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Old 03-12-2012, 11:23 AM   #1
Despanan
 
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(VERSUS) ...Afganistan

What. The. Fuck.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/11/world/...html?hpt=hp_t1

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Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An American soldier went on a house-to-house shooting spree in two villages in southern Afghanistan early Sunday, Afghan officials said, killing 16 people in what Afghanistan's president called an "unforgivable" crime.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said the soldier acted alone and turned himself in after opening fire on civilians. U.S. President Barack Obama called the killings "tragic and shocking," and offered his condolences to the Afghan people in a phone call to his counterpart in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, the White House said.

But the attack is likely to further more anger at international forces following deadly riots over the burning of Qurans by U.S. troops.

"The Afghan people can withstand a lot of pain," Prince Ali Seraj, the head of the National Coalition for Dialogue with the Tribes of Afghanistan, told CNN. "They can withstand collateral damage. They can withstand night raids. But murder is something that they totally abhor, and when that happens, they really want justice."

In a statement issued by his office, Karzai said the killings took place in the district of Panjwai, about 25 km (15 miles) southwest of Kandahar, southern Afghanistan's major city. Haji Agha Lali, a member of the provincial council, told CNN the soldier had attacked four houses in two nearby villages.

"We call this an intentional act," Karzai said. He said the dead included four men, three women and nine children, calling the killings "acts of terror and unforgivable." Another five people were wounded, he said.

Capt. Justin Brockhoff, an ISAF spokesman, said the wounded Afghans were being treated in ISAF facilities. The allied command did not give its own estimate of casualties.

Brockhoff said officials do not yet have a motive for the shooting, which is under investigation by both NATO and Afghan officials. And Maj. Jason Waggoner, another ISAF spokesman, said the soldier "was acting on his own."

There were no military operations in the area, either on the ground or in the air, at the time, according to two senior ISAF officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. They said only one soldier, an Army staff sergeant, is believed to have been involved.

A U.S. military official told CNN later Sunday that the suspect is from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. The official said the soldier is assigned to a Special Forces unit.

A third ISAF official said Afghan troops spotted the soldier leaving his combat outpost around 3 a.m. Sunday and notified their American counterparts. The U.S. military did an immediate headcount, found the soldier was missing and dispatched a patrol to go look for him, the official said.

The officials said they have no knowledge at this point whether he had any previous medical or mental health issues in his record.

The patrol met him as he returned and took him into custody. He said nothing, and it was unclear whether they knew what had happened, the official said.

"We don't know what motivated this individual, and we're not sure where this is going to take us," Capt. John Kirby, an ISAF spokesman, told CNN. But he said ISAF's commander, Gen. John Allen, "has made it clear this investigation is going to be thorough. It's going to be done rapidly, in an expeditious way, and we're going to hold the perpetrator of these attacks to account."

The news brought a wave of condemnations from top American officials. In a statement issued by the White House, Obama said the U.S. military will "get the facts as quickly as possible and to hold accountable anyone responsible."

White House response to shooting spree

"I am deeply saddened by the reported killing and wounding of Afghan civilians. I offer my condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and to the people of Afghanistan, who have endured too much violence and suffering," Obama said. "This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan."

In a separate statement, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he was "shocked and saddened" by the attack and said the suspect was "clearly acting outside his chain of command." Allen called the killings "deeply appalling," and acting U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham said his country was "saddened by this violent act against our Afghan friends."

"We deplore any attack by a member of the U.S. Armed Forces against innocent civilians," he said in a video statement, assuring "the people of Afghanistan that the individual or individuals responsible for this terrible act will be identified and brought to justice."

But Seraj, a member of Afghanistan's former royal family, said the killings are likely to play into the hands of the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist movement that has battled the U.S.-led coalition for a decade.

"They are really going to milk this for all it's worth," Seraj said, adding, "This is playing right into their program of psychological warfare against the Afghan people."

The Taliban has already said that the deaths were the result of a night raid by several soldiers and put the death toll at 50, but it regularly exaggerates casualty figures.

Seraj called for a joint U.S.-Afghan investigation into the killings, saying Afghans will want to see "quick and decisive justice."

"We cannot whitewash this and get this young man out of Afghanistan and send him back to the United States. That is the worst thing we can do at this time," he said. And he questioned how the soldier left his post in the pre-dawn hours, adding, "I know the Kandahar base. A fly cannot get in without being searched."

Kandahar and the surrounding region is the home of the Taliban, and eight of the 69 coalition troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year died in the province. But Kirby said the area has been "a big success story" for the allied campaign, and he said Allen has made clear that the coalition strategy won't be affected by Sunday's killings.

"As tragic as this incident is, it would be a larger tragedy to affect the mission at large and what we're trying to do for the country," he said.

"We're going to continue to be out there among the populace," he added. "We're going to continue to try to beat back this insurgency."

Taliban link attack to Quran burning

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001, following al Qaeda's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people. The invasion quickly toppled the Taliban, which ruled most of Afghanistan and had allowed al Qaeda to operate from its territory. But the militia soon regrouped and launched an insurgent campaign against the allied forces and a new government led by Karzai.

The No. 1 U.S. target in the conflict, al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, was killed in a commando raid in neighboring Pakistan in May 2011. American and allied combat troops are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by 2014, and Karzai has been increasingly critical of the allied force.

Tensions ramped up dramatically in February, after a group of U.S. soldiers burned copies of the Quran, Islam's holy book, that had been seized from inmates at the American-run prison at Bagram Air Base. American officials from Obama down called the burning an accident and apologized for it, but riots left dozens dead, including six American troops. Hundreds more Afghans were wounded.

The war has cost the lives of nearly 1,900 Americans and just under 1,000 more allied troops to date.
What's going on over there? Any information on this asshole?
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Old 03-12-2012, 06:02 PM   #2
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Dude. What makes you think Versus would know? There's a shit load of commands out there.
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Old 03-12-2012, 06:57 PM   #3
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Offchance.
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Old 03-13-2012, 12:54 AM   #4
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That's the first I've heard of it. You have to remember that I don't typically pay attention to the news because it stresses me out.

Something else that kind of bothered me, though:

Quote:
"The Afghan people can withstand a lot of pain," Prince Ali Seraj, the head of the National Coalition for Dialogue with the Tribes of Afghanistan, told CNN. "They can withstand collateral damage. They can withstand night raids. But murder is something that they totally abhor, and when that happens, they really want justice."

In a statement issued by his office, Karzai said the killings took place in the district of Panjwai, about 25 km (15 miles) southwest of Kandahar, southern Afghanistan's major city. Haji Agha Lali, a member of the provincial council, told CNN the soldier had attacked four houses in two nearby villages.

"We call this an intentional act," Karzai said. He said the dead included four men, three women and nine children, calling the killings "acts of terror and unforgivable." Another five people were wounded, he said.
It's interesting that the actions of an asshole with a gun in a foreign country is international, but when an Afghan National Army soldier on patrol with us last December decided to be an asshole and randomly gun down 4 guys in my platoon, requiring one to have his leg amputated and lung removed because it collapsed, it doesn't even make the news.

Very interesting. I wonder why that is?
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Old 03-13-2012, 02:25 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by Versus View Post
That's the first I've heard of it. You have to remember that I don't typically pay attention to the news because it stresses me out.

Something else that kind of bothered me, though:



It's interesting that the actions of an asshole with a gun in a foreign country is international, but when an Afghan National Army soldier on patrol with us last December decided to be an asshole and randomly gun down 4 guys in my platoon, requiring one to have his leg amputated and lung removed because it collapsed, it doesn't even make the news.

Very interesting. I wonder why that is?
Shit Versus. One of the ANA soldiers shot and killed unarmed Aussie men at our base a few months ago (can't remember when) and it was breaking news, stop the presses kind of stuff. The Chief of the Defence and the Minister for Defence held a press conference, and then later, the funerals of those men were shown on the nightly news.

Those men's sacrifice deserves to be honoured not dismissed.

It's a tragedy that the people were killed, that families lost their loved ones, but it's also a tragedy that the soldier concerned got to that point in his life where he snapped and did what he did. I also feel for his family as they try to pick up the pieces.
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Old 03-13-2012, 10:03 AM   #6
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Shit Versus. One of the ANA soldiers shot and killed unarmed Aussie men at our base a few months ago (can't remember when) and it was breaking news, stop the presses kind of stuff. The Chief of the Defence and the Minister for Defence held a press conference, and then later, the funerals of those men were shown on the nightly news.
I guess it's just the American press that doesn't care, then. It happens a lot, actually. 6 months prior, two captains were killed and the guy who drove my truck in Iraq had minor injuries. Now that I think about it, that's how one of my drill sergeants died in Iraq. But I mean, those are just the people I know. It happened at least 60 times in Afghanistan from 2007 to the end of 2011, according to ABC.
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Old 03-13-2012, 10:23 AM   #7
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Part of it is definitely what the media wants out of it. Now that everyone is sick of Afghanistan and wants out, you don't hear so much about how utterly and pathetically grateful they are and how women are throwing their burqas off and getting CEO careers and more about how we're accomplishing nothing and how problematic the whole thing is. I think there's more to it than "look at how brutal we are to an innocent people," its more of a "we probably have no business going in there in the first place, and now look what's happening."

Also, its probably a lot easier now to report this kind of thing than it used to be when the media was more hawkish, and being embedded in the army was the safest way to report. I didn't hear much about the Haditha killings until the soldiers involved were acquitted.
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Old 03-13-2012, 02:18 PM   #8
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That's the first I've heard of it. You have to remember that I don't typically pay attention to the news because it stresses me out.

Something else that kind of bothered me, though:



It's interesting that the actions of an asshole with a gun in a foreign country is international, but when an Afghan National Army soldier on patrol with us last December decided to be an asshole and randomly gun down 4 guys in my platoon, requiring one to have his leg amputated and lung removed because it collapsed, it doesn't even make the news.

Very interesting. I wonder why that is?
I don't know, but this gentlemen has a theory.
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Old 03-13-2012, 02:45 PM   #9
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Part of it is definitely what the media wants out of it. Now that everyone is sick of Afghanistan and wants out, you don't hear so much about how utterly and pathetically grateful they are and how women are throwing their burqas off and getting CEO careers and more about how we're accomplishing nothing and how problematic the whole thing is. I think there's more to it than "look at how brutal we are to an innocent people," its more of a "we probably have no business going in there in the first place, and now look what's happening."

Also, its probably a lot easier now to report this kind of thing than it used to be when the media was more hawkish, and being embedded in the army was the safest way to report. I didn't hear much about the Haditha killings until the soldiers involved were acquitted.
I think the earlier idea is more probable of an explanation, considering that the things I mentioned happened within the last year.
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Old 03-13-2012, 07:35 PM   #10
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I think we also have pretty colonialist attitudes towards the Afghanis. We invaded out of paternalistic sympathy for the poor oppressed Muslim savages, after all, who couldn't save themselves. We don't hold them up to the same morals we hold ourselves to, because they are lesser than. Taliban or ANA attacks are what we expect of them, so its not really news. When soldiers fail to live up to our ideal of the saviours of the world and ambassadors of democracy, of course we're shocked.

People have poor memory when it comes to war. When we do badly in a war, we want to forget. Look at Vietnam, deaths of civilians was ordered by the army and the GIs were very reluctant and eventually revolted, but no one remembers that, we just think Vietnam GIs went crazy and massacred and enjoyed it. No one talks about the war crimes the Allies committed in WWII. We have this desire to believe every time we were in war, we were justified, we were heroes, and we conquered an evil enemy. No one can handle the fact that in prolonged battle, people cannot act rationally. Psychologically, we can't handle modern warfare, so things like this happen despite the best of intentions.
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Old 03-14-2012, 04:08 AM   #11
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I guess it's just the American press that doesn't care, then. It happens a lot, actually. 6 months prior, two captains were killed and the guy who drove my truck in Iraq had minor injuries. Now that I think about it, that's how one of my drill sergeants died in Iraq. But I mean, those are just the people I know. It happened at least 60 times in Afghanistan from 2007 to the end of 2011, according to ABC.
Our mainstream media barely covers these events. It's only the ABC that does a great job. And in Australia if you watch the ABC then you can't stand the BS they put on the mainstream channels.


Saya, I think it's as simple as saying the guy snapped. people don't need to be in prolonged situations to snap.

The guy probably saw one to many shitty horrible things happen and lost it, disconnected and went on autopilot and I bet afterwards, he couldn't come up with a good reason for it either.

It's not that easy, once you have snapped to get back to your old self, because somewhere in the mix you lost your old self.

This poor bastard is going to have to reinvent himself, because he's never going to be the same man again and to know that there is another person out there, who has to do this, breaks my fucking heart.
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Old 03-14-2012, 12:08 PM   #12
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No, the problem is bigger than just one guy snapping. Atrocities happen in war and all sides commit them. But we intentionally forget it or dismiss it because we badly want to believe that our invasion is inherently benevolent.
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Old 03-14-2012, 01:43 PM   #13
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So I'm reading Collateral Damage, and the whole book is based on interviews with veterans on how the invasion of Iraq affected civilian Iraqis, and at first they just talk generally about how with insurgency you see the enemy everywhere and you devalue human life, that is for anyone who isn't yourself or your comrades. Different country, I'm well aware, but the same army that's involved, here are some of the orders they received about convoys

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They arrive conditioned to place the safety of the convoy above civilian life, even that of children. Instructors tell troops never to stop the convoy and to run over anyone who gets in the way.
Spc. Fernando Braga, a slight, soft-spoken National Guardsman from the Bronx, trained at Fort Dix in Jew Jersey before he went to Iraq in the spring of 2004. During his training a lieutenant asked hundreds of troops what they would do if an Iraqi child stepped in front of their convoy. "People had a billion different answers," Braga remembered. "But the answer he gave us was, 'Run him over.'"
"He said the reason was that we shouldn't hestiate because of the way they would treat their children," Braga said. "'They don't value human life like we do and they don't share our same Western values.'"
Sgt. Geoffrey Millard was given the same directive by another lieutenant during a briefing in Kuwait. "he talked about, you know, 'If these fucking haji kids are in the middle of the road when your convoy's coming through, you run them over,'" he said, "The military theory behind it is you don't put American lives in danger by stopping a whole convoy for one kid. You run the kid over."
Massachusetts National Guardsman Andrew Sapp was also told to run over anyone who stepped in front of his convoy when he trained at Fort Drum in New York. His unit was replacing one that had returned from Iraq with lessons in hand on how to fight the ever-changing insurgency. "One of the tactics they tried at the time was to send kids out in the road, figuring Americans would stop for the kids. And after the convoys were attacked a number of times, they realized what was going on and they were instructed not to stop." he said. "So we were kind of primed for that. It never happened to us, but, yeah, we were told under no circumstances do you stop."
To occupy a country that doesn't want you there, where the insurgency hides among civilians, and you're specifically instructed not to place value on the lives of civilians if it comes down to it, that's a recipe for atrocity.

Also: The thing about Iraqis not valuing human life like we do? That's a bit from General Westmoreland who said the exact same thing about the Vietnamese and why killing them was justified, "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner...We value life and human dignity. They don't care about life and human dignity." History is doomed to repeat itself if we don't remember our mistakes.
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Old 03-14-2012, 02:24 PM   #14
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Stand by. Long rant coming.
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Old 03-14-2012, 08:29 PM   #15
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I can't get too worked up about the convoy thing. Don't stand in front of big fucking machinery. It's not like these things have cloaking devices... Get the fuck out of the road. If the convoys start deviating from their course, swerving specifically to rack up kills like some kind of fucked up Death Race 2000 bullshit then that might be a different story.

I am sorry to hear about versus' platoon mates. That is a terrible thing to have happened. I hope the guy who turned on them is in the ground.

It isn't the same thing as a bunch of civilians getting gunned down for whatever reason. Both are awful. Neither should happen.
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Old 03-14-2012, 09:04 PM   #16
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The purpose of any military is to win wars, and thousands of years of warfare has shaped military strategy and doctrine. Part of that strategy is to objectively weigh circumstances and to prioritize actions and end-states that contribute to the outcomes that are greater enablers for that singular purpose. To deviate from that mindset is to compromise that purpose. The safety of soldiers cannot be prioritized over the accomplishment of their mission, for example. It's not to say that it's appropriate to send soldiers on suicide missions, but the logic behind that isn't because it's a waste of human life, but because it's a waste of resources and assets in relation to it's potetial success. The success of a mission is not only deteined by it's success, but it's level of success: Resources gained/expended, time taken, end-state posture/readiness, and so on. Even considering that, that's not to say that suicide missions are out of the question, either. Suicide bombers and Kamikaze pilots have met great success under their circumstances.

Knowing this, it's completely sound to say that troops are prioritized over civilians. The troops are more important to the purpose. Crushing civilians that are in the way because Haj is using children to stop convoys in the kill zone of an ambush is fucked up, but what are we supposed to do? Let it happen? It's confusing enough when leadership tells you "the security of your unit comes first, but do everything you can to win these people over," but when you start to compromise that objective thinking with personal feelings and force soldiers to fight with their hands tied behind their backs, it gets them killed. If your mission is to delivery supplies, you can't effectively do that if you expose yourself to enemy contact. The most objective and logical reasoning is that it's inevitable that they will stop doing it because it stopped working. It makes sense because even insurgents are are following towards the same purpose and will accordingly adjust their tactics. There is literally nothing that can change that. Believe me, we don't want to run over kids. But we do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnAnp...e_gdata_player

I've indirectly spoken about my personal experience with dehumanizing civilians.

It makes sense for it to develop naturally, even amongst soldiers in leadership and command positions. In COIN operations and asymmetric warfare without front lines and a uniformed enemy, you have to look at everyone like they're a potential threat. To do otherwise is to create an atmosphere of complacency and a lapse in security. Even today, I have a habit of looking for indicators in other cars or people on the street. It's just something you do. Then you have the guys who have to cope with hurting human beings. The very nature of it conflicts with what we understand about ourselves and it forces us to find ways to rationalize our actions. It makes sense that troops who are constantly alert to the point of paranoia for months at a time to start to believe other people are something less then human because it justifies what would otherwise be an unjustifiable thing.

Between those two facets, it is absolutely unfair to judge soldiers who arvideo ducts of war. You can't say "What were you expecting to happen? Their commanders are evil." I understand that you didn't say that, Saya, but I felt like you implied it. The only people to point fingers at are politicians who don't comprehend everything they're doing. The bottom line is that until everybody who says "Yes, we should mobilize the military" understand exactly what that means, and exactly everything that entails, society will continue to victim blame and I'll continue to throw a fit every time it happens.

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I am sorry to hear about versus' platoon mates. That is a terrible thing to have happened. I hope the guy who turned on them is in the ground.
There's nothing left to bury.

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It isn't the same thing as a bunch of civilians getting gunned down for whatever reason. Both are awful. Neither should happen.
It is the exact same thing.
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Old 03-14-2012, 09:13 PM   #17
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Damn auto-correct. Means to say "soldiers who are products of war,"
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Old 03-14-2012, 09:20 PM   #18
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No, my point wasn't that the commanders themselves are evil (except some individuals Westmoreland, he was a really creepy man), my point was that when you're in that kind of situation where the enemy is everyone and invisible until its too late, terrible things are going to happen and there's no way you can be expected to win over hearts and minds when your job demands the dehumanization of the occupied. By necessity there's a culture of fear and paranoia, and of course that's going to drive some over the edge.

I agree with you that if you want the military to do a job, you have to understand what the military has to do to do that job, and that is never done because no one wants to remember what happens during war. And the book is very clear that its not evil commanders, this is what happens in war.
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Old 03-14-2012, 09:39 PM   #19
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Old 03-15-2012, 04:46 PM   #20
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So I'm reading Collateral Damage, and the whole book is based on interviews with veterans on how the invasion of Iraq affected civilian Iraqis, and at first they just talk generally about how with insurgency you see the enemy everywhere and you devalue human life, that is for anyone who isn't yourself or your comrades. Different country, I'm well aware, but the same army that's involved, here are some of the orders they received about convoys



To occupy a country that doesn't want you there, where the insurgency hides among civilians, and you're specifically instructed not to place value on the lives of civilians if it comes down to it, that's a recipe for atrocity.

Also: The thing about Iraqis not valuing human life like we do? That's a bit from General Westmoreland who said the exact same thing about the Vietnamese and why killing them was justified, "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner...We value life and human dignity. They don't care about life and human dignity." History is doomed to repeat itself if we don't remember our mistakes.

History shows us that humans have an awesome track record of going into other countries and trying to bend them to the occupying forces way of life.

the poor soldiers end up having to run over kids because that's what they are told they must do, because if the soldier stops to play by the rules of common decency, there could be someone out there who isn't, who told the kid to run in front of the truck, to stop it, and then they will blow up the convoy.

And so at the end of the day, it's the driver of the truck who has to carry around that trauma for the rest of his days.

And no one is going to change it, because we are all too busy running around looking for an enemy to take down, even those not in the armed forces - think corporate world, school playgrounds etc.

It happens everywhere, and until we all stand up and say "You know what? This is enough. I'm through with hating people, I'm going to just be kind instead."

Then we aren't going to change and things are going to stay the same.
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Old 03-15-2012, 05:15 PM   #21
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What are you talking about?
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Had me creepin' 'round corners, homie sleepin' in my vest.


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Old 03-15-2012, 05:51 PM   #22
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I'm talking about the cost of war on people's mental health.
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Old 03-15-2012, 06:46 PM   #23
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It isn't just that nobody wants to think of the grim realities of what loosing the arrow means. In a lot of cases the awful realities are deliberately hidden from the public. People who try to pierce that veil end up getting super fucked.

The public can handle the idea that bad shit happens. We tend to get upset when it comes to our attention that we have been bullshat.

Is it a common thing for people to wander on and off base whenever they feel like it? I have this idea involving fences and gates, can someone hook me up with sweet sweet PMC dollars?
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Old 03-15-2012, 09:05 PM   #24
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I don't think so. When we look at the Vietnam War, plenty of veterans were willing to testify to the genocide and war crimes they witnessed, such as with the Winter Soldier Investigation. It was the first televised war, and it was impossible to escape coverage. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans held their own Winter Soldier Investigation as well, plenty of people are trying to get that message out, and there was an outpour of information of HOW THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA beginning with Afghanistan but especially with the Iraq War.

Part of it is the government and politicians, yes. They don't want the people to know, but I don't think they maliciously realize that soldiers might be running over kids, the way they talk soldiers were there with flowers and a smile on their face for all of God's children, while heroically battling the evil terrorists, and bringing democracy to a people who would greet them as liberators. At the end of the Iraq War and now with the Afghanistan occupation winding down, and the economy wrecked, now its a lot harder to ignore that they were wrong and living in Lala-land. They're megalomaniacs who believe in the sanctity of American military that can do no harm, except for a few rogue soldiers.

Also, if you haven't read it, Regarding The Pain Of Others by Susan Sontag makes a good point that even if you get the horrors of war out there, people can rationalize it away. Ever see the picture of the naked Vietnamese girl running down the road, covered in napalm? When Nixon saw the photo, immediately he said it must be fake. No one wants to believe that we can be the bad guys sometimes, and we sent people to do some really terrible things because our generation had no working memory of Vietnam, and those who remembered chose to remember it differently than it had happened. It's taken thirty years for America to justify a decade long war again. I think Iraq is generally written off by most people as a mistake, But in ten, twenty, thirty years, will we remember it correctly? Or will we just remember what we see in movies that will be made since?

So will we remember this time, or will we forget it and do this all over again?
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Old 03-15-2012, 09:20 PM   #25
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Also, looks like Karzai wants Americans to now be limited to their bases, and the Taliban has called off peace talks:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/wo...ransition.html
Quote:
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai insisted Thursday that the United States confine its troops to major bases in Afghanistan by next year as the Taliban announced that they were suspending peace talks with the Americans, both of which served to complicate the Obama administration’s plans for an orderly exit from the country.
Mr. Karzai’s abrupt planning shift was at odds with a pledge offered just hours earlier by President Obama to stick to a 2014 withdrawal schedule for troops in Afghanistan. It also ran up against the Pentagon’s stark assessment that Afghan security forces were not yet ready to take over control of the country.

Mr. Karzai’s surprise announcement, which would confine American troops to their bases a year earlier than Mr. Obama proposed, was initially made at a Thursday meeting with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who spent a fraught two days here apologizing in person to the Afghan president for the massacre of civilians by an American soldier last Sunday at a village in Kandahar Province. Upon Mr. Panetta’s arrival, an Afghan interpreter working for coalition forces crashed a stolen pickup truck near his plane.

Further fraying the United States’ efforts to preserve some degree of control over its exit strategy from Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents announced Thursday that they had broken off preliminary peace talks with the Americans. While the move may have been coincidental, it imperiled another crucial element of the American exit strategy in Afghanistan — brokering peace talks between insurgents and the government.

“International forces should leave the villages and move to their bases,” Mr. Karzai said, according to an account of the meeting released by his office. He also insisted that “both sides should work on a plan to complete the security transition process by 2013 instead of 2014.”

Both Afghan and American officials scrambled to put the best possible face on yet another rift between the two allies, coming at what both hope will be a final stage in negotiations between their diplomats on a long-term strategic partnership, and at a time when some White House officials have been advocating an accelerated withdrawal.

Some pointed out that Mr. Karzai was merely reacting to public anger over the massacre and the move to send the staff sergeant accused of opening fire on civilians out of Afghanistan on Wednesday. They also noted that under the timetable agreed to at a NATO summit in Lisbon in 2010, the transition of responsibility for security from the Americans and NATO partners to Afghan forces already called for foreign forces to adopt a more supportive role by 2013, although they would actively be engaged in combat until 2014, as needed.

“I don’t see how this changes the plan,” said an American official in Afghanistan, speaking on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic guidelines.

During a stop later on Thursday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Mr. Panetta’s press secretary, George Little, quoted his boss as having told Mr. Karzai, “We’re on the same page here.”

“This is not moving the goal posts,” Ashraf Ghani, a presidential adviser in charge of the transition from NATO to Afghan control, said in an interview. “Everybody will be happy if it can be pushed up assuming conditions are right.”

Mr. Karzai insisted that he was asking for an accelerated transfer of authority for Afghan security from the foreign forces to the Afghans. “Even right now the Afghan security forces are ready to take all security responsibilities,” he said.

His chief of staff, Abdul Karim Khurram, who was at the meeting with Mr. Panetta, said later that it was clearly a matter of asking for a one year acceleration of the transfer of authority. “This was a demand that all security transition would be started in this year and completed in 2013 instead of 2014,” he said.

But Mr. Khurram, believed to be the official closest to the president, added that it was a request that the Americans would have to study. “The Americans will make all the determinations,” he said. “It’s a professional task, and we should prepare the ground for it.”

American defense officials acknowledged there was a major divide between Mr. Karzai’s demand and American goals of training and advising Afghan security forces as well as conducting counterinsurgency operations, which require close working relationships with Afghans in the rural areas where most of them live.

Asked whether those activities could continue with American troops confined to bases, a senior American defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity replied, “It’s not clear that we would be able to.”

Although about half of Afghan territory has formally been transferred from international to Afghan authority, in most of those areas American and other coalition troops continue to operate outside of large bases, and it is unclear how soon they could be removed when Afghan forces still are largely unprepared to operate on their own. According to NATO figures last year, only one of the Afghan National Army’s 158 battalions has been rated as able to fight independently, according to figures compiled by the Brookings Institution; that was up from zero the year earlier. And a Pentagon report to Congress last October said that at least 70 percent of Afghan Army units still needed American assistance in the field as of last September.

“I don’t think they are ready, and I don’t think it would be feasible,” said Stephen Biddle, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has studied the Afghan military. “Presidents of countries are not always military experts, and in particular presidents of host countries in a counterinsurgency where the foreign forces are not particularly popular.”

The Taliban statement, issued in English and Pashto on an insurgent Web site, said talks with an American representative had commenced over the release of some Taliban members from the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but accused the American representative of changing the preconditions for the talks.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban reached by cellphone at an undisclosed location, said the statement suspending the talks was genuine but declined to discuss it further.

“We remain prepared to continue discussions,” said Gavin A. Sundwall, a spokesman for the American Embassy in Kabul. He said the American position had consistently been that the Taliban had to first “make clear statements distancing itself from international terrorism and in support of a political process among all Afghans to end the conflict.”

American officials said in recent weeks that there had been no talks of any substance since January, when Marc Grossman, the United States special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and his team last visited the region.

The main obstacle appeared to be executing the first set of confidence-building measures: a prisoner swap that would transfer five senior Taliban leaders held at Guantánamo to house arrest in Qatar in exchange for a Westerner being held by the insurgents.

During their meeting on Thursday, Mr. Panetta and Mr. Karzai discussed the massacre and Mr. Panetta assured Mr. Karzai of a full investigation. He told reporters after the meeting that Mr. Karzai had not brought up the transfer of the American suspect to Kuwait.
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