting. it was not a battle. It was a shooting. All the firing was on one side.
Anyone who was willing to risk their lives to save another ,deserves admiration.
Things are about to get even worse.
From the link -
I can see why, after dropping a 2,000lb bomb on them.
No doubt The 7th Apoligentsia Keyboard Brigade will drop in here any second now and set you straight.
Interesting read on this topic at large:
That article is such bullshit, and the fact that its from a website called AntiWar.com…well…yeah.
The one glaring statement the article makes about civilian militias versus a standing army, with the comment that “standing armies are idle during peacetime and just itching to use their [sic] killer training” is absolutely bullshit.
Fuck that noise.
From linked article:
Justice? Yeah, fuck that noise!