Crittersmaster
Posts: 26
Joined: 4/3/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: NastyDaddy
Just think... the more excitement you create in your foxhole, the more reporters you will have in it with you and not as many trips across town, eh?
No thanks. I don't need any more excitement than I already get.
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From your foxhole perspective, have you observed any women or children being shot to bump up a body count, or to say they killed each other with their own bomb?
No. In this war, body count is a bad thing. Lesson learned from Vietnam I believe. Good thing this war is captured insurgents.quote:
In your foxhole, have there been any AK47's placed on any umarmed corpses (with your bullets in the corpse)?
Again no, the insurgent weapon of choice is the IED. No need in having an AK47 on you when a cell phone is all you need. But we rarely find who set off the bomb. I lost two men last month on Mother's Day to an IED of just that type. I guess I could have gone on a rampage and done something like that, but I have morals, and so do my comrades.quote:
The conditions of Gulf War II are very similar to Gulf War I in which I and others have experience, but with the protraction of GWII the conditions there changed for the worse after defeating an organized army for the second time, in a relatively short order.
And in that I totally agree. I have been in the Army for 21 years and remember those days, as well as the Regan, Clinton, and Bush I non-war years. The Generals that were in charge at the start of this war and have ground war experience as platoon leaders in Vietnam and again as BN and BDE commanders in GWI were ignored by a civilian with limited experience of 4 years as an Aviator that assumed all Generals were arrogant and out of touch and did not know how ground warfare was best fought. A man that wanted troop reductions in 2001 to pay for star wars. A man that tried to turn GWII into a commercial for a lighter, more lethal force without understanding that even with all the technology in the world, it still takes a man with a rifle to gain and hold ground. Reducing the men with the rifles only makes warfare harder, not easier. And the fact is he still blaims his detractors that actually speak out by saying they had their chance and didn't convince me they were right (translate: "I am smarter than them and argued my way was better even if it was wrong and they were right, it isn't my fault I am smarter than they are")quote:
The current mayhem of a police state has rebellion presented on all sides, and fervored hatred from several. It's not only ambiguos insurgencies and their tactics the media covers, it's now also the actions of coalition troops, especially since the reocurrances of unlawful behavior such as Abu Gahrib mistreatments, executions of unarmed Iraqi's during patrols, and repeated accusations of civilian massacres at the hands of US soldiers and marines, video footage of Apache helicopter gunship exploding farmers, and it just keeps mushrooming...
Actuallly from my viewpoint this is all in how something is shown.
Insurgents - there are many different colors and brands of insurgents all with their own agenda. The media likes to lump them into piles and make teams wanting this that or the other. They try to simplfy some things here to the level of a football game and who is the coach, and who is the defence, and who is the offense. So by asking about these insurgents, which ones are you talking about? Some are ambiguous and some are very unambiguous in what they want or try to do. Or is there a chance that you only speak of what you know based on lazy media reporting and have no clue what my question even means?
Actions of coalition troops? Do you mean to say we are all thugs shooting civilians? I think many of your statements imply this. If you really think this is happening, I pity you for how you must feel to live in a country that breeds thugs and murderers, puts them in uniforms, and unleashes them on a totally innocent population. But the truth is that there are low life's in the military that make everyone else look bad. These people are dealt with as they are discovered. The rest of us hate that they do these things because they make the job that much harder for the rest of us. And there are people that get caught in the situation. People that would never do such a thing but are on a breaking point because of stress and poor leadership at some level. These people may spend the rest of their lives paying for something that would never have happened exept for chance was against them one morning. How many people sitting in their living room reading this know exactly how they would react seeing a friend blow to pieces or hearing them scream as they die in a burning vehicle? Live it once then make the call.
Abu Garieb mistreatment in particular. What does the average Iraqi really think about that? Have you asked one. I have, they think it is silly we are worried about that. They suffer a lot worse at the hands of each other. BUT they are politically aware - they know we hate that it happened and they use it regularly to get what they want from us. We actually spend enormous effort trying to stop that sort of thing over here. How often have you heard about that out of the media? I work on an Iraqi camp, not a US camp. We have an Iraqi detainment facility and have been spending lots of time, money, and effort to get them out of the dark ages when it comes to prisoner treatment. No media here seeing what progress is being made, just looking for the bad, the aberrations that make the headlines. No one gets a pulitzer prize for showing how things get better or are going good. No you have to find the bad story, the one that makes it look like the reporter is the little guy exposing the big evil truth.
I actually feel for some reporters I have met because if they did spend time reporting what is really going on, it would take lots of time to follow and research to put a good story together, and then it would most likely get burried under the death and mayhem of the front page reported by the lazy guy that has to put in almost no effort.
Helicopters blowing up farms? Taken out of context it is abhorrent, taken in context it is not pleasant, but it is war. When a terrorist fights from any building, that building becomes a target - and that is by the Geneva convention. And by the Hague agreement anything we have in our arsenal is fair game on that target whether it be a Hellfire or a .50cal M2. The same goes for hospitals, mosques, outhouses, schools, apartment buildings, etc. Soldiers don't go out wanting to kill women and children, but it does happen. And while people sitting behind a keyboard can armchair quarterback them from the safety of 7,000 miles with the moral high-ground of a church deacon, the poor private that has to see the mangled bodies he causes get to live with the nightmares every day for the rest of his life. I honestly am sickened by some of the smug attitudes that some have when they are certain everything they hear bad about what soldiers do is the exact truth - the implication is they belive that the soldiers are heartless killers and the person making that judgment has patted himself on the back about how better morally he is by condemning on the Internet rather than actually going out where these problems exists and putting their GREAT judgment on the line where it really counts.
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There is a general concensus among other vets that this administration does not know what the hell it is doing, does what it does for hidden agendas and big business profit. This affect seems to be going all the way down to your and other's foxhole level.
And I agree with that too. I think the administration has been getting a free ride on the total cost to the taxpayer and the over use of contractors. One of the hidden benefits for a smaller military is big contracts to companies like Black Water and KBR when the war kicks off and there are not enough people in uniform in the right jobs to cover all the bases needed in a conflict. There are people in the administration that have had, have now, or will have again in the future - financial stakes in the companies that are getting bid free title 10 contracts. Title 10 means the government gets the service without any haggling and then gets a bill. So you could charge $13 million for a contract of PSD for one month, pay the guys doing the work $6 million total, and pocket the other $7 million. There are other problems with construction contracts where a contractor gets $10 million to do a job, hires a sub contractor for $4 or $5 million and then keeps the rest for doing nothing. If the contract only takes $4 million to do, then that is how much should be paid for it.
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The word atrocity should only describe 'them'... not 'us', after all we are educated infidels are we not?
Except in my case, the us gets holding the short end of the stick while everyone back home has no clue what exactly they are fussing over.
< Message edited by Crittersmaster -- 6/13/2006 3:11:47 AM >
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The beatings will continue until morale improves
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RE: al-Zarqaqi killed in Iraq - 
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