I can't close my eyes and make it go away
So the world is getting stoked up by the news that an American soldier has apparently shot dead a seriously wounded and apparently unarmed insurgent in Faluja. The news was reported to a shocked world by an NBC reporter implanted with the unit who had filmed the incident.
Excuse me?
This man is a professional soldier. He has been sent by his government to fight a war in the middle east and he finds himself fighting not against an army, or even against soldiers, but against civilian "insurgents". These people don't play by the rules. They aren't surrendering. They see him as a foreign invader and they are fighting for their homeland. He has been fighting now for several weeks and is probably tired and frustrated. He has just seen one of his colleagues blown apart by a booby trap. This injured and 'apparently' unarmed man is still a threat to him.
What exactly did you expect him to do?
What would you do?
Don't get me wrong; I am opposed to this war. I think we have no right and no justification to be in Iraq. We did not find any WMD; there is no smoking gun; we have no clear objectives and now we are stuck there.
I just think it is hypocritical of people to be appalled about this. Do you know what war is? Do you really think you can apply rules to it? We send troops over there and they may well kill some people. That's it folks.
The real story here is what the hell are we doing assaulting this town in the first place.
---
in other news, I heard the Band Aid single this morning. Yup, it's probably as bad as you feared. Even Bono isn't as good as he was last time.
Excuse me?
This man is a professional soldier. He has been sent by his government to fight a war in the middle east and he finds himself fighting not against an army, or even against soldiers, but against civilian "insurgents". These people don't play by the rules. They aren't surrendering. They see him as a foreign invader and they are fighting for their homeland. He has been fighting now for several weeks and is probably tired and frustrated. He has just seen one of his colleagues blown apart by a booby trap. This injured and 'apparently' unarmed man is still a threat to him.
What exactly did you expect him to do?
What would you do?
Don't get me wrong; I am opposed to this war. I think we have no right and no justification to be in Iraq. We did not find any WMD; there is no smoking gun; we have no clear objectives and now we are stuck there.
I just think it is hypocritical of people to be appalled about this. Do you know what war is? Do you really think you can apply rules to it? We send troops over there and they may well kill some people. That's it folks.
The real story here is what the hell are we doing assaulting this town in the first place.
---
in other news, I heard the Band Aid single this morning. Yup, it's probably as bad as you feared. Even Bono isn't as good as he was last time.
posted by swisslet @ 08:56
4 Comments:
At 11:11 am,
LB said…
it's just like that whole "my little Billy was only 19 and shouldnt have been in Iraq, he only joined the army a year ago" type nonsense.
It's a war. People die. Fact.
Turning to the serious issues, I think you're being harsh on the Band Aid single though. What was Bono supposed to do? He couldn't just sing it exactly as last time so had to do something a bit different, surely? In which case, he did OK. The sensible thing might have been to give it someone else but then again we're arguing about the bloody tune and not just getting on with donating the money.
bee? bonnet?
At 1:25 pm,
Damo said…
What scares me more is what people are probably getting away with when the camera ISN'T rolling.
At 6:59 pm,
swisslet said…
Read this for another slant on this. Although I stand by what I say here, this is a point of view that I also passionately agree with...
http://urbanfox.blogspot.com/2004/11/hearts-and-minds-shot-to-pieces.html
It's not a contradictory position, it's a much more informed, empassioned and compassionate one though.
At 4:43 pm,
John McClure said…
There's a glib notion espoused by many that "nothing good can happen to you at three in the morning." It gets bandied about when someone or other gets stabbed or mugged or raped or killed in the wee small hours of the morning on their way home from somewhere or other.
I have a similar theory about sending camera crews and reporters out with roving marine patrols - what possible good can come from it?
When you're fighting an enemy that has shown a willingness to use perfectly healthy young men as suicide bombers, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the marine in question might have been a little bit on edge about a half-dead insurgent who started moving all of a sudden.
"Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibly than you can possibly fathom."
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