Should we be better than this
 

Karzai condemns video of urination on corpses - Yahoo! News

I say no. They treat us allot worse and this will just enrage them more.
To be better behaved than your enemy doesn't work, remember the American revolution? How did that turn out for the Brits who behaved better?
They need to fear us if we want them to stop.

sending in kids with bombs tied to them under their clothes
sure didn't win any popularity contests

Leave these guys alone, they are just waterboarding

I hold ourselves to a higher standard than I hold our enemies.

you beat me to the post....WHAT KIND OF MARINES ARE WE TRAINING

that are so silly as to video that and let it get out. keep that between yourselves, what happens in the middle east, stays in the middle east. senseless media bull crap

X's 2.

Aren't we always saying how much better we are than them? If so, let's not stoop to their level.

Absolutely.....

The Best Fighting force in the world....don't let these 3 reflect badly on those who went before and those who will come after.

Yes, we should be better than this.
But if one minute we are bombing, and shooting them - lets be realistic. I'd rather be peed on that shot.
We are asking a lot of our troops, to kill, be away from their families, etc. These marines should be called in, reprimanded and then sent on their way. Nothing more. This should not be a public execution. This is minor, very minor.

senseless media bull crap?
i fired an employee for running their mouth on facebook about a client.

don't want to get into major crap? keep your mouth shut.

Except that these guys got both, dead and pissed on.

We should be better than this. In this day and age you have to realize, videos like that ALWAYS get leaked... the last thing we need is to give the taliban even more incentive to kill American soldiers.

time to get them all home...

[QUOTE=likwid;914079]senseless media bull crap?
i fired an employee for running their mouth on facebook about a client. QUOTE]

This is becomeing a very common thing. People are getting crazy with "sit on my facebook"

[QUOTE=RIROCKHOUND;914082]Except that these guys got both, dead and pissed on.

We should be better than this. In this day and age you have to realize, videos like that ALWAYS get leaked... the last thing we need is to give the taliban even more incentive to kill American soldiers.
QUOTE]

Yeah, when some fat guy in a suit makes a mistake and a drone kills a bunch of pakistani kids we say, oops, sorry. Nothing more comes of it. But some kids FORCED to kill and be away from their families do a stupid thing and it becomes national news. Which gives the taliban more incentive???
It was wrong, I agree. But IMHO its as wrong as kids spray painting grafitti on a school building, nothing more. Reprimand them and let it be. Dont ruin these kids life, what we MADE them do is enough.

I think that's exactly the wrong way to look at it.

If you don't make an effort to maintain ethics in warfare you're no better than they are. It is certainly possible to be an ethical warrior, in fact its critical to provide a moral foundation for your actions.

This doesn't mean in the heat of battle someone might kill out of rage or hatred. Hell, I'm sure at times it's even encouraged. But outside of this there needs to be respect for the fact that the enemy is/was a human being as well. Even OBL was treated with dignity, partially out of PR and also because it was the right thing to do.

What these guys did was send the message that in their eyes the Taliban are sub-human. That's a lot different than vandalism Jimmy.

Yes, stuff like this happens in war. The intensity, adrenaline, testosterone, stress, maturity etc... but they always look at the leadership don't they...

-spence

Should we have our troops string them up w/wire and hang them from bridges? How about drag them behind humvees?

I agree w/Jimmy though in that peeing on someone is a relatively minor offense (esp. considering that some people evidentially like getting peed on).

atrocities buy the barge load
 

they are not worth respecting

do not click this link if your eating

you have been warned

Redirect Notice

I wouldn't ask our soldiers to do anything that I wouldn't do myself.

Edit - so we should have our soldiers behead capture Taliban?

FYI - I can't hear the sound track.

So the stringing up the enemy from bridges w/wire and dragging them behind humvees is ok then?

Agree w/you on the 2nd part.

If you're advocating letting somebody else dictate what your own ethics should be I'm not thinking many will agree with you here.

And in Vietnam they did a lot worse. What's your point?

You can't fight effectively unless you choose sides, on that I'd agree.

But how you fight is up to you.

You seem to be saying that if the Taliban think they're going to get pee'd on they will be intimidated. I think that's silly.

Again, what's the point? Our mission is to help stabilize Afghanistan so they're not a haven for terrorists that might harm US interests.

How does humiliating the same "people" you're trying to help achieve this mission?

-spence

SAD thing is ..... not to jump subjects
these atrocities transferred from the middle east to mexico
namely: hanging people from bridges and lopping off the heads...

i was watching Rob Roy last night
and the noblemen said "hang him from the bridge"
and probably would have left him dangling there

I don't agree with what they did but I can’t put myself in their shoes either. Maybe I would have done the same thing. These kids are probably not even 21. Most likely can't even have a beer in a bar yet.

It was poor judgment on their part but they will probably be punished too harshly given today’s insane media coverage, they will make an example out of them.

Hilary’s comments were “it is absolutely inconsistent with American values” but she may have been talking about that bean job in the oval office........

And her philandering husband set the bar for ethics and is 3rd on the list of best US presidents, maybe they should have just shoved cigars up their arses.

you never cease to amaze me.
OBL was shot in cold blood, unarmed.
"in the heat of battle someone might kill out of rage or hatred" - really? you think they KILL out of sense of duty? Orders?
Im gotta drop from this thread because I have a lot of emotion on military topics but I'll leave you with this to chew on spence. please read carefully - you never seem to much of a history guy so this may be shocking to you, but its 100% true
The 101st airborne has been recognized over and over for their heroics in WWII and especially d-day. They were immortalized further by the Band of Brothers movies and book. I've read additonal books written by some of the guys from Band of B. I attending a forum with these guys and heard their stories in person. It may be news to you but they shot, in cold blood, EVERY SS solider that surrendered to them. Everyone. never took an SS prisoner.. that was a war crime. that was wrong. But you know what, who cares? these guys are heroes and most men could never do what they did. I dont believe they are above the law, but the law changes when you see and do what they do every day. the same goes for those guys in afghanistan. Spence - you wouldnt have the balls to look those guys in the eye and condemn them. They've gone through more hell in a minute than you will in your life. To me, pissing on dead guys is equivalent to vandalism. its no big deal.

I believe that was the mission and something I don't have an issue with. The point was that we didn't parade his head around on a stake afterwords.

I think that's pretty obvious don't you?

This situation is a lot different than in WW2. You could also think that the taking of prisoners in that situation could be a tactical mistake.

Here the action has no real merit, but it's also potentially destructive considering the context.

I've never been quick to condemn the actions of our troops, and frankly believe they deserve a lot of leeway. Most likely these guys are good Marines who just did something stupid, especially by letting themselves be recorded on camera doing it.

An "anything goes" mentality isn't in the interest of our country or our troops.

-spence

I don't know. I'm sure there will be discipline, but also proportionate to the action. While I obviously disagree with Jimmy that it's more serious than vandalism it could have been a lot worse.

-spence

Famous line
"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it."

They shouldn't have recorded it. End of story

Good god you're loosing it.

-spence

I lost it a long time ago, thus I have an open mind and express my opinion freely.

You didn't happen to start the liquid pregame for the pats game today, did you?

I'm also wondering what the 'it' you duz good.....:confused::confused:

I think it's important to understand why this movie quote is so important.

On one hand, it holds what appears to clearly be a fundamental truth and something we'd all ultimately come to agree with.

And on the other, the entire movie is about exposing a weakness to this truth.

Remember, at the end of the film Col. Jessup goes to jail.

-spence

It's a matter of perspective: After you've watched someone's head explode in your scope sight, pissing on their corpse can be perceived as less barbarous.

I like Col Kurtz's line Apocalypse Now, "We train young men to drop fire on people, but we won't let them writ f__k on the side of their planes because it's obscene." War is contradictory and insane.

I'm quite sure they held the values of an honorable warrior at one time. But how long can we reasonably expect those standards to hold? How many tours have these guys done? When's the last time they felt civilized? The picture says that their identity and value system has dissolved to the point where now they perceive themselves simply as killers - accountable only to their brothers-in-arms.

I have to say, I am almost dumbfounded with your comments in this thread, but it makes it very clear how I could be so far apart from you on most of the topics in this forum. Completely different world view and belief of right and wrong, let alone what it means to be an American. If you are under 21 or so, I can chalk it up to age, but otherwise...

Allen West summed it up nicely yesterday....

"The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter."

As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell." Col. Allen West

...............................

sadly, isolated incidents like these are often used to denigrate the military and America and grandstand to score political points by those that I guess "fully understand right and wrong and really know what it means to be an American"?


"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings," #^&#^&#^&#^& Durbin said last week.


"On March 19, 2004, President Bush asked, 'Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be open?'" said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management."



Speaking with host Bob Schieffer about Iraq, Sen. John Kerry said, "There is no reason ... that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the ... of ... the historical customs, religious customs."


Murtha said on ABC's This Week program in May 2006 there was "no doubt" that the Marines were guilty, claiming a cover-up of their war crimes went "up the chain of command."

Among Murtha's unsubstantiated remarks to ABC: “One woman, as I understand it, in talking to officials in the Marine Corps, was kneeling over a child pleading for mercy and they shot her in cold blood. That’s the thing that’s so disturbing. ”


...........................................

it would be nice if we could maintain the perspective that our troops are trying to maintain peace and protect innocents over there every day while the "peed upon" types engage in efforts like this one below every day, I think it is silly to suggest that they will somehow be "more motivated" by an incident like the one in question

BBC News - Iraq suicide bomb kills 50 in Basra pilgrims attack



take the POLL http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...CctP_blog.html

In the wake of the incendiary bombing of Hamburg 40,000 people died in the napalm-fueled firestorm and another 37,000 were injured in one week. There would have been no insurgency had we bombed Iraq similarly.
From a military perspective, the insurgency was enabled by our generosity of restraint. In retrospect, we should have struck like Jehovah and left no doubt as to our supremacy.

Correct, it would have not been an insurgency isolated to Iraq.

More likely it would have erupted into a broader war across the entire middle east.

-spence

I got where you are coming from. I also get that it was war. I don't get the idea that we should do what our enemies do. They do a lot of inhumane crap. I have always felt that we are better than that and should be. I am with McCain on this topic.

I suppose it's because I am feed up with treating them better than they treat us and it gets me angry seeing such a minor (in my eyes) offense causing so much BS both here and now with our enemies. They expect us to be held to a different standard and do what they do like it's just fine. I say give them a taste of their own medicine.

I wish I could be more eloquent but my education didn't go that well when it comes to the proper use of the english language.:o
That is also why, if you haven't noticed under my avatar it says "Limited intellect"

Our we on better terms now:uhuh:

I think the connection between wwii and Iraq is a stretch. The German's were the aggressors with a clear plan for world domination. Such a campaign in Iraq would not have been supported by the American people or the global community because of the lack of clear reasons for the war and the false pretenses presented by the president and his cronies. Demonstrates why it to stupid to make up reasons to go to war.

False pretenses? I know WMD's has the left insinuated was the only reason we went in. It wasn't the only reason we went in, how many resolutions should we have let them violate before taking action, how many of our planes needed to be shot at before we responded?
And they had WMD's because we sold them to Iraq. where did they go? It's a giant litter box over there do you think they might have buried them? They had months to hide/dispose of them before we actually invaded, so they knew we were coming.
Also if you claim finding WMD's was the only reason technically we did:

Wikileaks documents show WMDs found in Iraq Hot Air

Saddam’s WMDhave been found

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=15918

I don't see things through a political affiliation type filter, I don't like either party.

http://www.striped-bass.com/Stripert...me-change.html

Really, yet you get your info from hotair.com? Ever hear of PNAC? The plan for invasion was laid out long before 9/11 and Bush used every excuse he could think of to moved forward with the "cavalry on the new American frontier." Even in the months prior to the war, when one reason didn't stand up, they found a new one.

They did have WMD, but they did not release evidence to the extent to which they had them. I know somebody who was involved personally.