Are American troops undisciplined thugs dressed as soldiers?

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Nothing excuses American bombing of Iraq on weekly bases for the past 13 years. Way more than 3 000 innocent Iraqi's died in those 13 years - way way more than 3 000, but noone is moarning those people, some even are supporting this war, which not only do i find appaling but extreamly sickening.

Never said that was any more acceptable then 9/11.

Although I don't think they belong in the same ballpark. The attack on the trade centers was done with the SOLE PURPOSE of killing innocent people, and nothing more then innocent people. It was their intent to kill as many innocent people as possible because they happened to live in this country that they hate. The bombings you are reffering to were not dropped with the intent to murder innocent Iraqi's. The deaths of the innocent Iraqi people were accidental at least.

Of course, the deaths of these people should be mourned on the same level as the deaths as 9/11, however. And neither one is acceptable.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
And noone is saying you are supporting a war - but you also cannot support the savage acts of violence committed by some soldiers in American army either - you couldnt possibly.

but you cant generalise like that lil b.

i do NOT support savage acts, i do NOT support mass bombings.
but there are men and women...kids to be more accurate, and they are fighting on the ground. not like these nintendo pilots who kill the majority of civilians. i refuse to hate the lot of them...how does this mean that i support the actions of every one of them? it doesnt.

Originally posted by PVS
but you cant generalise like that lil b.

i do NOT support savage acts, i do NOT support mass bombings.
but there are men and women...kids to be more accurate, and they are fighting on the ground. not like these nintendo pilots who kill the majority of civilians. i refuse to hate the lot of them...how does this mean that i support the actions of every one of them? it doesnt.

I thought i wasnt generalising - i clearly said ''some American soldiers''

then i misread...sorry

but i clearly stated way before that i am strongly against the mistreatment and brutality commited by a minority of troops.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Mr Z, I am formaly warning you to stop argument with PVS (who you keep calling PVL for unknown reason) complitely and absolutely or face banning for 3 days.

Ok boss lady.

VPL: Visible panty line.

Originally posted by Lord Shadow Z
Well I think they are. If you seen what happened recently an American soldier gunned down an injured and unarmed Iraqi in front of his colleagues. Not any of them showed any remorse about it, no effort to stop or reprimand the soldier. Then you have the damning prison photos where the Americans humiliated the Iraqi POWs in a series of incidents which I need not describe. Then you have the frighteningly overzealous attitude towards this war, where you have audio on news reports of events where the Americans are whooping in delight at blowing up the Iraqis and generally acting as if they are having a good time.
They are uncivilised trigger-happy morons who aren't mentally fit to hold weapons, I saw one one of them kiss his gun - how much does that tell you that he's enjoying it too much.

No.

Originally posted by Mr Zero
Ok boss lady.

VPL: Visible panty line.

wow...it must have been so hard to wait over 5 pages to crack out that gem 🙄

anyway, lil b. i understand your point of view i believe.

the actions of the current american (and british) administration are planting the seeds of antiamerican hatred in the middle east, much like in the conflict between the soviets and afghanistan, where the reagan administration promised to help the afgans rebuild their infrastructure once they had successfully driven the soviets out. rather than keep their word, they backed out and left a massive power vaccume which would eventually be filled by the taliban, who would easily gain support due to hard feelings over the american government not keeping it's word.

it's quite possible that there will be no clear end to the iraq war and its also quite possible that the administration will not keep its word on the 'freedom' it has promised, and all the promises it will inevitably make to the people as this war continues. if those promises are broken, and the same carelessness is practiced by the u.s. government, its quite possible that america will face another attack like 9-11.

the fact is though, that 9-11 was a result of the policy of the reagan administration, and the way in which conducted itself in POSTwar afghanistan. up till that point, they loved us. so, the actions of soldiers had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the 9-11 attacks. its all politics...as usual.

now, this case may prove different. the media is exponentially more influential in the middle east as in america. if one video clip could turn the whole of south central L.A. into a burning madhouse, think of what can happen over there?

the fact remains though, that the actions of one troop cannot be tagged on the whole of the armed forces, just as the acts of a few terrorists should not have been tagged on the whole of afghani people (yeah, we dropped food to them and sent them dollar bills, but we also bombed the living shit out of them) this philosophy must work both ways.

and as far as mr. zero, he could have simply presented his case and realised that 9-11, along with ANY mass killing, is not something to be used as a tool to spice up your arguement. you should not twist a tragedy around and throw it at someone just to say "IN YOUR FACE".
for gods sake have respect for the murdered innocents EVERYWHERE.

Originally posted by Mr Zero
Ok boss lady.

VPL: Visible panty line.

holy christ! All of your post suddenly just became beyond funny...

OMFG, that is freaking hilarious! Im gonna go back and read all Z's posts now!

Originally posted by Mr Zero
if VPL gets his thong in a bunch

Originally posted by Mr Zero
and even tho VPL seems incapable of comprehending it

damn...funny.

Originally posted by Mr Zero
Arachnoidfreak - still waiting for you to answer my question.. What a shocker.

What? Did you miss my post by accident or something? Because I made it pretty clear on page 10 or 11:

Originally posted by Arachnoidfreak
Lack of training doesn't make a soldier any less of a soldier, and THAT'S the enemy. The soldiers are the opposing hostile forces. Iraqi civilians that aren't hostile aren't the enemy. The second a civilian whips out a gun and starts firing at our troops, he isn't a civilian anymore, he's an enemy soldier and a target, and should be neutralized immediately. The planes flying into a skyscraper was NOT WAR, which is what I'm addressing.

The rules as defined by me? You won't catch me making any rules to war, there shouldn't be any rules other than the common sense "don't kill non-hostile civilains"...

...And all of you arguing against me make it sound as if I condone the ****ing war in the first place, which I don't. I do condone that in war "the end justifies the means". When the objective is to kill every hostile opponent, there is no room for morals. The war never should have started, but it did anyway, and now the objective is not to look back and say "Oh this war is unnecessary and an atrocity. These troops shouldn't be doing these things. We should be acting better than that", but to say "What can we do to win?"

If a soldier shouts out "If you make any sudden moves we will shoot to kill" and the civilian reaches for something, whether it be nothing or something, they have the right to shoot because they gave him/her fair warning. If he/she's just standing there and they cap them, it's wrong.

War is never good and it's never right but in some situations, very sadly, it's necessary. I think is what Arachnoid Freak is trying to say about war in general. However this "war" is not.

-AC

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
War is never good and it's never right but in some situations, very sadly, it's necessary. I think is what Arachnoid Freak is trying to say about war in general. However this "war" is not.

-AC

Thank you AC, that is very close to what I'm trying to say, with the minor exception that I don't think this war is necessary. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and I don't see why we're even in there.

Also, I read a few pages back that someone said that "America has been bombing Iraq for the last 13 years, and noone is mourning for the civilians lost in those bombing" or something to that extent. I'd like to adress that.

Do you live here? Do you know exactly what our media presents us with? I was 4 when the bombing of Iraq started, by your information, and couldn't have known anything then. I did not become even mildly interested in politics until about 2 years ago, at which point, nothing was being said -in our media- that we've been bombing Iraq for 13 years. The most I've heard about the Clinton administration was that he got some head in the Oval Office, and I didn't even bother with the first Bush administration. The problem with alot of Americans here is that they don't care. They won't investigate more than what they hear. That being said, also know that our media is VERY biased. The difference can be seen here in New York, Pick up the New York Post and the New York Times and compare them, and you'll realize that they're so different that you don't really know which is true. One is extremely conservative(The Post) and one is extremely liberal(The Times). I don't agree with either of them most of the time. The hardest position to defend is the one I'm in, in between the two. Noone wants to agree, because they believe that soley their view is correct, and if you agree with them on one aspect of their opinion, you must agree with them on every other. Utter nonsense.

I find that the most efficient source of information is political comedy. That may sound stupid, but in reality, it is not if you are intelligent. Someone who is able to weed out the sarcasm and jokes from the actual facts will learn ALOT. Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, and George Carlin are all great sources of factual information, AND logical opinions. The most critical ingredient to successful satire is logic, because the government today is so ridiculously absurd.

Was I ranting? My apologies.

Everyone take a moment and read this article from Newsweek:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6524206/site/newsweek/

I most generally avoid these threads, but peeked into this one out of curiosity about something I heard in the wind. And after I've finished reading 24 pages of ranting and raving I am reminded why is it I don't frequent these threads.

What the hell is wrong with you people? Surely you are not all so shortsighted that you can not see that every single army in the world, and I do mean EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has personnel that are serving on them that are guilty of these kinds of atrocities.

I personally am tired of being blamed for what some of my lesser intelligent countrymen are doing in another country. You guys ALL need to stop this. I belong to 6 other forum boards and I have to tell you that ONLY on KMC do I see people from other countries including the US verbally assaulting each other on a daily basis over the state of world affairs.

Truth be told we are ALL to blame for the state the world is in, and any of you that want to sit there and claim innocence, had better be sitting in a country that has never in its history went to war with ANYONE.

There is no BLACK & WHITE answer to these topics. Life isn't lived that way, there are varying shades of grey to every argument and opinion and this most certainly includes world politics. I really wish that some of you would get down from your high horses and soap boxes. nono

P.S. For those of you complaining about inhumane American soldiers, for every one of them are several thousand good and decent people who just want to get this over with and go home to their families.

All hail the Priestess...

"Thank you AC, that is very close to what I'm trying to say, with the minor exception that I don't think this war is necessary. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and I don't see why we're even in there."

Yeah I know, the "However it is not" was aimed at you comment also. Saying you believe this "war" isn't.

-AC

Originally posted by Jedi Priestess
[b]P.S. For those of you complaining about inhumane American soldiers, for every one of them are several thousand good and decent people who just want to get this over with and go home to their families. [/B]

✅ 👆

But Europeans on this site rarely point the finger at the Bush

Now if you gonna spit on someone dont spit on those who are in a hostile environment where death is just a heartbeat away. Spit on those who ordered them into that situation, leave the boys and girls in uniforms alone.

i think that there are more people over sea's who aint from america or iraq that think that american troops are just as bad as the people responsible for 9/11. this is prob because they didn't have to live with what happened in september and they just don't get or feel what happened as mcuh as thoughs american who lost their lives. i don't agree with the american's shooting down the iraq soldiars for no reason, im totaly against that and that kind of killing but i thnk that its the american people who are still hurt, from their families lost and their children that they just want to make that country pay and get hurt just like they did.

but it was wrong, soooo wrong what the americans did to the solidars with the sexual things and taped it etc. i can't believe that anyone could do that.

Its a tough question, and while I believe quite strongly that their are soldiers in the U.S Armed Forces, and all armies for that matter, that are criminal in both action and thought, I don't think it is right to preemptively judge every soldier for it. I am reminded of satirists who say soldiers are "to dumb to be police, to violent to be security guards, thus join the army." Maybe its true, maybe not. Certainly it hurts the image of the US army when it is shown recruiting the poor and those with no other prospects (shown in many docos, most recently Fahrenheit 9/11) Likewise the image is damaged when they are seen doing something clearly criminal. I have relatives who have served, and like to think I have some insight, and I think it is wrong in any case for a soldier to kill a clearly unarmed and injured enemy. There are rules and laws which say it is not permitted, and which an army is measured by. And can we even be sure this was an enemy fighter? What if it was a civilian? And this is not a subject limited to just Iraq. Crimes in Afghanistan? Vietnam? The only way to limit it would be to a. take more command of relatively free form soldiers and to b. support legal actions against soldiers who commit crimes in war. This includes making it possible for your soldiers to be held to account in the UN law courts.